This is what bracket creep sounds like.
… The league will also add a second wild card playoff team by 2013, if not next year, for 10 playoff teams overall. This one doesn’t really seem that extreme. At four teams per league, baseball is the stingiest with its playoff exclusivity, compared with six teams per conference in the NFL and eight per in the NBA and NHL. With the season so long at so many games, most teams and their fans are out of the race by June. Mad leaps into the playoffs like we saw from the St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays this September rarely happen. A second wild card spot would give at least two more fan bases reason to keep tuning in, and ESPN’s Dave Schoenfeld argues the team with the best record rarely wins in October anyway.
But they settle it on the field, so that makes it all right.
Get The Picture 
ESPN, a new world order.
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Where is UGA Illuminati when we need him?
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Don’t get me started on MLB’s playoff format.
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crapshoot anybody?
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Master of deflection that you are, as an attorney you still do realize this would not be admissable….totally unrelevant to the need for a great CFB playoff that would satisfy the concerns of both sides. NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, NCAA basketball, all different animals. A well designed playoff is very doable, let’s get it on.
As a proponent of a better method, and a UGA fan, I am amped that we could not only EARN the greatest title in CFB, but also send the BCS into total chaos with a win against LSU in the SECCG. That would be so satisfying in a dozen different ways, I mmight have to buy some Mcallan 25 to pass around.
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So how come nobody’s ever come up with one?
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Besides the plus 1 that fits in with the 4 BCS bowls and keeps the exact same timing?
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Because of the assholes at the no-longer-relevent Rosebowl and the no-longer-relevent Big-10.
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That is an excellent place to start since that was the initial stumbling block. Commish Delany, got your ears on?
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There already exists a playoff system in our beloved college football. It is called the regular season. We have have seen multiple elimination games already (i.e. LSU/Oregon, LSU/Bama, Stanford/Oregon, Boise/TCU). With a few left to go. Yes, outside of the championship game most bowls fall flat and miss the mark. The plus 1 format may be the answer. But with a short season compared to other sports, the emphasis is on the week to week schedule. Drop one and your odds are thin. Drop two and your are done (most years).
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That’s all good and stuff if all conferences were created equal. You list LSU/Oregon and LSU/Bama both as elimination games, but depending on how the rest of the season plays out, Oregon may not have been eliminated. And for what reason? Because they won their weak conference, they deserve more of a rematch than a Bama team that took the #1 team into overtime?
There’s flaws in any system we put into place, it’s just a matter of which flaws you can tolerate more. I, personally, would rather see teams prove themselves on the field, rather than proving it in the computers.
And I know, there’s always going to be situations were someone’s going to get the shaft in any system, but at least you’ve got a better shot of getting it right (in my mind) with a end of season playoff. Maybe I’m just biased because UGA likes to get hot towards the end of seasons.
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As long as they don’t have to prove themselves on the field in October, right?
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Looks like you are right on track, King Jericho. Many teams develop late and sometimes the system accidentally gets it right. The teams that end their season with strong teams and win are not the hottest at the moment, but rather the best. Others that get by strong teams early with luck and end the season with a cupcake or two are usually suspect in the big bowl games. Luck enters into all schedules and the teams that keep peaking toward the end against strong teams are the ones that deserve to be in a playoff to determine the NC. Injuries (or lack of) and opponents peaking at the same time are a matter of luck.
Unhook the Rose Bowl from B10/P12 , select the best teams for the 4 major bowls and let the bowl winners enter a playoff. Two more games get you closer to a definitive NC than is now present. Yep, Senator, creep would pressure us for 16 teams and one more tier game, but what the hell, that’s not all bad. See if the 8 teams satisfy the needs. If the champion of one(or more) conference(s) ends up being weak sister(s) in the bowl games, that pressure increases for 16 teams. Have to admit that would definitely benefit the SEC most.
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There so many holes in the “regular season is the playoff” idea it’s not even worth the effort anymore. Long ripping of the theory short, just look at a half dozen or more teams in the past decade which make such a claim a complete and total crock.
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So how exactly does that work if Bama plays Oregon in the BCS championship? Two teams that would have lost to LSU?
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Well, if LSU loses to Arkie and Bamer and Oregon win their leagues, this outcome conforms to the Herbie Rule.
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they have. if you’re asking why one’s never been implemented, it’s because ESPN and the bowl system have already paid for this system, and no one has given a concrete, in contract, better offer.
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To the extent they aren’t doable, as you well know Senator, it’s because the money-driven politics makes change very difficult. That doesn’t — to me, at least — seem to be a very good reason not to try.
It’s like saying I’m in favor of high-fructose corn subsidies, barber licensing or whatever (I’m trying to be politically ecumenical here) because it’s too hard to break the bonds of money and influence that support the status quo. The product is what it is, but it seems rather important to have a clear view of what are the feature and what are the bugs and work to eliminate the later.
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Stick, you’re a reasonable guy. If you were running the show, I wouldn’t worry.
But here’s the thing: you’re expecting the same people who’ve been in charge of every other playoff the NCAA runs to do something totally different with a D-1 football playoff.
I lack your sense of confidence.
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I hear you. I think it’s less confidence that those in charge will act in the best interests of anything other than their own pocketbooks than an aesthetic judgement about how much weight to put on the unavoidably-in-tension (if not outright conflict) dual virtues of “meaningful regular season” and “settle-it-on-the-field endgame.” I freely concede that if I were as risk-averse as you are regarding playoff expansion, I’d be equally leery about putting a foot out onto the slippery slope.
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Once you go brack(et), you never go back.
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This is the reason I too am against a playoff. If I knew it would stay at a +1 model, I would be all for it. I could even be convinced to go to an 8 team model. But get beyond that, and the regular season just won’t mean as much. Then we’ll see teams resting starters in late games (i.e. GT game) like they do in the NFL because we are getting ready for the playoffs.
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Because a well-designed playoff is a 16 team, 11 auto-bid playoff, and the hogs in charge of the bowl system trough might not control the same % of money they currently get.
We’ve had a two team playoff ever since the BCS started. We’re just arguing about expansion now. Because of garbage non-conference scheduling (and a reluctance to force lazy programs to play true road games), the regular season doesn’t generate two clear teams more than once or twice per decade, which should be enough reason for anybody to support expansion. Plus a 16-team playoff would be, you know, way more fun than what we have now.
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First of all, there are maybe six to eight teams a year – maybe – that are national title-worthy, so why does college football need a 16-team playoff?
More importantly, to the extent that you’ve got 16 invites of which some are subjective (i.e., poll based), you’ve just guaranteed that your postseason will expand. It’s inevitable.
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First, why do you care who’s worthy and who isn’t? I know I’d rather have a champ of dubious merit+4 insane weeks more of meaningful college football than a right noble king and the pointless bowl system.
Second, any team that wins a 16 team tournament is probably worthy. In a hypothetical tournament this year, if the MAC champ (e.g. the #16 seed) can beat LSU in Death Valley ( #1 seed), Clemson it it’s Death Valley (#8 seed), Wisconsin @ Camp Randall (#4), and, say, Alabama on a neutral field (#2), it deserves to be the champion. Nobody in the country would have come close to doing something that impressive. Schedules just aren’t set up that way.
Third. expanding the playoff from 16 up probably wouldn’t happen until after a 5 or 7 year run at 16. But so what if it did? More entertainment for me, more opportunity for teams, more programming for ESPN, more drama.
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So the MAC champ in Death Valley = more drama? Hokay, fine.
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The reason schedules aren’t set up that way is that you need to be #1 or #2 right now to play for the championship.
If all you have to do is win the MAC in order to get into a playoff, then I will be the first guy to encourage McGarity to withdraw from the SEC and set us up in the MAC. Why should we worry about beating UF, UT, and USC every year, when we can worry about beating Akron and Toledo?
Screw the regular season, right?
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Elementary, my dear Bluto: 16-team playoff, across 15 of the current bowl games.
Questions and comments welcome.
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Maybe this will push the Series into early December when they’ll have to schedule around The Conference Championship matchups. April to December!? Sounds like somebody’s going after the NBA’s crown for the longest yet most boring sports season! At least the Greed God’s have smiled on us this year and just might spare us all suffering another NBA Season.
Watching Baseball is like watching Soccer, only without all of the excitement…while watching basketball is like watching 20 baseball games on fastforward with scoring rendered almost entirely meaningless.
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And watching football, is like what — seeing the mind of God in its awe-inspiring perfection?
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I wouldn’t go that far…but it sure beats the torture of watching a baseball game.
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Let me ammend that…watching College football is way better but watching NFL football is only marginally better than watching a baseball game. There are so many commercials now that the excitement is all but lost!
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The irony is that if you cut 30-40 games out of the baseball and basketball season, the quality of the product would go up. But you have revenue flying in the face of that decision.
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They’re gonna do whatever it takes and make it however big it needs to be to ensure that Boston, New York, and Philadelphia are in the bracket ever single year.
I hate what they’re about to do to baseball. Imagine watching that Braves collapse two months ago knowing that it doesn’t even matter. Imagine knowing that you’re going to have to watch that team choke its way into a backdoor playoff berth and then get blown up in the first round. The first round of the playoffs will be an absolute joke. And setting up two 15-team leagues so you’ve always got to have interleague going on somewhere? F-you, Bud Selig.
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Baseball continues to mess things up that made its playoff system the best in the wide, wide world of sports.
Before intra-league play was introduced, each team in each division had the same number of games against the same opponents, so there was never a “strength of schedule” argument among baseball teams. Intra-league play, however, has messed up that symmetry.
So after 162 games against common opponents, the top two, three, or four teams in each league were pretty much crystal clear.
College football has way too many teams with way too diverse “strengths of schedule” to have a playoff system with anything approaching the crystal clarity with which baseball’s playoff system is endowed.
The solution involves radically resizing college football’s top division to no more than about sixty teams, with each team playing largely common opponents within its division or subdivision.
Utah State, Houston, and Miami (Ohio) fans would hit the roof, but a lot of lesser programs would need to be left behind if a sensible college football playoff system is to be devised and implemented.
This is the direction conference realignment is ultimately taking us.
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Neither here nor there for anti-playoff dead-enders like the Senator, but given the typically thoughtless and amateurish way baseball has gone about doing this, this is a rare instance where playoff expansion both giveth and taketh away. Yes, another team gets in, but simultaneously a team that was getting in under the previous set-up gets punished (appropriately, in my view) by no longer being treated no less favorably than any of the division champions (more favorably in some cases, because of the rule that the wild card team couldn’t play a team from its division in the first round). So given that stupid way baseball did this, at least in some ways this change gives the regular season more meaning. The top wild card slot is now a lot less desirable, but there is another slot that didn’t exist before.
As for the broader point, I guess I wear the “settle it on the field” jibe as a badge of honor. I just finished coaching my 12-year old son’s flag football team. In this league, everybody makes the playoffs. Is that a great system? For big time sports, obviously not. Is it better than a system of random computer formulas and uninformed voters, with the massive tangle of conflicts of interest that is ESPN playing a shadowy role, pulling strings in the background? I’d say it is.
Now, I think those are extremes — a genuinely meaningless regular season and the current opaque, corrupt mess — but forced to chose, I’d take the playoff. A question of taste, I concede.
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One more time: I’m not opposed to a playoff. But I’m strongly opposed to an extended playoff.
This is a plus-one format proposal I could live with.
And if we do ever wind up with four 16-team superconferences, I’m down with an objective playoff comprised of division winners.
The problem I have with every other proposal I’ve seen is that they’re unstable (i.e. subjective and/or willing to admit clearly unqualified schools in the name of fairness), which means they’re ripe for expansion. Which would ruin college football as we currently know it. At least it would for me.
You can go back to misconstruing my position now. 😉
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Fair enough. In partial self-defense, I’ll just say that — perhaps because anti-BCSism is so strongly the unofficial ideology of the CFB blogosphere, and you just just can’t help being a gadfly in this instance — the impression a longtime reader is left with is lots and lots of scorn for various playoff proposals and not much on the other side.
Still, you are always thoughtful (except, appropriately, when making fun of our rivals), and you deserve the same from your commenters.
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I think the reason the gadfly in me shows is because I get baited by silly assumptions and defenses of an extended playoff, like this one from Dan Wetzel.
Honestly, I have more respect for people who just say “I like brackets”.
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I’m just hoping the playoffs push the World Series into spring, overlapping with spring training. Then we might get this weird space/time thing where there are two of the same team at the same time. Last year Cardinals…meet next years Cardinals. It might get crowded in the club house, however. But, do we really need to Chippers?
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…two Chippers?
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That’d be like 4 pulled obliques.
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I get the issue with bracket creep and it’s real. I still struggle to understand how playoffs diminish the regular season. I would suggest that our last few games and especially the upcoming 2 would be of more importance if we were also in the playoff picture. How much bigger would the upcoming matchups across the country be with playoff positions up for grab? And the regular season cannot be considered a playoff for the BCS with previous champions having had 1 or 2 losses.
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“I still struggle to understand how playoffs diminish the regular season.”
No you don’t.
If you simply prefer a playoff, just say it. Don’t play dumb.
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Oh, I figured you weren’t the only one capable of deciphering that complex code.
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Just plucking the lowest hanging fruit here, do you find the college basketball regular season as compelling as college football’s? ‘Cause if you do, you’re in a mighty small minority of sports fans these days.
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I find the backpedaling of the NCAA hilarious. http://deadspin.com/5860390/
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Of course not. That has nothing to do with playoffs. Football is just better. You know this.
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I wasn’t asking you which sport you prefer. I was asking you to compare each sport’s regular season to its postseason and tell me which is more compelling.
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Sorry, don’t do apples to potatoes comparisons. Your post was about playoff creep in football. I agree that could present an issue towards diminishing the regular season if it got completely out of hand (i.e. beyond 16-team playoff – which is a lot as it is). As a fan of college football above any sport I just can’t see myself getting any less excited about playing our rivals and drinking myself silly with a day to sober up before coming back to work.
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How is football versus basketball relevant?
Do you think the fact that the balls are different shapes will magically make a game against an OOC rival (say GA Tech) mean something if the SEC East winner is guaranteed a spot in the playoffs?
How does the fact that a pretty poor UGA basketball team that flukishly won the SEC tournament in order to gain an automatic berth into the NCAA tournament a few years back support your assertion that the regular season means something when a playoff is in place?
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“How is football versus basketball relevant?”
Football is usually played on Saturday when most people don’t work. Football is played outside and has great tailgating. There are less football games (i.e. 1 game a week) than basketball making the emotions of winning and losing that much more powerful. Football has a band playing throughout the game and at halftime. Did I mention tailgating?
“Do you think the fact that the balls are different shapes will magically make a game against an OOC rival (say GA Tech) mean something if the SEC East winner is guaranteed a spot in the playoffs?”
Yes. Because the ball is oval and they tackle the person who has it. To me that’s really cool.
Let me ax you a question? Are you serious? You don’t see the meaning in playing Tech regardless of your scenario?
This is a football blog and therefore I make the assumption most commenters are football fans. And football fans love football games regardless. How else would you explain 90,000 + people flocking to Athens to watch us play New Mexico State? Not a very meaningful game to me but Brandon Harton might disagree.
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Really? Then how come the NFL bores me to tears?
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COLLEGE football. Geez. Don’t forget to cross your t’s here.
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Yeah, you gotta watch that, PNW. Don’t want to confuse anyone. I was surprised at Blutarsky’s retort also.
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The quarterback slide.
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Perhaps you are a Falcons fan? Since Deon left they’ve been an incredibly boring franchise to follow.
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The NFL has been an incredibly boring franchise to follow.
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Honestly, your logic is just lazy. A college football playoff would be awesome because it just would be. Wow.
The regular season wouldn’t be affected because it just wouldn’t be. Again, wow.
The reason the basketball playoff is different from any possible football playoff is because football is played on Saturday. Wow for a third time.
GA Tech will always be a meaningful game because it just would be. At least your logical fallacies are consistent. And wow again.
As the Senator said, if you want a playoff because you’re just one of those guys who buys the sports package from your TV provider so that you can watch every meaningless game being played, then good for you. You’ll get your wish. But don’t pretend that those of us who appreciate meaningful regular season games that are meaningful precisely because they impact conference and national championships have no case.
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You’re just lazy in interpretting my message. I can only speak for how I would respond and I think I laid out my reasons beyond “because it just would be”.
I hope if playoffs do come ya’ll will sell me your tickets. We’ll miss ya’ll on Saturdays.
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No. You really didn’t. You’ve said that a football tournament would be different than a basketball tournament because of tailgating. That’s just lazy logic.
If playoffs do come, I will absolutely sell you my tickets. You can have my Florida tickets during the regular season because the loser will probably still get into the tournament. You can also have my Tech tickets because I don’t care to watch our second string play a glorified scrimmage while our starters rest for the tournament. You can also have my UGA versus Toledo tickets during the first round of the playoffs.
Hey, your tailgating is good, therefore we must have a playoff logic might just work out for you. Who, besides me and the Senator, cares about the quality and importance of regular season games?
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The fact I have to explain that GA Tech is important because it’s Tech is maddening.
The Senator says, “For me, every Georgia season starts with beating Florida and Tech and leads up to playing in (and hopefully winning) the SECCG. The rest is gravy.”
But if there’s a playoff then that’s not the case? Channeling your inner Herbstreit?
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If there’s an extended playoff, who cares about winning the SECCG? The most it’ll get you is a higher seed.
35 years ago, I cared passionately about Virginia winning the ACC basketball tournament. Nowadays, who cares? It’s nothing more than a delivery system to March Madness.
I’m not sure why this is so hard to understand. Unless you just don’t want to try.
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Senator, I’m just realizing I’ve crossed into the pestering zone. I’m really trying to understand (and do understand more than I’m letting on). When I hear anything beyond winning the conference (and whoopin’ Tech) is ‘gravy’ I’m lead to believe what happens next matters not so much. So your argument comes across contradictory to me. I’m obviously under-valuing gravy and the importance of combining the correct variety with what is served. (I don’t mean that sarcastically). A lot of people still get really excited about winning the ACC. But I concede many don’t. I’ll go now.
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I’m not sure what’s contradictory about it. Under the current circumstances, winning the conference title is huge. In the world of an extended playoff, it’s fairly meaningless.
Said by someone who doesn’t really know. Once upon a time, ACC tournament tickets were almost impossible to score. Nowadays, the tourney doesn’t sell out. It’s a very different world from 35 years ago.
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What is maddening is your insistence that a playoff wouldn’t change everything about college football. Honestly, who cares about beating Tech if it doesn’t affect UGA getting into the postseason? The game might affect seeding, but we would also need to consider resting starters, or removing then to avoid injury. You’re telling me you would prefer to see Richt play a gimpy Aaron Murray against Tech to insure the win, only to see him less effective in the first playoff game? Right.
Ask the Texas A&M fans next year how immutable their rivalry game against Texas was. I’m sure they had some fans insisting that it would never change, because it just wouldn’t.
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“35 years ago, I cared passionately about Virginia winning the ACC basketball tournament”.
35 years ago there were 40 teams in the NCAA tournament. If you’re talking about the Sampson days, i.e. 30-ish years ago, there were 48-52 teams in the tournament, and Virginia made it into the tournament with great regular seasons even if it didn’t win the conference championship or the conference tournament championship.
The difference is that 30 years ago, schools like Virginia had superstars with household names who stayed in college for 3-4 years (e.g. Sampson, Ewing, Perkins, Worthy, Wagner, etc.). Not only was the quality of play higher, the names and faces were more familiar.
As for cfb, in the current format your Bulldogs’ season has been over since the first week (totally over since the 2nd). You’ve had all of two meaningful games (you’ll get 1/2 a meaningful game in the SECCG, where there’s a chance you could spoil LSU’s or Arkansas’ season, though if LSU comes in undefeated even that might not be true). There are other reasons you keep watching (the quality of play remains high, the faces are more familiar and there’s more continuity so watching to observe development is rational, there are only 12 RS games instead of 35-ish, etc.) but not because “The Regular Season Is A Playoff.”
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In ’74, there were 24 teams in the tourney, because only conference champs qualified. They dropped that rule in the wake of the Maryland-NC State game that season.
The tournament went to 32 teams in ’75. Ten years later, it had doubled in size.
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“Said by someone who doesn’t really know.”
I really don’t. Not a big fan of basketball. My mistake as I thought you were refering to the ACC regular season. I know squat about that too. I will try to go for reals this time.
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I think the more appropriate comparison might be the NFL vs. College football.
IMO, when status quo advocates say the regular season is more meaningful, it just switches what games are more meaningful. For example, they say that it gets them interested in Oregon or Boise St. But I think for every other school (with two losses), the regular season becomes less meaningful. In this measure, Georgia’s season is currently meaningless (in the grand scheme of football) because we have no shot at the MNC even though we might be playing the best ball in the best conference, and can still win the SEC. (if you don’t think it’s meaningless, see who talks about 2007 or 2003 anymore. Nationally. Even Dawgs aren’t satisfied) These next games would sure mean a heck of a lot more if we were still in line to make a playoff.
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Dude, I just posted about the 2003 team today.
For me, every Georgia season starts with beating Florida and Tech and leads up to playing in (and hopefully winning) the SECCG. The rest is gravy.
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I rest my case.
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What case?
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Sounds to me like you’d still embrace the regular season regardless of whether it’s followed with giblet or red-eye gravy.
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No, I wouldn’t. Once you reduce the regular system to being nothing more than a delivery system for the playoffs, it loses its spice.
That’s the exact point I was trying to make earlier about college basketball. Nobody cares about the regular season anymore because it’s nothing more than a way to determine seeding.
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You are only partially correct. Under a two team playoff, every game is meaningful. One loss can put you out of contention.
Under an eight team playoff, fewer games are meaningful. One loss doesn’t put you out. Two losses likely would. So your first loss becomes less meaningful.
Under a sixteen team playoff, even fewer games are meaningful. Two losses don’t put you out anymore. Three losses likely would. So that first loss becomes completely meaningless.
Imagine the drama of the LSU/Alabama game this year under a playoff system. Would we have seen that Alabama student crying in the stands at the end of the game? Of course not. He would be shrugging his shoulders saying, “This game didn’t mean anything. We’ll see them again in January.”
Personally, I hope we never get to the point in college football where my October and November are just spent checking box scores because the “real” season doesn’t start until January.
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The REASON I college football’s regular season is better is not because of basketball’s playoffs.
1) Football is more fun to watch.
2) The whole way games are set up and televised is superior, predictable, etc. In college basketball, you have games at random days, random times, its crazy to keep track of. College football, for the most part, is Saturday, and that’s it.
3) The rivalries are better and older.
4) Did I mention football is more fun to watch?
NFL is a crapton more fun to watch than NBA, and it has a playoff.
And frankly, NFL regular season is almost as fun to watch as college.
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College basketball suffers from early entry, not the tournament. The tournament saves college basketball.
I find the NFL’s regular season more compelling than college football’s, and I suspect that an overwhelming majority of sports fans agrees with me.
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That would seem to be an acknowledgement that the regular season is not as compelling as the postseason, no?
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Your Advertiser is displaying Florida Gator gear to get ready for the 2011 season, don’t think that will sell well here at this site.
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The “settle it on the field” meme is tiresome. We already settle it on the field. The #1 and #2 team in the country with a full season worth of games to consider get to settle it on the field with no worry that some team they beat 6 weeks ago will get another shot at them.
playoffs are for the everyone gets a trophy crowd.
every bowl game means something to someone . If you dont get that, you dont get college football.
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“Playoffs are for the everyone gets a trophy crowd”. Really? If that is your take you clearly don’t get it at all, and it is you who is not getting college football.. It is just the opposite, playoffs are for those who want to take the feel-good, let’s hand out an award based on who we like/approve of crowd. You couldn’t have missed the pitch by more than you did. What part of “earn it” offends you? Fine if you just want to keep things the way they are, but don’t apply some misunderstanding to those who feel differently.
The reason people never dispute conference titles (except Auburn last year) is because they are earned. The reason we have all this BS discussion EVERY single year about a pretend national champion is because so many know they are going to get screwed.
Earn it= me Award it=you A trophy for a faux title is what you have now. A trophy isn’t, and hasn’t ever been, what I would advocate. But whomever earns the first true NCAA National Title would have earned it if it were played on the field.
The sports writers, and talking-heads group often like the current popularity poll concept because it gives them the power to annointbased on their biases. Just what we need, let Herbstreit, computer nerds, and people from the Northeast decide who is “worthy” of the crown they award.
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How is a #1 v #2 matchup not earning it? The polls, computers, and the four letter network dont award the glass football at the end of the season, two teams play for it on a field. One team settles it on the field and earns the right to hoist the trophy. Most likely the best team in the country. How does playoff creep improve that situation?
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Because #1 and #2 are chosen by a bunch of pencil pushing dork journalists who got stuffed in their lockers in high school.
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Exactly, but naive, sheep fans have sold this crap that we really and truly know who the best two teams are so just take what we tell you and move on along. How crazy is that? Look, we won’t know who the best team is at the end of an 8-team playoff, but they will have a legit claim as the National Champ. As it stands, we have to wait for the geeks with computers, the WWL’s talking heads, and the Sports Information Directors to tell us that. Maybe that is enough for DawgPhan, but I think more than one team every year should order rings and claim the faux title. I hope LSU and OSU lose just to expose this charade. maybe letting F’Bomb and Herbie detrmine what should happen is good enough for some, but I think it shows how dumb we are for being so invested in a process with no conclusion.
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You seem to object to a 2-team playoff on the basis that it doesn’t identify the best team. Then you suggest expanding to an 8-team playoff, and admit that it won’t identify the best team either.
Are you just a “brackets are good” guy?
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Exactly…it isnt about giving the trophy to the best team to him. It is about giving him a bracket to fill out. Very rarely are there really more than 2 teams that deserve a chance at the title. Everyone has their blemishes right now except for 2 teams. If those teams win out, then they will deserve their shot at settling it on the field.
It is like some of these guys would love a 16-team round robin double elimination tournament that results in a best of 3 series with the final scores of each game added up to determine the winner of the national title.
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But at least that would “settle it on the field” during the correct month. 😉
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Hell, let’s do it for a case of good beer. Or a trainload so that the fans can celebrate also.
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Bowl games are the ultimate “everyone gets a trophy.” At least half the teams. That why coaches don’t want to get rid of them.
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The everyone gets a trophy crowd are the ones who love 50 crap bowls all crowning a “champion.”
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If you dont get bowl games you dont get college football. The thing you are looking for is played on sunday (or thursday) and has a playoff.
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How does MLB not have it figured out after 163 games? Seriously. Why do they even have a playoff?
There should be a National League and an American League. And they shouldn’t play inter-League games. Whoever has the best record in the NL and AL after ONE HUNDRED SIXTY TWO-THREE-WHATEVER games play a 7 game series.
(For the record, I know why they piddle with non-sense wildcards, etc. But MLB playoffs are dumber than the BCS by a million miles.)
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