Because the thing fans love about college football, is the very same thing that keeps it from progressing.
"Tradition".
Jermaine Burton, starting WR at Georgia
- Thread starter grinagrin
- Start date
"Tradition".
Disagree. There is absolutely nothing that says you need to have X amount of wins/losses to play for a CFP. Making them matter to 'an extent' (in that your wins are important until you have two losses - then you suck) compromises the spirit of the game. It's why people are losing interest in college football. Recruiting is already disrupting the playing field - why let arbitrary assessments and eye tests add to it?
It may be objective, but it can also be skewed. Winning the ACC is not nearly as difficult as winning the SEC. We would have had Pitt in the playoff instead of Georgia this year. Sorry, but that would be a huge mistake. Most people want to see the best teams in the playoff - not teams that won weak conferences.
Disagree. I have no interest in watching a 3/4 loss conference champ get slaughtered when there is a 0/1 loss competitive team that can at least provide an interesting game match up.
Would you say the divisions in the AFC/NFC are equal and balanced? Or can Green Bay chalk up two wins a year against Detroit?
Well, we agree to disagree then. No point going further with this since to date, I haven't been able to change the CFP from my home.
You me, and 20 guys on this board could chalk up two wins against Detroit every year.
You can compare NFL and college football when college institutes a draft.
Edit - and a salary cap.
And a salary cap. Ba dump bump!
But, the point is nothing is ever perfectly balanced. The relative strength of a conference shouldn't matter; it's subjective anyway. Sure the ACC is terrible, but Clemson still won a National Championship. The concept of 'any given Saturday' IMO is much more interesting than overanalyzing eye test metrics.
While it is easy to criticize Pitt, it is not really fair to exclude them from a playoff after it won the ACC title. Had the name "Clemson" replaced the name "Pitt" with the identical season results, few would have clamored to keep the ACC champ out. Ranking conferences seems common sense, but it also reeks of the same biases that kept Penn State out of title shots in the past.
As someone stated above, the most sensible system is to adopt what other sports in the NCAA use: win your conference, you're in the playoffs.
There are 10 conferences in FBS:
ACC, SEC, BIG TEN, PAC-12, BIG XII, CUSA, AAC, SUN BELT, MAC, MT. WEST. The independents need to join a league if they want to make the playoffs.
One possibility is to take the champ of the Power 5 + the champs of 3 the other 5 based opt criteria that might include past bowl performance, success versus Power 5 teams, or factors that folks much smarter than I can determine to eliminate 2 conference champs.
Or perhaps add a 6th league to make a Power 6 and then have the other 4 champs meet in a "play in" game to get to the 8.
Midnighter has made a strong case, IMO, for only conference champs in a playoff. What good did it do Penn State to win the Big Ten only to be excluded? What did Alabama gain by beating GA for the SEC title the 1st time, only to have to play a rematch in a playoff?
The argument that "the best 4 teams" should be in the playoff is a weak one. Opinions of telecasters or writers or fans are irrelevant. Otherwise, whichever of the 4 Big Dogs (Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson) returns the most starters every year can just be crowned by the media as NC. Heck. most media and fans cannot determine who the best QB or RB is much less which team is the best in the country.
I think allowing Cincinnati in this year was terrific. Sure, they got dominated by Alabama, but then how many Power 5 champs have been trounced by other champs (such as Michigan, Michigan State, and the Almighty Buckeyes). Cincy beat Notre Dame, a frequent playoff contender and consistent loser in playoff games. Yet next year, the Irish will once again be talked about as "deserving" an invite if their record is 11-1 or 10-2.
Not fair. If ND wants in, then it must join a conference and win its title first. Just as Cincinnati did.
Now what if - likely when -- the Power 5/6 trounce the champs of the other 3/4? Same thing that has happened when the Big Ten, Big XII, or PACX-12 champ has been trounced. Fans say "Told you so" and the playoff moves smoothly to Round 2. But no more can teams not even win their division and still make the playoffs, more rested and healthier than the poor suckers who had to slug through a league title game,.
As someone stated above, the most sensible system is to adopt what other sports in the NCAA use: win your conference, you're in the playoffs.
There are 10 conferences in FBS:
ACC, SEC, BIG TEN, PAC-12, BIG XII, CUSA, AAC, SUN BELT, MAC, MT. WEST. The independents need to join a league if they want to make the playoffs.
One possibility is to take the champ of the Power 5 + the champs of 3 the other 5 based opt criteria that might include past bowl performance, success versus Power 5 teams, or factors that folks much smarter than I can determine to eliminate 2 conference champs.
Or perhaps add a 6th league to make a Power 6 and then have the other 4 champs meet in a "play in" game to get to the 8.
Midnighter has made a strong case, IMO, for only conference champs in a playoff. What good did it do Penn State to win the Big Ten only to be excluded? What did Alabama gain by beating GA for the SEC title the 1st time, only to have to play a rematch in a playoff?
The argument that "the best 4 teams" should be in the playoff is a weak one. Opinions of telecasters or writers or fans are irrelevant. Otherwise, whichever of the 4 Big Dogs (Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State, Clemson) returns the most starters every year can just be crowned by the media as NC. Heck. most media and fans cannot determine who the best QB or RB is much less which team is the best in the country.
I think allowing Cincinnati in this year was terrific. Sure, they got dominated by Alabama, but then how many Power 5 champs have been trounced by other champs (such as Michigan, Michigan State, and the Almighty Buckeyes). Cincy beat Notre Dame, a frequent playoff contender and consistent loser in playoff games. Yet next year, the Irish will once again be talked about as "deserving" an invite if their record is 11-1 or 10-2.
Not fair. If ND wants in, then it must join a conference and win its title first. Just as Cincinnati did.
Now what if - likely when -- the Power 5/6 trounce the champs of the other 3/4? Same thing that has happened when the Big Ten, Big XII, or PACX-12 champ has been trounced. Fans say "Told you so" and the playoff moves smoothly to Round 2. But no more can teams not even win their division and still make the playoffs, more rested and healthier than the poor suckers who had to slug through a league title game,.
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There is no chance Clemson would have made the playoff this year with 2 losses and one was to W Mich.
Define progress. And progress for whom? Furthermore, what is the net impact of said progress on the schools and integrity of the game?
Way to deep of a question for me....I need to go look at a Midnighter poll!
Can you call him a front runner when he leaves the championship team for the team he beat for the championship?
No….but you know what I am pointing out. whats the next best team? It’s sad…part of the issues we have in CFB today.
The NFL is a conglomerate, a bunch of teams that makes up one huge entity. In the NFL the idea of parity works because the owners went along with idea of a salary cap. The college model is more about conferences, revenue, TV deals and putting 70K fans in a stadium on a Saturday afternoon. There’s no way you are going to convince the University of Texas who averages 200 million per year to share or cap revenue. There’s only one way to fix this and a good start is to stop calling it college football, because today, college football has very little to do with college. If colleges owned the team and treated it like a semi-pro team it could work. Have a salary cap on how much you can pay players, reduce the roster from 80 to 55, very similar to the NFL. Cap the number of D1A schools to 100. Have Local, Regional and National HS combines. These kids will be drafted similar to the NFL draft. I know it’s a heavy lift but it can work.
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I am having a hard time believing you are not already....