Over at the Sporting News, Bill Bender sends up an early flare:
It’s likely either the Big Ten or SEC will put two teams in the College Football Playoff, and nobody will like the best chance for that to happen with Alabama and Georgia. That’s only going to intensify the call for eight teams even more.
I have little doubt such a scenario would generate that sort of reaction, but what I’m more curious about is whether a concern about that would affect the selection committee’s deliberations if either we had an exact re-run of the 2017 season, with ‘Bama sitting and waiting to find out if it would make the semi-finals field or the two faced off as undefeated in the SECCG, which would mean one would leave with a loss on its record.
I’d like to think not, but who’s to say? It’s one way to deflect Bill Hancock from having to deal with the subject again.
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Tn has a different process for specialty plates. It takes 1000(I think that’s the number) people to sign up for college plates and a deposit. I have seen all SEC teams with UGA being the exception. A shame more UGA fans will not sign up for this in TN.
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Posted under wrong heading, oops.
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SO, armchair fans, the two best teams end up matching up again, and the answer is to ADD 4 more teams as if what, they’d knock one of them out before the re-match that 12 other teams hadn’t been able to do during that particular season?
OK. Sure.
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The point is, with 8 teams, a couple of conferences could have 2 teams in the playoff and there would still be room for the champions from the other 3 P-5 conferences and one non P-5 “wild card”. Going to an 8 team playoff is inevitable. Imagine a scenario where, say, USC, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Clemson went undefeated or had 1 loss and squeezed out a 1 loss SEC champion.
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A long way to go before anyone needs to get their knickers in a twist about the 2018 playoffs. Good grief.
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It’s that time of year!
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What if UGA loses to USCe early and loses the East, but that is our only loss? I think we have enough swag and rep now to pull off a 2017 Bama type situation of getting into the CFP without winning the conf, given our overall depth and talent (and emerging “coolness”), but granting it’s very, very YOUNG talent. THAT may be the scenario that sends people into orbit: a non-Bama non-conf champ getting into the playoff.
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I think our non-conference schedule will really hurt us if we lose 1 and don’t win the East. Even though Bama’s is just as weak as ours, we play Tech, they play Louisville. Otherwise, the rest are cupcakes for both teams.
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Agreed. I think the only 1-loss non-champion getting into the playoffs would be Bama, just like last year. We can survive a loss if we win the SEC, otherwise, hello Citrus Bowl!
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Not that Tech is great (although some years they’re pretty good), but I think the talking heads and our SEC rivals unwittingly treat that like a conference game when measuring how strong / bold we are with scheduling. Because it has been there forever, we tend to get zero credit for having an ACC team every single year. Most west teams do a P5 and 3 cupcakes every single year.
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if we lose to SC and are still in contention for the playoff, we’d win the remainder of our games. So, SC would need to go 7-1 to win the East in that scenario. That isn’t going to happen – they will be 5-3 or 6-2, at best, even with weaker crossover opponents than us. For SC to win the East, it will require them beating us and us losing down the line to LSU and/or AU.
In their entire miserable football history, SC has made the SEC title game once. They did that with a 5-3 conference record and lost the title game 56-17. They have still never been to a major bowl. Best they’ve ever done is Cap One. If Spurrier never could do better than that, it’s hard to imagine Spurrier doing it..especially given what UGA and Clenson have going on now.
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That would supposed to say “if Spurrier couldn’t do it, it’s hard to imagine Muschamp doing it.”
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“What if UGA loses to USCe early and loses the East…”
Somewhere there’s a cackalacky fan reading your comment and masturbating furiously.
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Damn, Chili. That sounds like something I would say. Funny 🙂
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A lot of the predictions in that linked article are pretty conventional, but I have to say it’s one of the better lists like that I’ve seen. Don’t agree with all, but do agree with most.
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With the limited format we are stuck with for a while, only conference champs should be in the Final 4. We should not have had 2 teams from the same conference in 2011, or 2017, and that is true even it if were UGA “one the bubble”. But if that leads us to get it right and move to eight teams sooner, I am glad it happened last year. A Power 5 Champ sitting home is a bad playoff format, simply not enough conference interactions to say which team is more worthy. Plus, that put the major emphasis back on winning your conference, where it should be.
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Not all conferences are equal. Taking an 8-4 conference champ over a 11-1 runner up, when the 11-1 conference has multiple good OOC wins and the 8-4 conference has none, would be absurd.
Conferences are economic collaborations of convenience. That is a pretty arbitrary metric to determine playoff participation.
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I’m a champions only fan if the field expanded to 8. The issue is to get to that would require so many changes to college football (especially realignment for competitive balance) that it would be close to impossible to implement. Therefore, I’m a proponent of staying at 4 without the stupid committee and a return to a BCS type of formula.
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I agree that all are certainly not equal, maybe none. But without a basketball like 25-35 games who can say which is most deserving? I remember an undefeated Auburn getting shut out in the BCS formula. I am certainly no fan of Auburn, but how do you tell those kids who beat everyone in front of them, in the best/deepest conference in CFB where they fell short and didn’t deserve a chance? Imagine how they, or they fans, felt. It happened then, it will happen again. And you don’t have to be undefeated to have a solid case.
There is simply no good, or fair, way to squeeze out an entire conference and tell them they are not worthy. Based on what? Your, mine, or someone’s opinion is just that. We have the time for one more round, and it is silly to not take advantage of it. Five conference champs, best of the Group of 5, and two highest rated not included in those six and strap it on. Most exciting season will see as everyone is engaged. How can a CFB fan not want four more quality matchups to see and give everyone a chance to chase their dream? The 8-4 likelihood is just alarmist BS, and even if it were to occur, they will get dusted off by the #1 seed if they are not deserving. Top 4 seeds get a home game in the 1st round so no one can take a game off. It isn’t like having 8 teams out of 130 is a low bar like we see in other sports, it is still a very exclusive club, top 6%.
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A CFB can want the playoff to stay the same as not to damage the regular season. Would an early loss to the Chickens matter if the playoff goes to 8? Clemson’s loss to PItt didn’t which I didn’t watch as it had little impact on UGA or the SEC.
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Yo, Mickey will be down heavy with a rematch. Championship game UGA vs Bama was the second highest TV rating college football game of all time.
The committee will stay in the Brink$ Truck ruts.
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^^^This. Money talks; bullshit walks. I’d say the committee got exactly what they wanted last year and would be more than willing to have another helping of that. Getting a rematch of an epic game would just be icing on the cake.
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No one complained about a Bama-Clemson rematch. Both games were compelling.
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They also got what they wanted because the two best teams played. Didn’t need 4 more teams to figure it out, the committee got the top 4 right.
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The playoff people need the b1g and pac to produce better champions. I suspect the acc and sec will remain with top 5 champions. Will be interesting to see if state penn has a real team or if they were just good with Barkley, if Ohio st can manage to win against tough opponents, and if Michigan ever gets their act together. Hopefully ok or tx can be competitive (I wouldn’t overlook Riley as I think he will build a monster in Norman.
Lots of reasonably possible challengers for the 4 spots and I wouldn’t worry about rematch issues, except of course the sec championship possibly being Georgia vs. Alabama.
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I expect Texas to be a top 10 team this year, maybe not playoff ready, but I see a similar bump to them that we got last year.
Texas has talent and it showed in spurts last season. They just needed to get the buy-in for the new coach.
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If it pisses off Corch, J.H., and the whole Big 10 conference, I’m in favor of it.
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First, switch the championship game to any day except Monday, and start the game at 5 pm. Then find refs that don’t suck.
Two big 10 teams getting in the playoff is not “likely”. In fact, its very remote. IF that happened, at least one, but probably both, of the teams would receive an embarrassing ass kicking on national TV – which would remind everyone why there wasn’t a big 10 team in the previous playoff.
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Hell, I’d even take a Friday night at 8pm (if we assume the NFL playoffs are what blocks the weekend airing.)
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I agree with your sentiment and my comment is not so much in response to your post, but it’s a sacred Saturday sport. Why play the sport’s biggest game on a Monday?
There probably should be some exclamation points in there somewhere.
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FIRST find refs that don’t suck.
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I was generally in full support of what the committee did last year, but it does churn my stomach a little to think that Alabama now owns 2 NATIONAL titles in years they didn’t even play in the SECCG. I’m not a conference title absolutionist, but I can’t help but feel like they get mulligans where nobody else would. As the calendar turned to November last year, I kept telling my wife “you watch, we’re gonna have to beat them twice to win a natty.” Well, we didn’t have to play them twice, but you know no matter how it shook out they were gonna get their little chance to fight back through the loser’s bracket. It’s like everybody else plays under a single elimination format but Alabama is like a baseball team in Omaha.
2011 is worse than 2017 because at least they had not yet played UGA in 2017. That may as well have been a non-conference game.
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Reading all these comments makes me think ESPN has won. CFB is now a National Sport. All we are talking about is the national playoff picture. SEC title is practically meaningless, thanks to Alabama. A GREAT season is no longer great unless we win it all. Another little piece of my heart is gone.
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So what you’re saying is that even though Alabama didn’t win its division, it still got to take a giant dump on the 2017 and 2011 SEC Championship trophies.
/FML
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That and how our conversational focus has changed. I never gave a flying “duck” about what the teams of the Pac10/12/14, or Big10/12/14 did until bowl time. I was pretty much only concerned with beating UF (and Auburn to a lesser extent). Wether or not this (National vs Regional) is a good thing is up for discussion. But I think it’s a done deal. CFB is no longer a regional sport.
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I’ll still take our SEC championship and be happy with it. Any regular season that ends in Atlanta on the first week of December is a excellent season to me.
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Beat UT, UF, Auburn, GT and get to the SEC championship. I love these old rivalry games, they are why I’m a fan of CFB. I loved the novelty of the 17 season, Seeing UGA play ND and OU was really cool. I am looking forward to the Irish in Sanford come ’19. Still, SC, UT, Vandy …… all fun to watch.
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I’m totally with you, I was being facetious on the SEC Championship / Trophy. Not to bicker, however, but a lot of the (uga) “old traditions” we all butt heads over actually does not square with getting an opportunity to play the Notre Dames and the OUs of the world.
My vote would be to scrap the divisions and do the roommate switch and not mess with Jacksonville or Tech, ever. If we only had 3 permanent SEC games every year it would kill the angst and boredom that seems to have befallen our schedule and get people off the Florida and Tech ledges. We should not be fighting over Tech and Florida while just accepting the idea that we MUST play Vandy, Kentucky and Missouri every single year.
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Stop trying to make the Big 10 happen, sports media. It’s never going to happen.
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Man, you’re wheezing on Heribie’s gig.
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UF will not be undefeated when they travel to Miss St.
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If we (UGA/Bama)are both undefeated in seccg and we win then Bama will get in too.
But if we are both undefeated and we lose then we get left out.
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Bingo, I am pulling for a 1 loss Bama to get in the SECCG
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A couple thoughts:
The ACC is Clemson and the 13 dwarfs now. If Clemson isn’t undefeated, they should not be let in the playoff. They shouldn’t have been in last year after a loss to Syracuse.
There is no reason to wait a month after the conference championships to start the playoff. Make the first round 2 weeks after the conference championship games and the championship game 2 weeks after that. Waiting a month and then playing back to back weeks is stupid.
Having the game on Monday night is stupider than the scheduling. The NFL argument is baseless. Let the NFL play on Sunday and Monday, like they do all season long, and let the college championship game be on Saturday, the day God intended college football to be played.
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