College Football Playoff Looking At Expanded Field Options

[DoctorWho85]

While 10 Auto bids with only 2 WC might be fair what "should" happen, it's unrealistic. For one thing, The P-5 will never agree to expand G5 NYD6 bids from 1 to 5. For another, it doesn't leave enough room when Notre Dame makes their semi-decade run.

So what you're saying is 16 is the ideal number? That means everyone including the independents get equal access, but the SEC and B1G get an additional 2 to 3 teams each to satisfy greed and bias in the polls.

 

[Husky25]

So what you're saying is 16 is the ideal number? That means everyone including the independents get equal access, but the SEC and B1G get an additional 2 to 3 teams each to satisfy greed and bias in the polls.

10 or 12. I laid it out here and here. I think 16 is too many because it doesn't give the top teams a bye. On the other hand the money will be too much to prevent it from going to 16.

 

[ScottVib]

Once you get to 12, the move to 16 is not going to be driven with an eye towards adding 4 spots and in turn giving them to G5 champions (at least not without some sort of lawsuit or legal action compelling them to do so). The expansion to 16 will be driven by P5 leagues wanting even more spots and the fact you can easily add inventory without lengthening the playoff another week.

It won't be until they move to 20 or 24 that all conferences will get an autobid (which is what happened in FCS). In fact they'll probably use the "equity" of giving all conferences an autobid as the excuse to add the extra weekend (and the inventory) into the playoff.

 

[UCFBfan]

Money has rendered the above nearly 100% moot and whatever you remember happening for most of your lifetime, no longer applies.

Bowl games used to matter. Now the vast majority are exhibitions, worthy of being skipped by high draft picks, and loss leaders for the programs who participate in them. 3 postseason games matter. That is it and since the advent of the CFP, those have been largely boring and low rated. The P-5 is smothering the golden goose.

This is 100% the reason I have lost most of my interest in CFB. I'll watch UConn but the days of me flipping between games on all channels from noon until the evening have long passed. Partially it's due to kids and family but I have little to no interest in trying to carve out any time to watch any games beside UConn. Sometimes I'll flip on a game at night only to have it be boring and turned off. Games don't matter anymore for 90% of the teams. Once you lose a game, 95% of the teams are playing for a worthless bowl game.

Rivalry games don't even make major waves on TV anymore. I remember when they used to push the heck out of games like Oklahoma vs Texas, Auburn vs Bama, OSU vs UM. Now, it's just another weekend of games, especially if it has zero bearing on the CFB playoff. In those regions those games have meaning but not nationally anymore.

I have zero hope that an expanded CFB field will yield anything more than just a larger group of P5 schools with mostly the same SEC schools, some B1G, one or two ACC/Big 12, and one Pac12 filling the field each year. Maybe they throw the G5 a bone and allow them a team.

 

[kingdobbs]

Why do you assume that I am afraid of an upset...it happens on football Saturdays...I am adamant about what I do not like...and that is automatic "places"....

I don't like AQ's in the basketball tournament either...use whatever merit methodology you want but buck the societal trend to have inclusion for inclusion's sake....

For gawd's sake...if you want to watch a 16 seed play, you'd better catch the first game or you won't see them (at least in 139 of 140 cases)... why bother except for the appearance of exclusion.

Your proposed meritocracy won’t work for the very simple reason that its foundation is still an aristocracy which is only interested in preserving itself and counting their own achievements as “merit”.

A true meritocratic system would abolish conferences, institute a scheduling system that seeks to actively avoid insularity, and uses the resulting inputs to actually have a functional and objective ranking system.

 

[freescooter]

I don't give a fig about your "disenfranchisement of good teams"...I have posited my thoughts....only the best teams based on their body of work should play for a national championship, no AQ's .......I also don't give a rat's patootie about hand wringing cries of "meaningful postseason for most teams". Meaningful in what way? A bowl that you can win, or a guaranteed loss in a meaningless tournament appearance ?

I am not a fan of the basketball model for football, plain and simple....where making the tournament of 64 is a milestone...and the bottom seeded half of the teams, from the get go, have zero chance of winning the NC. And the season is really the Month of March. But I can see why a basketball oriented fan base might be more oriented to that model.

You agree, that in basketball, with 87% of the Championships having been won by seeds #1-3...and zero seed s #9-16 ever making a Final, that the best win...No?

The difference in football is....In football, every Saturday is part of the playoff....

I would submit that college football is a tournament. It’s a form of madness that is spread out over the weekends of three to four months rather than packed into three to four weeks. The upsets can be quite dramatic in both cases but the power house teams tend to be frequent championship contenders.

You might even consider the polling as a form of the seeding or bracket. While the tournament of college football might not unravel quite as clearly as a bracketed tournament setup, in reality it’s fairly similar. Teams are knocked off, the polls like the brackets are updated, and with each set of games, we get closer to a final championship match.

March Madness enjoys its place in American sports as a unique form of competition. I do enjoy March Madness and that college basketball crowns its champion with the 64 team tournament.

Rather than push a mirror image of March Madness onto college football while ignoring the real differences between the sports, enjoy and celebrate both sports.

And as an aside...I do think that there will be a playoff expansion...but in the realm of maybe 8-12 teams. And may they be the best...whether seeded by computer or committee.

Maybe instead of the image of March Madness we try something a little different. Like the NFL. 32 Teams in all. 14 make the playoffs. Now we all know that very few have much chance to win the Super Bowl. But do you know why 14 of 32 (43.75%) of teams make the post season? It keeps interest up in way more places than if they just took the top 4. Back in the Day that is what they did fwiw. The AFL East played the AFL West and the NFL East played the NFL West champs. Winners met in the Super Bowl. They have expanded several times

 

[billybud]

Maybe instead of the image of March Madness we try something a little different. Like the NFL. 32 Teams in all. 14 make the playoffs. Now we all know that very few have much chance to win the Super Bowl. But do you know why 14 of 32 (43.75%) of teams make the post season? It keeps interest up in way more places than if they just took the top 4. Back in the Day that is what they did fwiw. The AFL East played the AFL West and the NFL East played the NFL West champs. Winners met in the Super Bowl. They have expanded several times

Take the best 14...I have no problem with seeding the "best"....

But when you have 120 plus teams....

Any distribution of relative power/strength will fall on the Bell Curve....The top 14 will be at the very strong end of the curve....a little more than the top 10% of the teams..

 

[billybud]

The 2019 Top 16 Final CFP Ranking...2019 because it was the last normal season.

1...LSU
2...Ohio State
3...Clemson
4...Oklahoma
5...Georgia
6...Oregon
7...Baylor
8....Wisconsin
9...Florida
10....Pen State
11...Utah
12...Auburn
13...Alabama
14...Michigan
15...Notre Dame
16...Iowa


If you went to a big expansion to 24....you'd pick up Memphis, Appalachian State, Boise, Cincinnati, and Navy from the G5....and Minnesota, USC, Virginia, and Oklahoma State from the P5..

 

[freescooter]

The NFL doesn’t take the top 14. It takes the winner of each division, regardless of record. I can’t remember a team making it with a losing record, but a few .500 teams have. Then They take a bunch of wild cards based on record. Works pretty well, I’d say. Follow that model. Take each conference winner, then pick the next 4-6 wild cards from teams that didn’t win their conference. It would be one thing if there was some really good way to compare teams outside leagues. Clearly there isn’t. And the rankings you so dearly love have sort of shown that when you look at the semi finals it’s a tough case to make that the losers are really among the Top 4 most years. Only 2 nonblowouts.

 

[billybud]

The NFL is much more equal talent wise among teams than college...You won't see 24 point favorites very often in the NFL....

When college has a draft system and a more equal spread of talent...maybe.

Until then...there is a very large gap between some conference champs in power.

 

[UCFBfan]

The 2019 Top 16 Final CFP Ranking...2019 because it was the last normal season.

1...LSU
2...Ohio State
3...Clemson
4...Oklahoma
5...Georgia
6...Oregon
7...Baylor
8....Wisconsin
9...Florida
10....Pen State
11...Utah
12...Auburn
13...Alabama
14...Michigan
15...Notre Dame
16...Iowa


If you went to a big expansion to 24....you'd pick up Memphis, Appalachian State, Boise, Cincinnati, and Navy from the G5....and Minnesota, USC, Virginia, and Oklahoma State from the P5..

How many of those schools scheduled a G5 you listed? The biggest problem with having the 12-14 "best" teams is that the top teams don't allow the G5 teams to even have a chance from entering that ranking by not playing them.

The idea of a "P5" makes any of this talk of a "best team" notion moot. In the NFL, every team is on the same level in terms of access. That list you provided in consisting of all P5 schools and it's like that for a reason. They won't allow G5 schools on it by not scheduling them and allowing them the chance to prove they belong.

 

[freescooter]

The NFL doesn’t take the top 14. It takes the winner of each division, regardless of record. I can’t remember a team making it with a losing record, but a few .500 teams have. Then They take a bunch of wild cards based on record. Works pretty well, I’d say. Follow that model. Take each conference winner, then pick the next 4-6 wild cards from teams that didn’t win their conference. It would be one thing if there was some really good way to compare teams outside leagues. Clearly there isn’t. And the rankings you so dearly love have sort of shown that when you look at the semi finals it’s a tough case to make that the losers are really among the Top 4 most years. When a team loses 63-28 or 30-3 or 31-0 where it really a top 4 or more likely a top tv choice?

 

[billybud]

The NFL doesn’t take the top 14. It takes the winner of each division, regardless of record. I can’t remember a team making it with a losing record, but a few .500 teams have. Then They take a bunch of wild cards based on record. Works pretty well, I’d say. Follow that model. Take each conference winner, then pick the next 4-6 wild cards from teams that didn’t win their conference. It would be one thing if there was some really good way to compare teams outside leagues. Clearly there isn’t. And the rankings you so dearly love have sort of shown that when you look at the semi finals it’s a tough case to make that the losers are really among the Top 4 most years. When a team loses 63-28 or 30-3 or 31-0 where it really a top 4 or more likely a top tv choice?

Oh good grief...back to the conspiracy theory that these committee members are all controlled by TV.

As I said, college ball isn't the NFL with a draft system and thus the talent and power of college teams is much more disparate than the NFL.

The top four may occasionally have a bad play off game...but usually have a body of work to get there....Sure, Ohio State got waxed by 0-31 by Clemson...

But they beat in the regular season...11 win Oklahoma, 11 win Wisconsin, 11 win Penn State, 10 win Tulsa....a body of work.

Would you have put in the CUSA Champ, Western Kentucky over them, or the MAC Champ, Ohio, or the AAC champ, Temple, or the MWC champ, San Diego State....

It's not basketball where you can throw 64 teams in, so it doesn't matter that you put up half the playoff that has zero chance of winning (seeds #9-16)....making the basketball season fairly meaningless until March.

But basketball still seeds.....and darn near 90% of the championships are won by #1-3.

Great, if you want to seed 16 teams...let the bottom 8 duke it out and the winner gets to move to seed #8...to play in the top 8.

But in a smaller tourney, like football would require, placing a conference champ in the CFP without seeding based on strength is silly...

Seed based on RPI/net/computers/committee....it doesn't matter...basketball does it...and football would need to also seed on strength.

 

[billybud]

And...the NFL is tiny compared to college ball. Apples to oranges.

An NFL Division has four teams....every fourth team is in the playoff.

A whole Conference that makes up one half of the NFL is only 16 teams. Near the size of the SEC or B1G or ACC.

 

[Husky25]

The NFL doesn’t take the top 14. It takes the winner of each division, regardless of record. I can’t remember a team making it with a losing record, but a few .500 teams have. Then They take a bunch of wild cards based on record. Works pretty well, I’d say. Follow that model. Take each conference winner, then pick the next 4-6 wild cards from teams that didn’t win their conference. It would be one thing if there was some really good way to compare teams outside leagues. Clearly there isn’t. And the rankings you so dearly love have sort of shown that when you look at the semi finals it’s a tough case to make that the losers are really among the Top 4 most years. Only 2 nonblowouts.

Washington was 7-9 just last season. There was clamoring that 6-10 New York should have made it because they beat Washington twice. WFT were the 4 seed and hosted 11-5 Tampa Bay.

Other than that, you are mostly correct.

 

[billybud]

There is a talent disparity between NCAA conferences.....the NFL with their draft system and a fraction of the teams of FBS, can have teams that are more closely competitive in talent.

This year is another example of borg-like SEC talent...the SEC had 65 drafted....Alabama and Georgia together had more drafted than the whole AAC, the top G5 conference in draftees.....and LSU, Florida, Kentucky together had also had more drafted than the AAC.

It is still individual team talent that counts, of course.

 

[uconndogs]

This is 100% the reason I have lost most of my interest in CFB. I'll watch UConn but the days of me flipping between games on all channels from noon until the evening have long passed. Partially it's due to kids and family but I have little to no interest in trying to carve out any time to watch any games beside UConn. Sometimes I'll flip on a game at night only to have it be boring and turned off. Games don't matter anymore for 90% of the teams. Once you lose a game, 95% of the teams are playing for a worthless bowl game.

Rivalry games don't even make major waves on TV anymore. I remember when they used to push the heck out of games like Oklahoma vs Texas, Auburn vs Bama, OSU vs UM. Now, it's just another weekend of games, especially if it has zero bearing on the CFB playoff. In those regions those games have meaning but not nationally anymore.

I have zero hope that an expanded CFB field will yield anything more than just a larger group of P5 schools with mostly the same SEC schools, some B1G, one or two ACC/Big 12, and one Pac12 filling the field each year. Maybe they throw the G5 a bone and allow them a team.

This is just about where I am. A few college football programs are heading towards being a developmental league for the NFL. The horse is out of the barn regarding letting these kids get paid for their likeness. When that’s in high gear it simply won’t be possible to compete with the programs best positioned to take advantage of this. The most competitive programs in the SE, Texas and Calif. will dominate even more than they do now.

You can argue the fairness to this, but in my mind there are a lot more pressing issues in the world. From my standpoint this holds little interest to me. If I want to watch the best players in the world I can watch my football on Sundays. That’s not why I’ve been a college football fan and probably will be the reason I won’t be one much longer......doubt I’m alone in that thinking.

 

[billybud]

There are regional differences, I guess.

The south does love CFB...I, personally do not watch the NFL..(they had no NFL teams in the south when I was a lad),,,so, like most of my generation and the sons we passed the torch to, we watched college ball or listened on the radio.

I do feel that our collective need to define a #1 team has driven us to the post season play off emphasis...the regular season still counts for most teams since most know they will not be in the play off.....I dread the day when college football becomes like basketball when the regular season is just a warm up for the real season in March.

 

[uconndogs]

.....I do feel that our collective need to define a #1 team has driven us to the post season play off emphasis..

Money drove the process and will continue to do so increasingly. The goal of a fair and competitive process to define a national champion was a very low priority if it even existed as a goal at all.

 

[freescooter]

Don’t disagree with that but the current system is bad for the game and fans aren’t watching in droves. Bringing in more teams and more fans is the way to go

 

[billybud]

Don’t disagree with that but the current system is bad for the game and fans aren’t watching in droves. Bringing in more teams and more fans is the way to go

Just not true....

People watch college ball....lots of pepole.. Using 2019-20 (since last season was covid)..

College Football TV

• The 392 regular season telecasts on ABC, the Big Ten Network, BTN, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, FOX, FS1, NBC and the NFL Network during the 2019 season averaged 1,839,000 viewers per game (a 2% increase from 2018) while reaching more than 145 million unique fans
  
  
• The 38 postseason bowl games on ABC, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, FOX and FS1 at the conclusion of the 2019-20 season averaged 5,037,000 viewers per game (a 1% increase from last season) while reaching 90 million unique fans† on television. (The figures do not include the FBC Mortgage Cure Bowl or the NOVA Home Loans Arizona Bowl, both telecast on CBSSN, which is not rated by Nielsen Media.)
• 
  ESPN's networks averaged an audience of 5,736,000 viewers for all its bowl games(36 games), up from last year's average of 5,728,000, an increase of 8,000 viewers per game.
  
  
• The CFP Semifinals averaged 21,487,000 viewers (two games), setting a new high for non-New Year's Day Semifinals and an increase of 8% from last year's final CFP Semifinal audience.
• CBS Sports scored the Network's best college football viewership in 29 years, averaging 7,147,000 million viewers, a 25% increase from 2018.
• College Football on FOX had its most-watched regular season ever, bringing in an average audience of 3,729,000, representing a 12% increase over 2018.
• ESPN's networks increased their audience year-over-year in every category: the regular season, bowl season, the CFP Semifinals, the CFP National Championship and "College GameDay Built by The Home Depot," which delivered its most-watched season since 2015.

 

[billybud]

.....I do feel that our collective need to define a #1 team has driven us to the post season play off emphasis..

Money drove the process and will continue to do so increasingly. The goal of a fair and competitive process to define a national champion was a very low priority if it even existed as a goal at all.

There has never been a drive to have a tournament style defining of a football champion...for years, it was the AP and UPI polls....and split champions.

The number one and number two teams were not often matched in a bowl....the BCS was then established to match the #1 & #2 team to determine a Champion...that's all they did.

That expanded to the #1-#4 playoff format of the CFP...

By having relatively few teams play off...the regular season and conference championships have remained meaningful.

I don't know about "fair and equitable"....When there is such a disparity between teams/conferences...it is always equitable to have the best play for it. It is that determining of the "best" that may be the rub....but we seed in basketball and can do so in football.

 

[Husky25]

Committee members aren't necessarily controlled by TV. They are, OTOH, influenced by money. This is why their direct influence in the CFP should be minimized.

The Basketball Tournament didn't expand because the NCAA thinks 4 more teams have a shot at the title. Absolute not. The main purpose is to attract casual eyeballs. Pure and simple.

 

[CL82]

It's not basketball where you can throw 64 teams in, so it doesn't matter that you put up half the playoff that has zero chance of winning (seeds #9-16)....making the basketball season fairly meaningless until March.

You say this repeatedly. Has anyone, other than you, actually suggested that a 64 team football playoff would be a good idea?

Let me ask again, because you seem to be pointlessly obsessing about it, do you realize that this would be logistically impossible?

 

[kingdobbs]

Oh good grief...back to the conspiracy theory that these committee members are all controlled by TV.

As I said, college ball isn't the NFL with a draft system and thus the talent and power of college teams is much more disparate than the NFL.

The top four may occasionally have a bad play off game...but usually have a body of work to get there....Sure, Ohio State got waxed by 0-31 by Clemson...

But they beat in the regular season...11 win Oklahoma, 11 win Wisconsin, 11 win Penn State, 10 win Tulsa....a body of work.

Would you have put in the CUSA Champ, Western Kentucky over them, or the MAC Champ, Ohio, or the AAC champ, Temple, or the MWC champ, San Diego State....

It's not basketball where you can throw 64 teams in, so it doesn't matter that you put up half the playoff that has zero chance of winning (seeds #9-16)....making the basketball season fairly meaningless until March.

But basketball still seeds.....and darn near 90% of the championships are won by #1-3.

Great, if you want to seed 16 teams...let the bottom 8 duke it out and the winner gets to move to seed #8...to play in the top 8.

But in a smaller tourney, like football would require, placing a conference champ in the CFP without seeding based on strength is silly...

Seed based on RPI/net/computers/committee....it doesn't matter...basketball does it...and football would need to also seed on strength.

Basketball also sees enough cross-conference competition to make RPI/NET rankings reasonably functional (but not even close to perfect) statistical measures.

There just isn’t the same depth of cross-conference competition in football. UConn hoops in 2019-20 played 13 teams from 10 conferences out of league. In the same year, UConn football played 4 teams from 3 leagues.

Any such football system is thus going to be plagued by the fact that it is trying to base its rankings on a literal handful of actual meaningful cross conference games and a giant pile of games like Alabama-NMSU and Clemson-Wofford.

But since no one in the Ancient Elect is going to change their situation unless forced to by a more powerful entity, we are going to continue to be stuck with a system where the aristocracy is invite-only and the rest of the citizens will be judged according to what they consider meritorious (and will only ever consider their own accomplishments the baseline for merit).