The Definitive NO PLAYOFF Thread

• Mooney44Cards

  

  Well folks, its that time of the year again. The time of year where dreams of undefeated seasons by WAC and Mountain West teams conjures up thoughts and dreams of an elaborate playoff in which the stars align and all is right with the world when teams come together in fairness and equality to play in an elimination tournament set-up that depends more on the luck of the draw and being hot at the right time than anything else.
  
  You may be asking yourself, "Who does this guy think he is?" because you were under the impression that the only people that were against a playoff were some money-hungry bowl presidents and Athletic Directors across the country. Not true my friends. I believe a playoff system would change the very foundations of college football, and college football happens to be the one sport that I love so much, and don't want it fucked with.
  
  Don't get me wrong, in no way am I defending the BCS system as the best possible system for determining a national championship. But I don't think its inherently bad either, just flawed.
  
  So here we go, the main arguments I constantly here for switching to a playoff system and why I think those are bad reasons:
  
  Every other level of College Football has a playoff
  Quite possibly the worst argument of the bunch. There are variations of this argument where someone will say "Even women's lacrosse (or insert other shitty sport) has a playoff!" To which I'll always say "College Football is better than every other level of football, or every other sport, why would we want to make it more like those shitty sports?"
  
  Many of the tournaments that other sports have set up have also been in place for a lot longer (compared to when the NCAA sanctioned the sport) and therefore are inherent to that sport's season. These tournaments also tend to include a pretty decent percentage of teams getting into the tournament, something that wouldn't be possible with CFB.
  
  This is the equivalent to the "everybody else is doing it" argument that you would always say to your parents. Like your parents I'll ask you that if everyone else was jumping off a bridge, would you do it?
  
  No Playoffs, its NOT FAIR!!
  This one always comes off the worst when people try to argue it because I always tend to ask "what is fair?" to which nobody can really give me a straight answer. Is fair and unfair black and white? Is it all or nothing? Playoffs is fair, BCS is not? Or are there degrees of fairness? Now if we truly wanted to be "fair", we would have a nationwide round robin tournament where everyone plays everyone and we see who wins the most. Thats definitely not possible though.
  
  So, is the NCAA Basketball Tournament fair? Should a 5th place ACC or Big East team get shut out of the tournament because Bumblefuck Tech made it from the Southern Belt Coast Conference by defeating a team full of hobos in a pick up game? People will say "but thats the way the system is set up" (referring to having to win your conference to automatically qualify for the tourny) yet no one is willing to say that about CFB. So I will. THATS THE WAY THE SYSTEM IS SET UP.
  
  Besides, fairness is all relative. If we switched to a playoff tomorrow, and Ohio State goes undefeated this year and gets upset in the playoffs (by an SEC team, no doubt) people will scream ITS NOT FAIR!!! ALABAMA ONLY HAD TO WIN 1 GAME LAST YEAR TO WIN THE CHAMPIONSHIP!!! WE HAD TO WIN (2/3/4)!
  
  And eventually, people will say "But its not fair to the kids to not give them an opportunity to play for a National Championship!" Really? Other than maybe the past 2 or 3 years with Boise State or TCU, what kid is going to a non-BCS school to play football to dream about (realistically) winning a National Championship? Are the kids at Utah State and UNLV really upset at the end of the day that they're not playing in the BCS National Championship game? As for Boise State and TCU....their continued success has been rewarded with generous pre-season rankings and realistic shots at the National Championship in 2010 (much to my dismay).
  
  Bowls are boring, meaningless and are just there to make money!
  Yet more and more people go every year, and more and more bowls are added every year. Does this mean its the best system? Not necessarily. But it makes it harder and harder to do away with bowls altogether. There is somewhere in the neighborhood of 30-40 bowls in 30-40 different cities. Many of these bowls are so ingrained into the town in which they're held that if you took that bowl away, you'd be pissing off a lot of folks in addition to taking a lot of money out of a lot of people's pockets (and I don't mean bowl chairmen, I mean restaurant, bar, and hotel owners).
  
  Your next argument no doubt is "But the different playoff games will BE the bowls!" which is a relatively fair point, but still doesn't take into account the fact that currently many people who attend bowl games will spend upwards of a week in the town in which the bowl is held. Think of it, if your team is in the Rose Bowl or the Fiesta Bowl you're gonna wanna spend as much time in Pasadena or Phoenix as possible, which is what happens. So what if the Fiesta Bowl is just the National Semi-Final and the winner still goes on to play in some other city with expensive hotel rooms and even more expensive game tickets? Are you gonna spend $500-1000 in Phoenix, only to go to say New Orleans and spend even more the following week? Maybe fans will just save their money and go to the National Championship instead of the earlier rounds. Then their team gets upset and instead of going to at least 1 guaranteed game, they went to none.
  
  The point is, as they are, Bowl games are the pinnacle of a week-long event in most cities, and those cities and their economies are banking on a week's worth of money. Will these cities crumble and fall without that money? No. But try explaining to someone that you took $100,000 out of their pocket because you thought a playoff MIGHT be more entertaining and fair. I don't buy it.
  
  Boise State would be a Cinderella National Champion! Everyone would love it!
  No. Nobody would love it. More importantly, nobody would watch it. Why? Because when it comes down to it, the average joe doesn't give a shit about TCU or Boise. Listen....if you're reading this post right now, you are a pretty die-hard college football fan and sports fan in general. Nobody at the NCAA or ESPN or any of the other powers that be are doing ANYTHING to try and please you. Why? BECAUSE YOU'LL WATCH ANYWAY. Playoff? You'll watch. Bowl game? You'll watch. Make the coaches play Duck Duck Goose to determine a national champion? You'd plan your wedding around it. Who they're really trying to reel in and please is the average fan. Someone who only KINDA watches college football. They don't really know who TCU is, or care for that matter. They don't remember their drunk dad yelling about Utah on saturdays growing up. Alabama? Oh yeah. Ohio State? You betcha. Oklahoma? Notre Dame? Penn State? USC? They are brands. They get people to watch. Utah doesn't. Neither does TCU or Boise State. Don't believe me? CHECK THE RATINGS. Seriously. Go check the ratings for every single BCS bowl game involving those teams and see how they stack up to a game between sayyyyy Notre Dame and Ohio State. Or Oklahoma and Florida.
  
  I know what you're thinking. That it doesn't matter. Its not fair that just because Notre Dame is a known brand that they should be overhyped and overrated by the media for 20 years and the upstart programs ignored. Maybe its not fair. But when people say a playoff would be BETTER and MORE EXCITING than how it is now because Boise State would get a fair chance I say: "How is it better and more exciting if no one cares and no one watches?"
  
  So whats the moral of this story? Well, try this on for size. If you don't like the bowl system, don't watch the bowls. Seriously, the minute they start to see the ratings for the Rose Bowl or the Sugar Bowl go down, they'll change instantly in the name of the almighty dollar.
  
  Now....these were just a few of the most popular arguments off the top of my head. If you think of some more good arguments, please submit them in the thread to follow and I will be happy to fill a few paragraphs with some bold print, a LITTLE BIT OF CAPS LOCK, and overall smug and smartass comments to show you why you're wrong.
  
  EDIT: I Forgot one of the big ones! NO ONE can agree on a better system
  This is hilarious. Its like health care. Everyone thinks theres a problem but no one can agree on a solution. How many teams are in this playoff? 4? 8? 12? 16? I'm sure you'll all chime in with your own ingenious solution, but even the people who agree with you can't agree with you! The BCS may be flawed, but it happens to be the result of a situation just like this. No one really had a great solution so they did the best with what they could. And I'm sure I'll hear the inevitable "ANYTHING would be better than what we have" which is just a flat out retarded statement. A 16 team playoff would be better than the ultimate showdown between the top two teams in the country? BULLSHIT.
• Fab1b

  

  That's a hell of a post!!
• trep14

  Just a few things. I wouldn't say that it is the bowls that make college football so popular. After all, one of the most popular events in all of college sports is March Madness. Also, the NFL has a playoff system and it is considered to be the most popular sport out there. The cap on top of the playoff system, the Super Bowl, is one of the most viewed sporting events.
  
  As for the fairness argument, well thats just dumb. What we argue about now comes down to "who is more deserving to go to the BCS NC game?". If there was a playoff, that would be determined on the field. You know, the place where teams actually play the games. It wouldn't be made by some guys in suits. As for the argument about where do we cut the playoff system off? Well it is a lot easier to argue about why the 5th place ACC team isn't deserving of getting in to March Madness than about why undefeated Texas and Alabama are more deserving of playing in the BCS NC game than an undefeated Cincy, Boise State, or TCU.
  
  No one is going to argue that the bowl games or the bowl system in general is boring. Its not. There is nothing boring about watching OSU play Oregon or Wisconsin play Miami or so on. And I think the attendance issue about a playoff system could be solved by seeding the playoff teams and having the higher seeded team host the game until the final four, which is played at a neutral site. You mean to tell me OSU fans wouldn't pack the 'Shoe to watch OSU play a first round game against some other big time college football team? And that the other team wouldn't also bring some fans that would still be able to travel and watch the game? Sure the cities that host the bowl games now would lose out on some money, but oh well, guess what, college football wasn't made to profit random cities. And whose to say that such a playoff system isn't going to be lucrative for sponsors? Fans would still go to the game and fans would still tune in to watch.
  
  [Edit: And before you make a comment about how my idea of having a seeding system with the higher seeded team hosting the game is evidence that no one can agree on a playoff system so we shouldn't change it, let me go ahead and say that I, and almost any other playoff system proponent, would be willing to get behind almost anything that would represent a change from the status quo].
  
  And your last paragraph...well, if Boise wins out this year and OSU and/or Bama stumble, well it is possible that Boise will be in the national championship game this year. And if you think no one will care, well you will be in for a rude awakening. Did you not see the 19 page thread about Boise earlier? Think about what it will be like if they actually make it to the NC game. I think some people might actually commit suicide.
  
  (Oh, and about how no one would watch a game that they were in...well people still tuned in to watch them take on Oklahoma, right? People tuned in when Utah depantsed Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. More people tuned in to watch Boise/TCU last year than did Georgia Tech/Iowa. Heck, for NC game comparisons, people tuned in to watch Butler take on Duke in college basketball)
  
  Yeah you can say because the ratings of a Utah-Alabama game aren't as high as Oklahoma-Florida that certainly makes changing the current system harder, but its not really a defense of the current system. I don't get why fans take it upon themselves to defend how much money these guys make off of the system under the disguise of "tradition", especially when you have the bigwigs coming out and saying as much. I remember Gordon Gee writing in to the Dispatch about how a playoff would absolutely destroy the tradition of the game and would just be a terrible idea. Yet he was one of the guys who was all for moving the Ohio State-Michigan game to set up a Big 10 CCG between the two because they could make more money off of it. Thats the equivalent of taking a dump on college football tradition.
• enigmaax

  Damn. Yeah.
• trep14

  Mooney44Cards;476267 wrote: A 16 team playoff would be better than the ultimate showdown between the top two teams in the country? BULLSHIT.

  
  I found this quote to be particularly funny. You mean a 16 team playoff system that would actually lead to the ultimate showdown between the top two teams in the country isn't better than throwing two teams with good records together and having them play each other for the "national championship"?
• BoatShoes

  I don't think your points in the "It's not fair" section are good. I don't think that's the issue...the issue is that the champion is not crowned through the triumphant victory over all other potential claims to the crown.
  
  Colleges from across the country form regional conferences. The teams in those conferences play one another to determine the best team in that conference. The winners of these conferences play the winners of another conference in the same region. The winners of that region go on to play the winners of another region and then you have a champion of the nation; a team that has conquered the best of the best from all the land, on the field.
  
  Everyone's complaining about how Boise St. beat Va Tech and now get to roll through the year...let's skip those big non-conference games early in the year and when Boise wins their Conference; let them take on the Sun Belt Champ...then if they Win...the winner of the Pac-10 v. Mountain West...and so on and so forth.
  
  It's called the Mythical National Champion because in this system you have not triumphed over everyone. It's that simple.
  
  You want to keep this system? Fine...but that means you're fine with no real national champion either...and that's ok I suppose.... that's fine if you don't love a winner....but, as is said in the famous speech from Patton. "...Americans love a winner."
• BoatShoes

  trep14;476299 wrote:I found this quote to be particularly funny. You mean a 16 team playoff system that would actually lead to the ultimate showdown between the top two teams in the country isn't better than throwing two teams with good records together and having them play each other for the national championship?

  
  Exactly...that's the point...we have no idea if the two in the BCS MNC game are the two best teams....in a playoff, they've proved it on the field....crushing their enemies, seeing them driven before them and hearing the lamentations of the other school's coeds.
• Mooney44Cards

  

  LOL @ all the talk of REAL and ACTUAL champions. Its all semantics. If you don't want to call Alabama the REAL national champions from last year, be my guest. I won't call the winner of your playoffs a national champion either. See how easy that is? Its just words! But I'll bet Alabama doesn't think "damn that was fun but I wish we were the REAL national champions and not the make-believe ones".
  
  I mean if your best argument is about semantics then this will be a short thread.
• trep14

  Well, its not really arguing semantics. Reread your post: " A 16 team playoff would be better than the ultimate showdown between the top two teams in the country? BULLSHIT. " I mean how do you know that Alabama and Texas were the top two teams in the country? Wouldn't a 16 team playoff, which you mockingly suggested, be a better indicator of that?
• BoatShoes

  Mooney44Cards;476313 wrote:LOL @ all the talk of REAL and ACTUAL champions. Its all semantics. If you don't want to call Alabama the REAL national champions from last year, be my guest. I won't call the winner of your playoffs a national champion either. See how easy that is? Its just words! But I'll bet Alabama doesn't think "damn that was fun but I wish we were the REAL national champions and not the make-believe ones".
  
  I mean if your best argument is about semantics then this will be a short thread.

  
  Suppose the United States, Germany and England all want to conquer the moon and the United Nations sets up a system wherein only the U.S. and Germany get to fight each other for the rights to moon based on the fact that they were rated to have better armies by some international relations journalists, and England is sitting their with loaded guns.......when the U.S. wins, do they really have a legitimate claim to the moon?
  
  As opposed to Germany batting England, and then the U.S. battling the winner and the triumphant army has earned the moon through the crushing defeat of other claimants?
  
  
  It's not about semantics. It's about beating everyone
  
  If Apple and Google both lay claim to the Cell phone market...they share the market....if other companies who can enter that market are perfectly capable and are barred by silly rules....can the owners of that market really have a true victory?
  
  The American way is to see your competition and crush it on the field, in the market, in the classroom etc.
  
  There has never been a real college football champion...but out of pride and perhaps natural human ego...no one's going to not claim a national championship.
• Mooney44Cards

  

  BoatShoes;476321 wrote:Suppose the United States, Germany and England all want to conquer the moon and the United Nations sets up a system wherein only the U.S. and Germany get to fight each other for the rights to moon based on the fact that they were rated to have better armies by some international relations journalists, and England is sitting their with loaded guns.......when the U.S. wins, do they really have a legitimate claim to the moon?
  
  As opposed to Germany batting England, and then the U.S. battling the winner and the triumphant army has earned the moon through the crushing defeat of other claimants?
  
  
  It's not about semantics. It's about beating everyone
  
  If Apple and Google both lay claim to the Cell phone market...they share the market....if other companies who can enter that market are perfectly capable and are barred by silly rules....can the owners of that market really have a true victory?
  
  The American way is to see your competition and crush it on the field, in the market, in the classroom etc.
  
  There has never been a real college football champion...but out of pride and perhaps natural human ego...no one's going to not claim a national championship.

  
  I stopped reading at "conquer the moon".
• BoatShoes

  Mooney44Cards;476327 wrote:I stopped reading at "conquer the moon".

  
  Substitute Antarctica and the point remains
• Jughead

  

  120 team playoff = 7 weeks of games. Do it NCAA. You already stretch the game out 5 weeks after the regular season anyway.
• trep14

  Mooney44Cards;476327 wrote:I stopped reading at "conquer the moon".

  
  But while his example is a little extreme, the concept of it is right on the money. How can you tell me that Alabama and Texas were better than Boise State, TCU, or Cincy (before the bowl game and they were blown out by Florida after their coach deserted them) last year? Because Bama and Texas played better competition and were more "deserving" of the NC game? Better competition doesn't necessarily mean the team is better. They didn't play each other. I would venture to say that all of them probably hardly had any common opponents.
• BoatShoes

  And it's not semantics...it's a basic understanding of what the word "champion" means. If I call a "desk" a "tree" and argue fervently that it is, indeed, a "tree," it nonetheless does not make that "desk" a "tree." Words obtain their meaning external to their utterer's intention...in other words "meaning ain't in the head." This has been the prevailing view in the Philosophy of Language since Hilary Putnam's Twin Earth thought experiment.
  
  The word Champion means:
  
  cham·pi·on   [cham-pee-uhn] Show IPA
  –noun
  1.
  a person who has defeated all opponents in a competition or series of competitions, so as to hold first place: the heavyweight boxing champion.
  
  In the BCS, the BCS "champion" does not meet the basic definition of a "champion" as they have not "defeated all opponents" and you or anyone else calling them a "champion" does not change that fact.
• enigmaax

  trep14;476320 wrote:Well, its not really arguing semantics. Reread your post: " A 16 team playoff would be better than the ultimate showdown between the top two teams in the country? BULLSHIT. " I mean how do you know that Alabama and Texas were the top two teams in the country? Wouldn't a 16 team playoff, which you mockingly suggested, be a better indicator of that?

  
  I would rather see a playoff as a fan, but I also don't think college football needs it. Tournaments in general only determine who was the best for a couple of games. I'm not a big fan of 13-loss teams getting the chance to get hot for a couple weeks and be called champions (college basketball). For that matter, I'm not real sure the 5-loss Giants who happened to upset a previously undefeated New England (after losing to them once already) were really the "best team" over the whole season.
  
  I realize college football doesn't play a round robin. I also realize that that the season itself is mostly regional and not nearly the sample size as some other sports. But, I'm content to say that while you may be able to say "this team would've gotten a shot if it were 4/8/16 teams", it is very rare that you can say either of the two teams didn't deserve to be there.
• Zombaypirate

  Worst Post I have ever read online. If I were Trump I would say YOU'RE FIRED!
• enigmaax

  BoatShoes;476345 wrote:
  The word Champion means:
  
  the heavyweight boxing champion.
  
  In the BCS, the BCS "champion" does not meet the basic definition of a "champion" as they have not "defeated all opponents" and you or anyone else calling them a "champion" does not change that fact.

  
  Poor choice. The heavyweight boxing champion hasn't necessarily beaten all opponents. The heavyweight boxing champion fights how many times a year? Really, a boxing champ only has to win one match - his title fight.
  
  Just like the BCS champion who defeats all opponents in the title game.
• BoatShoes

  enigmaax;476346 wrote:I would rather see a playoff as a fan, but I also don't think college football needs it. Tournaments in general only determine who was the best for a couple of games. I'm not a big fan of 13-loss teams getting the chance to get hot for a couple weeks and be called champions (college basketball). For that matter, I'm not real sure the 5-loss Giants who happened to upset a previously undefeated New England (after losing to them once already) were really the "best team" over the whole season.
  
  I realize college football doesn't play a round robin. I also realize that that the season itself is mostly regional and not nearly the sample size as some other sports. But, I'm content to say that while you may be able to say "this team would've gotten a shot if it were 4/8/16 teams", it is very rare that you can say either of the two teams didn't deserve to be there.

  
  I'm not so sure the Minute Men and the Colonial Army were the best...the sure didn't seem it....maybe they caught the Red Coats on a bad stretch...If the Brits deserved to be here they would have beat our forefathers on the battlefield.
• trep14

  enigmaax;476346 wrote:I would rather see a playoff as a fan, but I also don't think college football needs it. Tournaments in general only determine who was the best for a couple of games. I'm not a big fan of 13-loss teams getting the chance to get hot for a couple weeks and be called champions (college basketball). For that matter, I'm not real sure the 5-loss Giants who happened to upset a previously undefeated New England (after losing to them once already) were really the "best team" over the whole season.
  
  I realize college football doesn't play a round robin. I also realize that that the season itself is mostly regional and not nearly the sample size as some other sports. But, I'm content to say that while you may be able to say "this team would've gotten a shot if it were 4/8/16 teams", it is very rare that you can say either of the two teams didn't deserve to be there.

  
  That is a valid point, and the Giants are the perfect examples of it. A postseason playoff system does tend to reward the "hot" team, which may not have been the best team all season long. There isn't a postseason system that is out there that is perfect, but that doesn't mean we should accept mediocrity where there could be improvement. Because college football is such a regional game and there is so little overlap between opponents, I tend to think a postseason playoff is the best solution to determining who the most deserving teams are, especially since there are very few years where it is cut and dry, such as 2002 where there were only two undefeated teams left in Ohio State and Miami or 2005 where it was Texas and USC. But nothing is perfect and I understand your point.
• BoatShoes

  enigmaax;476349 wrote:Poor choice. The heavyweight boxing champion hasn't necessarily beaten all opponents. The heavyweight boxing champion fights how many times a year? Really, a boxing champ only has to win one match - his title fight.
  
  Just like the BCS champion who defeats all opponents in the title game.

  
  Dude, he beat the guy, who beat the guy, who beat the guy to earn his shot at the heavyweight title......if there's a playoff system and tOSU earns its way to play Alabama in the NC Game and never played Vandy....they still de facto beat Vandy if they beat Alabama because Alabama conquered, say, Florida who conquered Vandy.
  
  If Muhammad Ali beats George Foreman...he de facto beat Joe Frazier because Foreman beat Frazier......boxing happens to be a sport where there can be rematches with the same people (unlike college football).
• trep14

  I think another logical argument against the playoff (I'm not buying the "what's fair", "too much money is at stake", "it would ruin college football and make like any other sport" arguments above) is that it would tend to devalue the regular season. Every week of the season wouldn't be as much of a do-or-die mode as it is now and teams could sandbag for a game or two, rest up, and tear up the playoffs (much like the Celtics in the NBA this season). Which I think is one of the biggest arguments against a 16 team playoff. You would be letting in a lot of flawed teams that have tripped up along the way and opening doors for teams like the Celtics and '07 Giants, who have lots of talent but haven't really gelled until the end. But then, thats the whole argument of finding out who the best team is on the field. If they can run through 3 or 4 high quality opponents in a row, can you really make a case against them? I personally would rather have it that way than just assuming that one undefeated team could beat another undefeated team and never actually getting any closure on the matter.
• j_crazy

  

  Jughead;476337 wrote:120 team playoff = 7 weeks of games. Do it NCAA. You already stretch the game out 5 weeks after the regular season anyway.

  
  This is my sentiment. If there's no playoff then IMO you can't necessarily call the NC the best team. Which to me is not good for the sport.
• like_that

  

  Hmmmm one meaningful game after the regular season, which at times a lot of people might not agree with (see nebraska vs miami, or oklahoma vs usc) VS a playoff (lets just say 12 teams) with 9 meaningful games after the regular season.
• enigmaax

  BoatShoes;476363 wrote:Dude, he beat the guy, who beat the guy, who beat the guy to earn his shot at the heavyweight title......if there's a playoff system and tOSU earns its way to play Alabama in the NC Game and never played Vandy....they still de facto beat Vandy if they beat Alabama because Alabama conquered, say, Florida who conquered Vandy.
  
  If Muhammad Ali beats George Foreman...he de facto beat Joe Frazier because Foreman beat Frazier......boxing happens to be a sport where there can be rematches with the same people (unlike college football).

  
  I just find this to be ridiculous, especially since the argument for a playoff is to settle it on the field and then you are using "de facto" wins as your support. The point is, boxing picks two people to fight for the title. College football picks two teams to play for the title. Whoever quoted what a champion is defeated his/her own point since boxing was the example.