“This still feels like an invitational more than a national free-for-all.”
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It isn’t a playoff. It is an invitational / beauty pageant. It is false advertising.
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Statistically, there are approximately 129 FBS programs, of which 65 are P-5, including Notre Dame. Of the 65 programs only 20 have won the NC since 1970; 12 since 1998; and 6 over the past 10 years. I believe over time, the national viewership will drop because if only 10-20 programs have a shot at a NC, then it leaves out the rest of the 119-120 FBS programs, not to mention the FCS.
In order for college football to thrive, there needs to be a FCS playoff system for the FBS or a 16 team playoff system. It doesn’t matter if BAMA plays and rolls over a team like Louisian-Monroe. Programs, fans and viewers want to believe their conference championship football team has a shot at the title, as they do in NCAA Basketball, and until that day comes, the inequity and inequality that is the FBS will until continue until television viewership drops to a point that it garners the attention of the powers that be and initiate changes in order for the sport to flourish.
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next year Alabama vs Clemson part 4
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Honestly the BCS was better. And I don’t mean their rankings, I mean the fact that it pitted #1 vs #2. Teams had to be undefeated in hope that their team could play in the National Title game. With the CFP there’s room for error. The biggest issue with college football is perception. Perception that a certain brand or certain conference is just naturally better without ever proving against the other top teams in the country. If the BCS actually gave teams like Utah, Boise State and TCU a chance at the National title, it would still be in place now.
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Agreed, until the only way you can’t win a championship is by losing, it will continue to be a fake less interesting beauty pageant championship.
Now that even the “big” bowls are having teams being very disinterested like the sugar or fiesta and the high profile players skipping all of the bowl games now, it will hopefully further add pressure to the fat elites that they need to expand or risk even more apathy.
But one can only hope.
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3 undefeated teams this year. 4 teams is better than 2, but should be AT LEAST every conference champion or a non-starter imo.
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I would be for an auto bid for Conference Champions but the whole concept of Independent teams has to end. Notre Dame should not be considered an elite program. They truly should be considered a G5 until they are willinng to accept a P5 membership.
I can see a 10 team Conference champions only Playoff working. Top 2 ranked Conference Champions are given byes in the first round.
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So the second round is 6 teams?
I realized this issue after I typed this up.
I think 12 is what works, 10 conference champs + 2 at large, top 4 (so the invitational participants are still happy) get a 1st round bye.
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That would work for me too, anything that doesn’t allow a team to win over 20 games in a row and get left out. I don’t care if it is App State imo.
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After thinking about this more and more, I may be changing my stance on pro-expansion of the playoffs because of selfish reasons.
If the playoffs stay at 4, most P5s will never get there just as G5s will never get in. This would put UH on the same level as 90% of the P5s and with our P5 coaching staff, it enhances our recruiting status since we similar to those P5s.
See https://www.coogfans.com/t/recruiting-rankings-should-be-higher-next-cycle/16510?u=ron1102
If they install a 8 team playoff, those 90% P5s will now have hope of making it in.
I think it should stay at 4 until we have 3 or 4 good recruiting cycles.
There were 4 undefeated teams, Bama, Clemson, ND and UCF.
Dang, you are right! Even worse…
10 teams is very hard to bracket. 8 or 16 works best. A big problem is the increase in the number of games. Schools won’t stand for a shorter regular season because that is lost revenue to all those who don’t make the playoff. So your talking about 12 game regular season, conference championship game (which I would oppose and use best record with tie-breakers), and 3 or 4 playoff games for the two finals schools. So that’s 15 games minimum and maybe 17 if some conferences insist on a championship game and we have a 16 team playoff.
I would think the deeper a conference representative advances in the bracket, the more TV revenue would be available to help offset the lost money from a shorter regular season. Still a tough sell, I think.
High school (North Shore 16-0 this year) and pros play at least 16 games, why can’t college? What is the difference?
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They need to get rid of the neutral sites and let the better seeded team host and expand to 8 best teams selected by a committee. Easy fix.
Or just go back to the old system.
8 is better, but would still be a beauty pageant. Until you have every single team in the league (120+ schools) having a legit chance to get a championship, it is just an invitational.
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If they expand to 8, they should start the playoff Jan. 1st with all the teams playing that day. Then work around NFL playoffs for the next two rounds (similar to what they do with the championship already). It only adds one week to the college football season and you don’t have to worry about more games in December.
All games should be hosted by higher seeds other than the championship. Let the bowl games be bowl games. The reason ticket prices are dropping is because most fans can’t pay for travel, hotel, and tickets to 2 straight road games.