Some college football post season questions:

[Carl Spackler]

#1. Would you prefer to see the top four teams, determined by a ranking system play for a national title?



#2. Would you prefer to see every division 1-A football program start from the same starting line, and have the same road to a national championship?



#3. Can the second question be answered "Yes"....if you answer "yes" to the first?


#4. The last question is...

Would you prefer to see a division 1-A college football championship that is actually sanctioned and sponsored by the NCAA?



The fact that those two initial questions have to be asked at all - has to do with the last question...because the BCS national champion, no matter what they come up with this month as a system to crown a champ, is still not recognized by the NCAA, and therefore, the BCS leadership can really do whatever the hell they want when it comes to identifying a national champion. The BCS terminololgy in the first place, was created to give the marketing companies some kind of name to promote since it's not actually an NCAA sanctioned championship for division 1-A football. I despise BCS terminology. It's division 1-A.

It's public outcry alone that can change things, without NCAA involvement and sponsorship of the post season.

The underlying factor to all of this post season potential change, that stands to be most affected, is not money, it's recruiting, and the advantages in recruiting that stand to be gained or lost, by respective programs around the country depending on the outcome.

Because if you can't answer that second question with a "yes". Nothing will have really changed.

But if you can, and it's legit......you'll see the recruiting world of college football both regionally, and nationally change dramatically.

interesting times.

 

[CTMike]

Not sure what your point is, since for the NCAA basketball tournament, a committee effectively ranks all participants from 1-64. For football, I'd prefer 8 teams, though that's not an option at this time. At some point, they will have to be ranked and seeded. Whether it's people, or computers acting on behalf of people, they will have to be ranked somehow.

I really don't care if a football playoff is sanctioned by the NCAA or not. Both they and the BCS are corrupt organizations. Quite frankly I think the BCS, Bowl, and NCAA middlemen should all be eliminated, but that's another discussion.

Yes, there will be recruiting advantages and disadvantages based on how this all plays out. But there absolutely will be differences in money, differences in exposure. It's all related.

 

[mattp]

i'd like to see different media outlets each declare their own champion with as little cross playing of powers as possible

 

[Carl Spackler]

SEC leadership today - was pretty adamant about a system that has the "four best teams" playing for a national championship.

What' the hell does that mean?

I think that the smart people in SEC football, if there are any, are terrified of the potential of having to actually rely on the ability to recruit for their programs, rather than rely on booster slush funds, and the ability to walk into a kids living room with their respective logos on their clothes, and immediately be at the front of the line.


That's my point. Start thinking about the questions up there, and you'll get there too.

 

[Carl Spackler]

i'd like to see different media outlets each declare their own champion with as little cross playing of powers as possible

So basically you want the national championship to be the same thing it was up until 1991? LOL.

 

[freescooter]

I have a less conventional view of all this...I think the regular season should be made the most important. Bowls should go back tto being what they were historically...rewards for good seasons, not by the way for finishing 6-6...I don't think it makes all that much difference whether we have some myhtical national champion, or some Champ named after a bogus BCS process or one that results form some tournament that will likely be biased in favor of the big names anyway. To me it really doesn't matter. I suspect once a 16 team or more tourney starts, regular seasons games will become almost as meaningless as they are in college basketball where the NCAA tournament has become such a big deal that nothing else matters.

 

[Carl Spackler]

I have a less conventional view of all this...I think the regular season should be made the most important. Bowls should go back tto being what they were historically...rewards for good seasons, not by the way for finishing 6-6...I don't think it makes all that much difference whether we have some myhtical national champion, or some Champ named after a bogus BCS process or one that results form some tournament that will likely be biased in favor of the big names anyway. To me it really doesn't matter. I suspect once a 16 team or more tourney starts, regular seasons games will become almost as meaningless as they are in college basketball where the NCAA tournament has become such a big deal that nothing else matters.

Too much money involved now to go back.

 

[CTMike]

SEC leadership today - was pretty adamant about a system that has the "four best teams" playing for a national championship.

What' the hell does that mean?

I think that the smart people in SEC football, if there are any, are terrified of the potential of having to actually rely on the ability to recruit for their programs, rather than rely on booster slush funds, and the ability to walk into a kids living room with their respective logos on their clothes, and immediately be at the front of the line.


That's my point. Start thinking about the questions up there, and you'll get there too.

They want the 4 best teams, and not 4 conference champions, because they know that more often than not they will get more than one team in the top 4 and get more payout and more exposure. Let's say that it's the 4 conference champions model though. SEC exposure isn't going to decrease- they are still the cream of the college football crop. They are still going to out-recruit as a conference, unless they some how some way fall on some REALLY hard times. But their access to money and exposure will ensure that doesn't happen.

 

[CTMike]

I think the regular season is still VERY important, because that's how you get access to the championship. The regular season is how you separate the cream from the rest of the crop. Any slip-ups there and you are toast. Then you have the best of the best duke it out on the field, when it counts. That's pretty legit if you ask me.

 

[UConnDan97]

The only way to truly find out the best team on the field is through a series of varying head-to-head matchups. That can be accomplished very simply; by inviting all the conference champions (because they won their respective head-to-head matchups) and then have them play head-to-head games against each other. Basketball has already figured this out, and that's why the conference champions get an automatic bid (whether it's a tourney or reg season like the Ivy). But it would require more than four teams (probably 16.....LIKE EVERY OTHER DIVISION OF FOOTBALL!!).

The current top teams clearly don't want this, because that might mean that they won't be the top teams four years from now, and they couldn't stomach that. The money is too nice. Aww. Poor SEC. Poor SEC...

 

[freescooter]

So basically you want the national championship to be the same thing it was up until 1991? LOL.

Read my other post...I'm pretty much fine with this...I suspect at the end of the day the solution will be worse than the desease. that I think has clearly been the case with the BCS and its predecessor. the mistake that people always make is confusing college football with the NFL or college basketball. It is neither and what works effectively for them won't work for college football in my view. And add the other factors, few inter-conference games, the absolute bias in the voting (people seem to forget the SEC commissioner pretty much demanding that SEC regional voters vote for the SEC teams in any polls a couple of years ago) all that sort of thing...

 

[businesslawyer]

SEC leadership today - was pretty adamant about a system that has the "four best teams" playing for a national championship.

What' the hell does that mean?

What does it mean? It means that if LSU and 'Bama finish the season ranked #1 and #2, the SEC ain't signing off on having Oregon in instead of 'Bama just because Oregon is Big Ten champion.

 

[UConnDan97]

What does it mean? It means that if LSU and 'Bama finish the season ranked #1 and #2, the SEC ain't signing off on having Oregon in instead of 'Bama just because Oregon is Big Ten champion.

Pac-12, but you're absolutely on the money with the post.

 

[geordi]

I agree with scooter. We don't need a national champion in football. Part of the SEC's rationale (well, let's face it, their only rationale is $$$), is that a team from a 'lessor' conference can get hot after a mediocre season and win it all. Yeah, so what? In fact, I think it's much more fun for people to get into arguments in a bar over whether this team or that team is better. When you get two SEC teams playing for a 'national championship' based on rating points, with an undefeated Boise State blowing out a major 'power' in another bowl, that opens up the bar talk. You might even get to some fistfights, which of course, would be highly entertaining.

BTW, there is nothing written in stone that the SEC is going to be the dominant conference forever. Once it was the B1G, then the PAC 8 or 10 at the time. Even the Big 12 minus 2 was dominant at one time. Our time will come too.

 

[SubbaBub]

If team #5 is a conference champ and teams #2, 3, or 4 are not, then I want team 5 in the playoff. Same for team 6.

I can agree either way on teams 7 and 8, but no lower.


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[junglehusky]

Obv if you're LSU or Auburn you want a system that doesn't require that you win the SEC. If you're any non SEC school you want a conf champs model since this would open up a spot that a sEC team would likely take given recent history. I see this as the SEC trying to consolidate their position of at least being perceived as the top conference.

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[businesslawyer]

I agree with scooter. We don't need a national champion in football. Part of the SEC's rationale (well, let's face it, their only rationale is $$$), is that a team from a 'lessor' conference can get hot after a mediocre season and win it all. Yeah, so what? In fact, I think it's much more fun for people to get into arguments in a bar over whether this team or that team is better. When you get two SEC teams playing for a 'national championship' based on rating points, with an undefeated Boise State blowing out a major 'power' in another bowl, that opens up the bar talk. You might even get to some fistfights, which of course, would be highly entertaining.

BTW, there is nothing written in stone that the SEC is going to be the dominant conference forever. Once it was the B1G, then the PAC 8 or 10 at the time. Even the Big 12 minus 2 was dominant at one time. Our time will come too.

Here is what I don't get about a post like this -- am I missing your letters to the editor urging MLB and the NFL to get rid of the World Series and Super Bowl because it would lead to better bar discussions?

 

[pj]

i'd like to see different media outlets each declare their own champion with as little cross playing of powers as possible

I like this idea. The Hartford Courant could name UConn the national champion every year.

 

[pj]

I think it's much more fun for people to get into arguments in a bar over whether this team or that team is better.

Here is what I don't get about a post like this -- am I missing your letters to the editor urging MLB and the NFL to get rid of the World Series and Super Bowl because it would lead to better bar discussions?

This is why the offseason is so popular with fans. No games and more arguments!

 

[Carl Spackler]

I think that the bowl system prior to 1990 was much better than what we've got now, but there's a very real phenomena called a point of no return, in which it's harder to return to the origin of some kind of thing, and easier to reach a final destination. Concept of point of no return was defined in World War II by aircraft pilot, but it applies to anything.

I think that after the changes in regular season broadcasting happened in the mid 80's, sending more than two dozen long time 1-A independants into conferences....that the post season college football people went scrambling too, to create something they could be assured would continue in the future, and the Big EAst at the time, was smart enough to make Tranghese agree to start playing football and get a seat at the big boy table - from which UConn has benefitted tremendously in the past 20 years, and I'm grateful,,,but anyway - they wanted to create something that they could be assured would continue, and they did, and by 1998 it had changed names several times, and become the BCS, and the first pseudo national championship game was played in over 120 years of college football. We've had 14 pseudo championship games since, and the money around it all continues to grow.

adn the NCAA division 1-A football regular season, continues to remain entirely separate and distinct from the NCAA division 1-A college football post season.

It's not diminishing the regular season that college football post season are worried about, it's losing their complete control of manipulating the college football post season that they're worried about, by making the regular season mean more that it did for the two decades that automatic qualification has existed.

And make no mistake, its' the ability to recruit the best players they want by simply making phone calls and personal appearances, that is what's most at stake for a conference like the SEC.

 

[Nostical]

Who exactly is voting on the outcome of this debate and does majority rule? If all conferences have a vote, the SEC can be thwarted. But something tells me there will be a few back room deals made by the big boys. I favor a system where at year end, conference champions are seeded by a commitee. I would not have any team not winning at least its division in that final four. The polls have been shown to be skewed by cupcake scheduling and regional favoritism. Conference championships require consistent superior play on the field. No way Alabama should have been in that game last year.

 

[junglehusky]

WWII??? Weren't they flying planes decades before then?

 

[traitor71]

I almost wish they would go back to the way it used to be. At least then you had more than one bowl game that meant something. The Orange, Sugar, Rose, Cotton and Fiesta bowls were almost always games that you really wanted to watch. Even the lower tier bowl games would have teams and players that were worth watching. Now it's just all so manufactured and still doesn't deliver what it should in terms of quality.

I know they aren't going to go back, so just give us a system where if you win your league, you are in some sort of a playoff. If certain leagues get blasted every year, then so be it.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I think the regular season is still VERY important, because that's how you get access to the championship. The regular season is how you separate the cream from the rest of the crop. Any slip-ups there and you are toast. Then you have the best of the best duke it out on the field, when it counts. That's pretty legit if you ask me.

I've never heard of any legitimate response debating the point CTMike makes here.

If only 8 teams in the whole country can qualify for the playoff, how the hell does that make the regular season not important??

 

[Carl Spackler]

By my last recollection, there are 12 votes, 11 conference commissioners and Jack Swarbrick. I'm not certain as to how the majority rule among those 12 factors into decision making structure of the Bowl Championship Series management structure.

I'll tell you what I am certain of.

The big east conference representative in those meetings, is going to know exactly what, how, why, when and where everything works.