Barnhart raised an interesting scenario yesterday:
… If we had a four-team playoff using the final BCS standings then the teams would have been Oklahoma (12-1), Florida (12-1), Texas (11-1), and Alabama (12-1). No. 5 Southern Cal (11-1), who has been playing lights out lately and could be the best team in the country, would have been left out. I believe, however, that if there were four teams in the championship instead of just two, then the voting would have been different in the final polls. The Alabama fans won’t like this, but if we had a four-team playoff I think the voters would have put Southern Cal, the Pac-10 champion, into the No. 4 spot. The voters would have rationalized that Alabama had their shot in the SEC championship game and rewarded USC. Now how big of an argument would that have created?
Regardless of whether he’s right about that last part, there’s no doubt that a four team “plus one” format this year would have resulted in a big stink over the fifth team on the outside looking in. Add in complaints about Texas Tech (that no-more-than-two-teams-from-one-conference rule is so antiquated, doncha know) and undefeated Utah being left out, how it’s unfair to Alabama that it had to play in (and lose) a conference championship game when Southern Cal and Penn State didn’t (and what about one-loss Penn State, anyway?) and so on and so forth… well, you get the picture.
Voilà, it’s eight-team playoff time! At least.
Face it – nobody will ever be completely satisfied, no matter what. Every year, there’s a fact pattern that means some school gets screwed; there’s always a need for somebody to manufacture outrage about it, too. (My favorite BCS/playoff meme right now is the “sure, Oklahoma and Florida is a great matchup, but…” one.)
This isn’t a screed against a playoff. Just against those people who think that a four-team tourney will settle things.
Get The Picture 
In the last line of his rant, Wetzel asserts the BCS has produced mismatched teams three of the last four years.
The data from championship games at various levels of play does not support this far-fetched hypothesis. The obvious rebuttal from football fans could have been that the Buffalo Bills lost four consecutive Super Bowls by an average margin of 16.5 points (even with a one point loss included in the four game sample), or that the Denver Broncos lost three Super Bowls in a span of four years by an average margin of 32 points. These blowouts occurred under a playoff format.
Five out of 10 BCS Championship Games, or 50%, have been decided by 14 points or more. Using the same criteria of 14 points or more for margin of victory, the same percentages exist for the Super Bowl (21 of 42 games) and Division II NCAA Championship Games (17 of 34 official games).
48.6% of Division III championship games have produced this margin of victory.
45.5% of NFL Championship Games (the predecessor of the Super) produced this margin of victory.
Changing the criteria to an increased margin of victory “17 or more points” produces similar outcomes in the data. The BCS title game is currently at 40%. If this season’s match up between OU and UF is within 16 points, the new percentage will be 36.4%. The following is the current percentage of championship games at various levels with margins of victory of 17 points or more:
FCS 26.7%
D-II 44.1%
D-III 34.3%
Super Bowl 42.9%
NFL Championships 36.4%
Combining the various levels of play into a 174 championship game sample, one finds the mean margin of victory for BCS title games (14.5 points) is less than the mean margin of victory of the 174-game sample (15.3 points) for championships under a playoff format.
Games decided by 7 or less points (40% to 37.9%), 14 or more points (50% to 45.4%), and 17 or more points (40% to 37.4%) are about the same.
Make of it what you will… but the data shows expanding the number of teams has no effect on the margin of victory in championship games across various levels of competition, regardless of format.
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Based on the 4 team scenario, I wonder what they would have done with our Dawgs last year? Would they have left us at #4 after 2 teams ranked ahead got beat or drop us to #5 like they actually did?
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Yeah, four teams wouldn’t have been enough this year, but 2008’s been almost as big an outlier in terms of “strength at the top” as 2007 was for upsets. More BCS-conference teams finished the ’08 regular season with either one or no losses than in the last two years combined, and more than in any other year going at least back to 2002 (ESPN’s ranking archive don’t go further than that). It’s probably even more stark in terms of conference champs with one loss or less–when was the last time the Big 12, SEC, Pac-10, and Big 10 champions all had the exact same number of losses?
The point is that just because the four-team system wouldn’t have solved anything THIS year doesn’t necessarily mean it wouldn’t be a huge help most other years.
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A couple quick points.
First, just because a four-team system might have helped some years doesn’t mean it wouldn’t have screwed things up other years. In 1999, 2002, and 2005 there were exactly two undefeated BCS conference teams left after the regular season – they distanced themselves from everybody else and were more than deserving championship contenders. Would it have been fair to make them play yet another game against a one-loss team in a four-team system? No, not at all. That would have been just as big of a tragedy as teams NOT making it into a playoff. The BCS worked those years, doing exactly what we wanted it to.
Second, it’s doubtful that even an eight-team system would help this year. There’s no way all the BCS conference commissioners would sign off on one unless all the conference champions got to be involved – wouldn’t happen. So after you put them in there, you have two at-large spots and you have to choose between 1) Texas, 2) Alabama, 3) Texas Tech, 4) Utah, 5) Boise State. How do you fairly choose two from among that bunch? Not even considering the fact that the non-BCS conferences would demand at least one spot, which they’d probably get. So even an eight-team system wouldn’t solve anything this year.
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I still believe an 8-team playoff would be the best/most feasible playoff format. IMO, the top 8 to 10 teams every year are the only ones with a legit argument to play for the nat’l title. No matter how many teams you have in a playoff, there will always be someone with a gripe. It’s just that I’m much more concerned about a team that finishes 3rd being left out than I am about a team that finishes 9th being left out.
So my playoff system is this: take the 6 champs of BCS conferences and the 2 highest finishing at-large teams (this would include BCS teams that did not win their conference, independenents like Notre Dame, and teams from non-BCS conferences). The BCS rankings would still exist for purposes of selecting teams and seeding them in the playoff. Champs of the BCS conferences must have a minimum ranking of 12 or higher in the BCS in order to get in. If they don’t, this allows an extra at-large team to get in.
Because of the constraints on fans traveling for games, the first round of games would be played at the home stadiums of the top 4 teams in mid-December. The 2nd round would be played on Jan 1st in the 4 BCS bowls. Winners of the 1st round would face each other and the losers would face each other as well (basically just a bowl game like we have now). Winners of the 2nd round would face each other a week later at a neutral site.
Now that we have the final BCS rankings, here’s how it would’ve played out this year:
#1 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ) vs. #8 Cincinnati (Big East champ) in Norman, OK
#2 Florida (SEC champ) vs. #7 Penn State (Big 10 champ) in Gainesville, FL
#3 Texas (1st at-large) vs. #6 Utah (3rd at-large) in Austin, TX
#4 Alabama (2nd at-large) vs. #5 USC (Pac-10 champ) in Tuscaloosa, AL
The ACC champ (Va. Tech) would’ve been left out because they finished 19th. So Utah would get in as the 3rd at-large team. The quirk here is that OU & Cincy already played each other and OU won big. Of course, before anyone jumps up & down about that, Cincy played OU closer than Texas Tech did, losing by 26 rather than 44. Notable teams left out of the playoff: Texas Tech (7th) and Boise St. (9th).
Assuming the top 4 seeds all won, here are your Jan 1st games:
OU vs. Bama
UF vs. Texas
USC vs. Cincy
Utah vs. Penn St.
What would’ve happened last yr had this playoff system been in place? Here ya go:
#1 Ohio State (Big 10 champ) vs. #8 West Va. (Big East champ) in Columbus, OH
#2 LSU (SEC champ) vs. #7 USC (Pac-10 champ) in Baton Rouge, LA
#3 Va. Tech (ACC champ) vs. #6 Missouri (2nd at-large) in Blacksburg, VA
#4 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ) vs. #5 Georgia (1st at-large) in Norman, OK
Notable teams left out: Kansas (8th) and Hawaii (10th). Given the outcome of the Sugar, I wouldn’t feel too bad about Hawaii getting left out.
Thoughts?
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Champs of the BCS conferences must have a minimum ranking of 12 or higher in the BCS in order to get in. If they don’t, this allows an extra at-large team to get in.
Your proposal is DOA, I’m afraid. There’s no way the Big Six agree to that.
And leaving Hawaii out last year would have guaranteed an anti-trust lawsuit against the BCS.
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Well there has to be some way to keep out crappy teams that win conferences that are down, like the ACC this year. In most years, I think the big 6 conferences will get their champs in. I agree that the big 6 won’t like the minimum ranking part, but the ACC or any other conference that doesn’t like it will have to explain to me how 9-4 Va. Tech belongs in an 8-team playoff.
Maybe 12th or higher is too stringent, maybe the minimum s/b 15th or higher. But the bottomline is that any 8-team playoff involving a team like Va. Tech over a team like an undefeated Utah will be more laughable than Ohio State’s performances in their last 2 bowl games. A playoff like that would be an utter joke.
One thing I didn’t mention is the money split – let’s be honest, what’s most important to the big 6 is that they get their fare share of the playoff dough. So even if they knew that their conf. champ might not get into the playoff, they might agree to it as long as they still get a cut of the playoff dollars. Obviously they shouldn’t get as much as say a conference that lands 2 teams in the playoffs, but they should still get some type of minimum payout. So I think this hurdle can be overcome in my proposal.
re: Hawaii – do you still think they’d file a lawsuit after they were beaten by some 3-loss team from the SEC or Big 12? Hawaii played NOBODY last year and their BCS ranking reflected that. If UGA can beat them that badly with a banged-up Moreno and an offense that seemed a little out of sync, don’t you think a bowl team from a BCS conference would beat them in a bowl game or keep the game close enough to make the point that Hawaii didn’t deserve to be in the playoff discussion? Their only 2 wins last year that you could call respectable would be a 12-pt home win over Boise St. (who finished 10-3, losing to Washington & E. Carolina) and a 7-pt win at Washington (who finished 4-9 last yr).
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93, no offense, but this is the kind of thinking that I refer to as “it’s so easy”. The problem is, of course, that it’s anything but.
You are making an assumption that all these schools would be willing to give up money and BCS appearances to build a better playoff. That’s not how things work in the real world. Nobody is going to volunteer to give those things up. And you can’t come up with a compelling reason why any school should other than it will make for a higher quality (in your opinion) playoff.
Look around – every playoff format out there is compromised. That’s how an 83-win St. Louis Cardinals team wins the World Series. Or how a six-loss Giants team wins the Super Bowl, beating a team it had previously lost to.
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In any playoff, only conference champions need to come to the table.
Therefore, so sorry Alabama.
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BD, I could be with you on that, particularly with an 8-team format. They just need to strengthen some of the weaker conferences and it would work.
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Well if every BCS conf. champ gets in automatically in an 8-team playoff, there must be some type of mechanism to prevent a team like 2005 FSU (ACC champ that year by way of upsetting Va. Tech in the ACC title game) from getting in. Miami and Va. Tech were 8th and 10th, respectively, in the final BCS standings before the bowls, while FSU was 22nd.
I don’t care if all 6 BCS conferences have at least one representative in an 8-team playoff, but you have to do something to make sure the best team from each conference is in the playoff.
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Dawg93 – You just made the argument against a playoff with your post about FSU 2005.
You want a playoff, but assert that FSU needed to be kept out because even though they won their conference championship, they aren’t the “best team” from their conference.
Well, that’s what happens in playoffs, the best team does not always win.
If you assert that FSU, as conf champ, isn’t worthy because they wouldn’t the best team despite winning a conf championship game, then how could you assert that the winner of a playoff should always be a nat’l champ?
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Actually, no. Because FSU was 7-4 heading into the ACC title game and quite frankly no 4-loss team should ever be in an 8-team playoff. Look, no playoff system will be perfect. A playoff isn’t always going to produce THE best team as nat’l champ every year. But what it will do is give more deserving teams the opportunity to prove their worthiness on the field. It gives teams like Texas, USC, and Penn St. (All one-loss teams just like OU and UF) the oppty to play for the nat’l title. There are countless other teams in recent history that had a legit argument to play for a nat’l title: UGA 2002 and 2005, USC 2003, Auburn 2004, Miami 2000, etc.
So either we have a playoff where you try to get the 8 best teams (based on BCS conf champs and BCS rankings) OR you just take the BCS conf champs plus the two highest-rated non-BCS teams.
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Why are you so horrified by the idea of a BCS conference sending a 9-3 or 8-4 team to the playoffs? So what.
Did it suck that the Giants went to the playoffs and won 4 away games in a row to win the Super Bowl? No way. It was awesome.
The 8 team playoff *IS* easy.
6 conference champions, and a committee (like the March Madness one) chooses the 2 at large: 1 from a non BCS, and one from a BCS.
People will complain of course, because people complain about everything. Heck, people complain about weak teams making the NFL playoffs, but nobody cares and barely anyone listens. No truly deserving team will get left out, and then the champ gets decided on the field.
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It’s not as easy as you think, Muckbeast. A fundamental question (of many) that needs to be answered is, “What’s in it for the players?”
According to the NCAA’s published financials, the Bowl system generated more than $324 million in Gross Receipts last year. In December 2005, Big Ten Commish Jim Delany testified before the 109th Congress, “I am absolutely sure an NFL-style football playoff would provide maybe three or four times as many dollars to the Big Ten than the present system does. In fact, a number of corporations have come forward and tried to lure us into a playoff with those kinds of dollars. There is no doubt in my mind that we are leaving hundreds of millions of dollars on the table.”
A playoff would put the value of the D1-A postseason at more than $1 billion in addition to the $2 billion it already generates in the regular season. (Note: according to the NCAA’s most recent published financials, the lower division postseason playoffs combined for only $3.12 million in gross receipts and the NCAA absorbed losses of more than $1 million. I point this out because the first thing playoff advocates try to do is compare D1-A to the lower divisions. Well, there it is. By comparison, the lower divisions cannot be considered “high stakes”.)
So I ask you, “What’s in it for the players?” as they assume physical risk in a high stakes football tournament?
Which leads me to the rest of Delany’s testimony… “So there is more money out there and we have turned our back, we don’t get very much credit. We get credit for taking it, but for not turning our back on it.”
Most playoff advocates say the players should receive nothing more than they already receive. The line of reasoning suggests there is no limit to the amount of money players can generate without additional compensation and is rationalized by, “A college education is priceless.”
Care to run that by the people who used to work at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, or everyone else out of a job these days?
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