I am for expanding the CFP to 8 teams, unlike Barrett Sallee. I am absolutely against granting automatic bids to conference champions or the best G5 team. The only downside to an 8 team playoff is that Bowls will continue their downward trajectory into irrelevancy as will conference championship games. Agree or disagree?
If you look at the way college football has always been run, for the national champion they try to crown the most deserving team based on the whole season. I am not for a big switch in that philosophy. The NCAA basketball tournament is great, but that has always been a tournament sport. Also there is not as wide of a talent gap between the best and worst teams in college basketball. A senior heavy 3 point shooting team could upset anybody.
Expanding to 8 needs to be done and I think that the only rule should be every undefeated FBS team should be in. Put in a couple stipulations like must have one P5 win, no more than one FCS game. I think conference champs should get more recognition in the rankings, but I agree that I do not care for seeing any 3+ loss team in the playoff regardless of conference. A lot of people cry for an equal shot for G5 champs, I say if they can go undefeated like UCF or even Western Michigan the year before then they proved they deserve a shot. You can’t say a multiple loss G5 team didn’t get a shot, they just need to win their games.
There are 10 leagues in FBS. The only way to make sense is to only permit conference champions to play in a playoff. None of this inviting teams who didn’t even win their division. Each conference champion plays, no one else. You have two play-in games for the lowest ranked four champions and the rest are seeded. It would be a three leg tourney at neutral locations.
If bowls want to continue to invite non-participants, fantastic! Last year the bracket probably would have been…
Play-in
- Troy vs Boise St
- Florida Atlantic vs Toledo
Quarters
3. Winner game 1 vs Georgia
4. USC vs Oklahoma
5. UCF vs Ohio St
6. Winner game 2 vs Clemson
Semis
7. W6 vs W3
8. W5 vs W4
Final
9. W8 vs W7
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I really like this plan. A playoff of Champions.
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I like it because conference games would really mean something and there would be no such thing as Power 5 but it would take 4 or 5 years of recruiting cycles for most of the G5 schools to be competitive.
Although FCS and other Divisions have their playoffs through December, it would be difficult for FBS conferences to accept. The paradigm shift could be more acceptable if they eliminate a couple of Saturday FCS games pushing the regular season back to 10 games.
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Another idea would be to have only 8 FBS conferences and putting certain teams or 2 conferences in the FCS.
The problem with champions only is that a team can tank their entire non-conference schedule and still get in over a team with 1 loss in conference. Non-conference would then become the college equivelant of the nfl preseason.
Overall records and strength of schedule are used for seeding so the overall record is important.
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Conversely, a team could play cupcakes in the non-conference and what good is that.
Besides, non-conference games are going to continue to diminish as conferences push for 14 teams. That is 6 divisional games and 3 non-divisional conference games. Put the regular season back to 11 games, and you only have 2 non-conference games. It opens an extra week for the playoffs, emphasizes the importance of conference play, and puts all the conference championships on Thanksgiving weekend. Let’s have college take Thanksgiving back from the NFL.
Win your conference and you get in. It is the only way to equalize the playing field and it neutralizes the whole P5/G5 thing. Win your conference, and you have a shot. Dominate your conference year-in and year-out, who knows what might happen.
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I have a little different twist on what Cary said. I think that conferences should do similar to the B12 where the top 2 play for the conference championship. Sometimes the top East team may have lost 2 or 3 games and the West may have an undefeated and 2 one lost teams. This would ensure you have all top teams in the conference championship games at least by win/lost records.
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Some conferences have rules about what kind of teams you can schedule in non-conference to get around that cupcake problem you alluded to. For example, the SEC mandates that each team schedule one non conference game against a P5 opponent or BYU. Some have been doing so for decades. UF-FSU, Kentucky-Louisville, So Carolina- Clemson, UGA-GT. Those schools are not going to ditch those games to schedule Podunk U. So I don’t think the idea that schools would automatically schedule cupcakes holds water.
And the “win your conference and your in” would just be a reheated version of the BCS rules where each conference champ in a BCS league was guaranteed a BCS bowl bid. It’s how UConn went to the Fiesta bowl despite losing 4 games during the season.
Those rules were implemented because of the current format of the CFP. If every conference was guaranteed a spot in the playoff and only two non-conference games were played, those rules would be relaxed.
Yes, teams like UConn might get in, but for the most part that didn’t happen. More often than not the participating teams rarely had more than two losses.
It’s funny that you consider bowl games relevant other than just letting seniors play one more game.
You either forget or don’t know about the rule that if a non-AQ champ was ranked higher than an AQ champ, they also got an automatic bid.
Give home games to the higher ranked teams and overall SOS becomes huge…worth millions upon millions potentially to host playoff games.
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Bowl games are relevant now?
That would be a good incentive for the powers that be to approve an 8 team playoff. Teams that are favored to play to the championship would technically only travel twice to do so.
Seeing as ESPN and other networks basically blackmail G5 directors to not say anything bad about the CFP, not sure if we will ever get there. People that want a 16 team playoff are dreaming. It would not only mean P5 teams would have to play two more rounds to win a championship game but it would make the NY6 bowls, formally the BCS bowls, lose control.
Consider this:
Let’s say you are a P5 Team with a one or two losses record and you do not agree with this new cfp.
What is stopping this same Team from joining a so called less talented conference?
They won’t for one single reason. Money.
This has nothing to do with sports but how much money the P5 conferences and their members get.
This is why the cartel exist and why the bcs and cfp were created.
At this rate there is only one solution to this conundrum. Sue, sue for unfair practices, monopoly etc…
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That’s my idea of what a real playoff should be about.
If a conference is in the FBS, the champion of the conference should be granted a shot for the national title.
16 works because you have 10 champions and 6 at large.
Adding the 6 at large allows the larger conferences to have multiple programs represented. (more $$)
Allowing the smaller conferences a shot brings in the Cinderella factor (more eyeballs)
The overall result is higher viewership and more money. Why stifle the sport?
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