As others have said, at least all the decent teams now have a chance to settle it on the field. One big surprise to me is that none of the four schools with a bye have made it to the semis. Although I suppose ASU and Boise were underdogs. And as long as we have conference championship games the best team may not win the conference every year, so the teams like Texas and Ohio State have a chance to make good in the playoff.
I do think a really good 16-team format could be designed, but not if it’s just an excuse to get more SEC and Big 10 teams in the playoff.
Yeah, I really miss non-championship seasons having some sort of meaning to them. Personally, I’d even go back pre-BCS. We went a century in this sport without formally crowning a national champion, and we were fine. Winning the Cotton or Sugar or Orange or Rose Bowl should be enough. College Football de-regionalizes more every single year, and it’s worse for it.
I am liking the new playoff, even with the lopsided wins. Because they mean something. Still fun to watch the match ups. With the old system, 2 or 4 teams?
Everyone panicking when there’s a couple blowouts, it happens. Upsets happen too, it’s great theater. Every other division of college football has it, but what they don’t have are the huge finacial gaps between schools. If the FBS teams will ever “for the betterment of the game” collectively bargain for the TV deals so that there’s an even revenue stream we’d see some great stuff. Probably never happen because the SEC and B10 want all the money and the power. I’d love to see all conferences have a chance even if it means play in games.
I knew a long time ago the “system”- in whatever form, will leave some folks dissatisfied… I was upset when Arizona State went undefeated and untied and didn’t win it.(It was probably because other coaches hated Frank Kush). Then UCF goes undefeated and untied and everybody had a hissy fit because they declared themselves the champs.
Awesome system the old one was …where votes mattered more than the play on the field and the actual score board. It made sports casters and writers happy because they had a say in the outcome. We literally witnessed multiple teams going undefeated…with both claiming a national championship. Same thing with one win teams that never played each other.
Face it. It was utter garbage. Bowls were invented to be exhibition games, not way to crown a nation championship. The whole idea was absurd and a con job from the beginning.
Opinions should not matter when you have a scoreboard. You want opinion to matter…go watch ice dancing.
They may or may not enlarge to 16, but ESPN and Power 4 will never agree to include ALL conference champions. All P4 champions, yes, but not all. Yall can talk about all you want, but its never going to happen. Top G5 is about the best they can expect, and that top one better have a great record and great ranking. Expansion took top G5s like TCU, BYU, Houston, SMU, Cincy and UCF and made them P4s. The playoffs are made for P4…and ratings justify it.
The SEC is going to have to face some hard realities, the most important of which is that they no longer dominate college football as they did for so long.
The Peach, Rose, and Sugar Bowls this year announced about 17,500 fewer ticket sales than last year. Only the Fiesta drew better as last year it got stuck with The Liberty Poolboys.
I know it’s about tv viewership but it’s asking a lot of fans to travel to a conference championship and then possibly FOUR bowl destinations in consecutive weeks.
So far 20 bowls went down in attendance. Thats more than half and the ones that went up largely did so because they got a local fan base involved like Florida in Tampa, UConn in Boston, LSU/Baylor in Houston, Miami in Orlando, OU in Ft Worth, etc… Bowls want hotel stays not drive in and outs.
Will be interesting to see if this first year is a trend.
Like the new format but would be open to getting rid of home field advantage. That seems to help teams and I prefer neutral site venues that make it more balanced.