Posted on 12/30/2023 11:35:05 PM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
College bowl games are already meaningless. Its playoffs or bust for everybody. Honestly, I think an 8 team playoff would have been better. I've seen years like this year in which 6 or 7 teams had a good argument. I've never seen a year in which team #9 had a good argument. But knowing bowls are meaningless, they opted for more post season games that actually mean something so they adopted a 12 team playoff starting next season.
Ironically that 12 team playoff could have started this season but fsu's own conference the ACC voted against it.
Why "should" Georgia be in? They lost the SEC Championship game which was a play in to get to the playoffs. The same thing happened to undefeated Bama when they lost the SEC Championship game to UF in 1994 and again in 08. The same thing happened to undefeated, ranked #1 all year and defending national champ UF when they lost the SECC game to Bama in 09.
It sucks when you're really good and lose that game. Not only do you get no shot to win the national title, you don't even win your conference. I know. It happened to us (UF). Welcome to the club UGA. You damn well better win that game.
Rush’s analysis.....
The Florida Seminole outcasts from many southern tribes were destined to be chewed up by the vicious Bull dawgs from the Georgia
The FSU fans who say it doesn’t matter are just blowing hot air. If I ran an NFL team I wouldn’t draft an opt-out quitter. Let someone else lose with them on their roster.
The playoff committee is charged with selecting the four best teams. Without their QB fsu was clearly not one of the 4 best teams. Their best win was over #11 LSU. Their strength of schedule was far far weaker than that of Texas or Alabama. Selecting fsu for the playoff would have effectively just meant giving Michigan a free pass in round 1. The Michigan players’ reaction when the news was announced that their opponent would be Bama instead of fsu was very telling. There was a collective groan from the players. They knew who the weaker opponent was.
It was brutal. I watched as much as a could stomach. Michigan vs Julliard was less lopsided.
You could make the playoff like the 16 team playoffs the other divisions of college football use as you've suggest above, but I am not OK with giving conference champs an automatic invite. In no way, shape or form are G5 conferences the equal of the SEC or B1G. For that matter, the Big 12 and ACC are nowhere close either. It would be absurd to treat them as equals when they are clearly not equal. That would be rewarding teams for taking an easier path into the playoff....rewarding weaker scheduling.
Look what happened when TCU and fsu played UGA the last two years. (Yes fsu was missing a lot of starters but they'd have been baby seal clubbed even with those starters). Those games were not even competitive. SEC opponents pushed UGA much harder than those teams did. If you're gonna go with a 16 team playoff then a selection committee is the way I would go.
If a couple teams want to argue about who should be #16, the rest of us will just laugh at them. They'll get slaughtered in a playoff anyway. Even in years when there are an unusually large number of top teams, its never more than 6 or 7 at most.
D1 football is the only sport college or professional that doesn’t have a playoff system that people play their way into and have to win to advance regardless of their record.
FCS football in the NCAA has a playoff and their eventual champion plays 15 or 16 games, even in high school football they have a similar system.
The current system tries to play it both ways, have a quasi playoff and maintain the bowl system which last night showed it’s not working, incorporate the bowls into the playoffs, win to advance, just like every other sprot.
I would make the conference championship games a part of the playoffs,
16 teams saves a lot of bowls that would otherwise bleed out in the next few years as fans increasingly lose interest. 16 would also shut a lot of the whiners up. Boise and BYU and ucf and others like that would get their chance to play for it all. But you know as well as I in every year there is a select group of usually 3-7 teams that stand head and shoulders above the rest. There will be a lot of absolute drubbings in the first round of the playoffs every year as the wheat gets separated from the chaff.
March Madness does this, big conferences get more teams in because of their size and competition level, but everyone starts out the season with a chance to make the playoffs and win a championship, regardless of record.
4-16 team conferences equal 64 teams, which is plenty in determining the best team in college football for that year.
If you are not one of the 64 teams, play at a lower level for that has a playoff system.
March Madness is the same way, but there has been ONE 16-seed beat a #1 seed and a bunch of #2 seeds losing to #15 seeds, upsets happen, with the portal the talent level could become more equal, but you’re right, 3-7 teams will be the overwhelming favorites, that’s not different than other sports.
Big business………in watching OSU/Missouri game, we noticed there would be 3-4 minutes of play and 6-7 noisy, ridiculous commercials. It was consistent throughout the game.
Guess the payout to the colleges will go down ,, it’s not like the players were getting a cut , juts risking getting hurt and never paid out . The players who had nothing to loose and still came to play are the real winners of that game , the media won’t take that away from them ,, good work Boys!
I said over a decade ago this was coming - Superconferences, then Secession.
the first one has happened at least wrt the B1G and SEC. There could have been a 3rd. I kept screaming that the PAC needed to do whatever it took to get Bevo, the Sooners and whatever 2 travel partners they wanted to bring along (almost certainly Okie State and Texas Tech). Then the PAC would have had two big anchors in California and Texas. They would have had enough eyeballs, enough top shelf recruits in their footprint and enough premier programs to stand toe to toe with any other conference. Instead they fiddled while Rome burned and Bevo and the Sooners got away from an already eviscerated Big 12. Then their "partner" the B1G shivved them by taking Southern Cal and UCLA. At that point everybody started scrambling for the life boats.
The ACC would be in the exact same situation.....ie ready to be burned, raped and pillaged by the B1G and SEC but for the Grant of Rights. If fsu gets out of that lightly its Katie Bar the Door for that conference. There will be a mad dash for the exits for the desirable programs sitting on desirable real estate like UNC and UVA.
So the reality is instead of 3 strong conferences and one tag along weak sister, we have 2 Behemoths which are head and shoulders above everybody else. Those two conferences aren't going to agree to break themselves up.
I agree with you broadly that Division I has become too big and too bloated. Interestingly, the same thing happened in the 70s before the NCAA went to divisions. Originally there were about 65-70 Division I programs. Over the years the small frye kept jumping up a division to try to get access to the bowls, the TV money, etc etc that the big boys had. So now you have the absurdity of Akron and Arkansas State being in the same division as Texas. Laughable. They aren't the same animal at all and no single set of rules is going to be able to adequately govern them. We need to get back down from 132 teams to about 64 teams.
the problem is how to do that. The 4 remaining "major" conferences have different numbers of members and how can you possibly count the Big 12 which has ZERO traditional powers while the SEC now has EIGHT of the seventeen elite national programs?
The B1G and SEC are going to have to sit down and hammer out a deal. They can then force everybody else to go along. Or alternatively, we could just wait and eventually the ACC is going to get picked apart by those two and there really will be ONLY two conferences that have all the strong programs, all the recruits, all the media markets and eyeballs, all the money, etc. The ACC GOR runs out in 2036. Tick Tick Tick.........
They’re 64 teams that want to play D1 football, a few will never be serious contenders, that’s true of most major sports including the NFL.
Those teams not in the 64 could still compete for a championship and properly marketed could get a small TV contract given all the channels and the need for programming.
If the HBCUs were smart they would all get together and sell themselves to get a small TV contract, FAMU vs Bethune Cookman would have appeal in Florida and live TV programming versus the 48th rerun of a TV show from the 80s would be appealing to some network.
I can't blame the players one bit for not wanting risk injury and putting a multi million dollar contract at risk. If I was a pro GM I'd have no problem wit this and if I was a college coach I will pull the kid aside and encourage him not to play. I'd be doing teh kid a favor.
However, if it's a playoff game then it's the exact opposite. If I'm a pro GM and I see a kid opting out of a chance to be a champion, then I want him nowhere near my team. College footall will expand its playoffs next year. If anyone opts out of those games, they don't belong in the NFL
8 games in the playoffs is sufficient.
“ they joined the team and should have been there to the end
Why? College football is a business.”
It’s about character.
I know I’m in the minority, but I would like to do away with the playoffs altogether, especially using bowl games as playoffs. Let’s bring back the bowl system, with each bowl having its own traditions and decorum. The sportswriters and computer geeks can then quibble over who wins the National Championship.
Eliminate the 4-year limit on player eligibility, drop the requirement that players have to be enrolled in a degree program, and allow former NFL players to sign with college teams. Drop the illusion that college football is amateur sports, since the money is much more important than any other consideration.
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