The Definitive NO PLAYOFF Thread

• sleeper

  

  Mooney44Cards;477003 wrote:When did this thread turn into a Big Ten vs. SEC pissing match? Take it elsewhere.

  
  Because your thread is garbage and is purely a ploy to get ND into the Championship game. If there was a playoff, ND would never get out of the first round, and any rational college football fan knows this.
• Mooney44Cards

  

  A ploy huh? Man, I hope I swayed the BCS committee and poll voters with my thread on an internet message board! Please keep embarrassing yourself with your boring and overplayed internet persona.
• sleeper

  

  Mooney44Cards;477024 wrote:A ploy huh? Man, I hope I swayed the BCS committee and poll voters with my thread on an internet message board! Please keep embarrassing yourself with your boring and overplayed internet persona.

  
  Keep embarrassing yourself by supporting a team that stumbled their way to 1 bowl victory in 20 years. There's always next year though right? The cupboard was bare because Weis was there right? ND fans are a joke, enjoy mediocrity.
• enigmaax

  trep14;476939 wrote:The idea is that the team who lost two games to crappy teams A) probably wouldn't make the playoffs, or B) if that team is as crappy as you say they are, they probably won't run a gauntlet against good teams in a playoff system. Likewise, if Bama is as good as you are making them out to be and they deserve to go to the championship game, they won't lose to the #8 team in the country.
  
  Its not just the NFL. Its literally every single other sport and every single level of football, including other NCAA divisions, that have a postseason tournament to determine a champion. Why? Because it is the closest way we can come to determining who the best team is on the field. And the idea of "everyone else does it so it must be better" is flawed? Not really. Just because college football's system is making money doesn't mean its model is a better indicator of who the best team is. So yes, that is a legitimate reason to change it. And who says that a playoff wouldn't be as lucrative? Haven't you seen the posts of other fans that are on this thread? Like a 3 week playoff at the end of the college football season would be anything but awesome?

  
  There IS a playoff in college football. They take the top 2 teams. You just want more teams included.
  
  And again, I've said I would rather see a playoff. But a playoff doesn't prove who the best team is and money IS a very large factor. You have to come up with a better reason to change a system that accomplishes everything that an expanded playoff does - determines a champion thru a head-to-head game and makes money for the sport.
  
  The posts on this thread and what a fan thinks would be awesome does not automatically translate to dollars or success. College football isn't going to get much more popular than it already is with a playoff. So, why take a risk without a solid business plan - and a business plan isn't going to get by on "we think fans would love it".
• sherm03

  

  sleeper;476976 wrote:This is delusional.
  
  8 team playoff, the 6 power conferences send their champion, and then you have 2 wildcards.
  
  These wild cards are given priority to the other non-power conferences given, 1)They have won their conference, 2)They are ranked in the top 8
  
  If no non-power conferences qualify, then the next 2 highest ranked teams NOT already in the tournament get placed accordingly. Seeding is done by poll rankings.
  
  Tressel would be stupid to throw away games at the end of the season, because even if you already have the conference locked up, you want to get a better seed.

  Dumb idea and doesn't solve the problem of "deciding it on the field."
  
  Let me post a hypothetical to you. Take your argument that top to bottom the Big 10 is the best league in the NCAA. And let's assume that next year Ohio State (who finishes the regular season ranked at #2) and a team like Nebraska (who happens to finish the season ranked #3) play in the Big 10 Championship game, with Ohio State winning. The only problem is, going into the game, the teams were ranked #2 and #3. So Nebraska doesn't drop in the polls, but they don't have the Big 10 Championship. The other conference champions get in from your playoff scenario. So Nebraska, the #3 team in the country...gets shut out of the playoffs because they didn't win the Big 10 and the 2 wildcard spots are taken by two teams ranked below them from a lesser conference.
  
  See...playoffs aren't fair either.
• sleeper

  

  sherm03;477121 wrote:Dumb idea and doesn't solve the problem of "deciding it on the field."
  
  Let me post a hypothetical to you. Take your argument that top to bottom the Big 10 is the best league in the NCAA. And let's assume that next year Ohio State (who finishes the regular season ranked at #2) and a team like Nebraska (who happens to finish the season ranked #3) play in the Big 10 Championship game, with Ohio State winning. The only problem is, going into the game, the teams were ranked #2 and #3. So Nebraska doesn't drop in the polls, but they don't have the Big 10 Championship. The other conference champions get in from your playoff scenario. So Nebraska, the #3 team in the country...gets shut out of the playoffs because they didn't win the Big 10 and the 2 wildcard spots are taken by two teams ranked below them from a lesser conference.
  
  See...playoffs aren't fair either.

  
  Nebraska has no room to talk, win your conference and you're in. Problem solved.
• sherm03

  

  But, hypothetically speaking, a one-loss #3 team that is a conference runner up is surely better than a (let's say) 2-loss #14 team that just won the Big East...right?
  
  So just because they won the conference, that garbage Big East winner gets in over the #3 team in the country? Come on now sleeper. Even you aren't that dumb to think that won't cause problems.
  
  Unless you're saying that the conference championship game is sort of part of the playoffs. Kind of like...if you don't win that, you aren't going to get the chance to play for the National Championship. Because if that's what you mean...that sounds awfully familiar to what we have in place right now.
• Mooney44Cards

  

  There isn't one sport where the top X amount of teams get in the playoffs, which therefore makes the playoffs a terrible way to decide a "best" team because not all the top teams are included. The Boston Red Sox are better than A LOT of teams that are going to make the playoffs this year and they won't get a shot to prove it because of unbalanced divisions and automatic qualifiers. Its that way in every sport. The AFC North is gonna be stacked this year with the Bengals, Steelers, and Ravens and the NFC West will be complete garbage. I'll probably end up saying that the 3rd place AFC North team is better than the NFC West champ, yet the 3rd place AFC North team has no way to prove they can contend for a Super Bowl.
  
  So basically the argument FOR a playoff is that teams that are capable of winning a championship are given the chance to prove it on the field, yet in almost every sport, lesser teams are included in a playoff over teams who are much more capable of winning. So we end up at the same impasse.
  
  And if your next argument is to just let in the top X amount of teams in college football, you're delusional because NO conference will agree to the playoffs without a guarantee that their conference champion has an automatic bid into said playoffs.
  
  Face it folks, no matter how much sense it makes in YOUR head, its a nightmare logistically in terms of actually trying to implement something like this. Which is why I laugh when someone goes "Its simple, all you do is....." and then give their solution without thinking of the ramifications of that scenario. You have to think of every possible "what if" and then come up with a solution for that problem. If they implement the playoffs without exploring all of that, and then get caught with their pants down because they "never thought of that" it'll be an even bigger controversy than what we already have.
• Fab4Runner

  

  Mooney44Cards;477262 wrote:
  Face it folks, no matter how much sense it makes in YOUR head, its a nightmare logistically in terms of actually trying to implement something like this. Which is why I laugh when someone goes "Its simple, all you do is....." and then give their solution without thinking of the ramifications of that scenario. You have to think of every possible "what if" and then come up with a solution for that problem. If they implement the playoffs without exploring all of that, and then get caught with their pants down because they "never thought of that" it'll be an even bigger controversy than what we already have.

  And that just sounds like a big cop out. Rather that really working on a solution or a better way of doing things you just keep it the same to avoid a "logistic nightmare". Things change. It takes a lot of work, thought, practice, etc. To simply use it being difficult as a reason to keep the flawed system we have is weak, IMO.
• Mooney44Cards

  

  Fab4Runner;477362 wrote:And that just sounds like a big cop out. Rather that really working on a solution or a better way of doing things you just keep it the same to avoid a "logistic nightmare". Things change. It takes a lot of work, thought, practice, etc. To simply use it being difficult as a reason to keep the flawed system we have is weak, IMO.

  Exactly. Yet despite the fact that "everyone" seems to want a playoff, nobody is willing to do the thinking to actually figure out a good solution. Not fans. Not the schools that get "shafted". Not even a private enterprise similar to the BCS. Change for the sake of change without a good alternative is worse than not changing at all, especially considering its not like college football is struggling at the moment (quite the contrary). Notice how I bolded the word "better" in your statement. Thats the point. Nothing I've ever heard in terms of a playoff plan is better than what we already have if you actually break it down.
• trep14

  Mooney44Cards;477262 wrote:There isn't one sport where the top X amount of teams get in the playoffs, which therefore makes the playoffs a terrible way to decide a "best" team because not all the top teams are included. The Boston Red Sox are better than A LOT of teams that are going to make the playoffs this year and they won't get a shot to prove it because of unbalanced divisions and automatic qualifiers. Its that way in every sport. The AFC North is gonna be stacked this year with the Bengals, Steelers, and Ravens and the NFC West will be complete garbage. I'll probably end up saying that the 3rd place AFC North team is better than the NFC West champ, yet the 3rd place AFC North team has no way to prove they can contend for a Super Bowl.
  
  So basically the argument FOR a playoff is that teams that are capable of winning a championship are given the chance to prove it on the field, yet in almost every sport, lesser teams are included in a playoff over teams who are much more capable of winning. So we end up at the same impasse.
  
  And if your next argument is to just let in the top X amount of teams in college football, you're delusional because NO conference will agree to the playoffs without a guarantee that their conference champion has an automatic bid into said playoffs.
  
  Face it folks, no matter how much sense it makes in YOUR head, its a nightmare logistically in terms of actually trying to implement something like this. Which is why I laugh when someone goes "Its simple, all you do is....." and then give their solution without thinking of the ramifications of that scenario. You have to think of every possible "what if" and then come up with a solution for that problem. If they implement the playoffs without exploring all of that, and then get caught with their pants down because they "never thought of that" it'll be an even bigger controversy than what we already have.

  
  I guess it all comes back to it is significantly easier to make a case against the 3rd place in the AL East Boston Red Sox or make a case against the third place AFC North team than it is an undefeated team or a 1 loss team when all other teams in the national championship picture have 1 loss.
• trep14

  Mooney44Cards;477370 wrote:Exactly. Yet despite the fact that "everyone" seems to want a playoff, nobody is willing to do the thinking to actually figure out a good solution. Not fans. Not the schools that get "shafted". Not even a private enterprise similar to the BCS. Change for the sake of change without a good alternative is worse than not changing at all, especially considering its not like college football is struggling at the moment (quite the contrary). Notice how I bolded the word "better" in your statement. Thats the point. Nothing I've ever heard in terms of a playoff plan is better than what we already have if you actually break it down.

  
  Is that really an argument against a playoff though? Does saying no one agrees on a playoff make the current system any less flawed? Does pointing out flaws in a playoff system make the current system any less flawed? Is the fact that you don't think people can agree on a playoff system a good reason for a fan not to support one?
• trep14

  sherm03;477226 wrote:But, hypothetically speaking, a one-loss #3 team that is a conference runner up is surely better than a (let's say) 2-loss #14 team that just won the Big East...right?
  
  So just because they won the conference, that garbage Big East winner gets in over the #3 team in the country? Come on now sleeper. Even you aren't that dumb to think that won't cause problems.
  
  Unless you're saying that the conference championship game is sort of part of the playoffs. Kind of like...if you don't win that, you aren't going to get the chance to play for the National Championship. Because if that's what you mean...that sounds awfully familiar to what we have in place right now.

  
  The flip side of that being when you have a situation like 2006, where OSU and Michigan are ranked #1 and #2 and the Big Ten appears to be a bunch of worldbeaters and people are calling for an OSU- Michigan rematch in the NC game. Then OSU gets waxed in the NC game against a quality opponent and Michigan goes and gets waxed in the Rose Bowl by a quality opponent and neither appear to have any business being there in the first place. Do you think that OSU or Michigan would have sniffed the NC game in a playoff?
  
  And this isn't hypothetical, because it actually happened.
• trep14

  enigmaax;477087 wrote:There IS a playoff in college football. They take the top 2 teams. You just want more teams included.
  
  And again, I've said I would rather see a playoff. But a playoff doesn't prove who the best team is and money IS a very large factor. You have to come up with a better reason to change a system that accomplishes everything that an expanded playoff does - determines a champion thru a head-to-head game and makes money for the sport.
  
  The posts on this thread and what a fan thinks would be awesome does not automatically translate to dollars or success. College football isn't going to get much more popular than it already is with a playoff. So, why take a risk without a solid business plan - and a business plan isn't going to get by on "we think fans would love it".

  Which brings us back to the whole thing about how nobody actually knows who the top 2 teams are. In any sort of playoff system, you are not going to have to choose between multiple unbeaten teams to match up in the "national championship game". And you are right, college football is a business, first and foremost. You can see that right away, when the NCAA tells Reggie Bush that he has to give back his heisman because he was ineligible to play, yet you don't see the NCAA refunding all the money they earned off of Reggie Bush playing when he was ineligible. Which is why I'm not surprised that the NCAA allows the BCS to exist. As long as they are getting paid, they are happy, even if it is at the expense of their athletes. But just because it makes money doesn't make it right, nor does it make it the best solution.
• sherm03

  

  trep14;477503 wrote:Which brings us back to the whole thing about how nobody actually knows who the top 2 teams are. In any sort of playoff system, you are not going to have to choose between multiple unbeaten teams to match up in the "national championship game".

  
  You are correct. But in a playoff system you are going to have to decide between multiple 1 and 2 loss teams to determine who is worthy enough of getting into the playoffs for the chance to make a run at a National Championship.
• Mooney44Cards

  

  2004 Boise State Broncos: 11-0 at the end of the regular season.
  
  Final rankings: 10 (AP, Coaches)
  
  2006 Boise State Broncos: 11-0 at the end of the regular season
  
  Final rankings: 9 (AP, Coaches)
  
  So both scenarios, Boise State (the example of why a playoff should exist) still wouldn't be in a playoff, and still would be undefeated and playing in a bowl game. But it doesn't happen that often, right?
  
  2007 Hawaii Warriors: 12-0 at the end of the regular season
  
  Final rankings: 10th (BCS, AP, Coaches)
  
  2008 Boise State Broncos: 12-0 at the end of the regular season
  
  Final rankings: 9th (BCS, AP, Coaches)
  
  Hell.....last year was the first time an undefeated Boise State team even finished in the top 8 (6th) and you could probably chalk that up to there being only 1 one-loss team in the entire Top 25 (Florida).
  
  And if you're going to tell me there should be 16 teams in the playoffs I'm going to laugh.
• trep14

  Mooney44Cards;477666 wrote:2004 Boise State Broncos: 11-0 at the end of the regular season.
  
  Final rankings: 10 (AP, Coaches)
  
  2006 Boise State Broncos: 11-0 at the end of the regular season
  
  Final rankings: 9 (AP, Coaches)
  
  So both scenarios, Boise State (the example of why a playoff should exist) still wouldn't be in a playoff, and still would be undefeated and playing in a bowl game. But it doesn't happen that often, right?
  
  2007 Hawaii Warriors: 12-0 at the end of the regular season
  
  Final rankings: 10th (BCS, AP, Coaches)
  
  2008 Boise State Broncos: 12-0 at the end of the regular season
  
  Final rankings: 9th (BCS, AP, Coaches)
  
  Hell.....last year was the first time an undefeated Boise State team even finished in the top 8 (6th) and you could probably chalk that up to there being only 1 one-loss team in the entire Top 25 (Florida).
  
  And if you're going to tell me there should be 16 teams in the playoffs I'm going to laugh.

  
  The fact that an unbeaten team could barely crack the top 10 of the polls is more of an indictment on the fact that preseason polls carry so much weight than anything about a playoff. Preseason polls are a joke. It takes forever to drop teams out of the top 25 and forever to reward teams that are deserving of actually being in the top 25 because of preseason polls.
• trep14

  sherm03;477662 wrote:You are correct. But in a playoff system you are going to have to decide between multiple 1 and 2 loss teams to determine who is worthy enough of getting into the playoffs for the chance to make a run at a National Championship.

  
  That is true. Even if an 8 team playoff system existed, the 2007 year, where there were a bunch of 1 and 2 loss teams, would have still been absolutely chaotic over who got in to the playoffs. Even years like 2006 there would have been controversy. Someone would still be on the outside looking in, there is no debating that. I would counter that would you rather be arguing about a 2-loss team having a chance to play in a playoff for the national championship or a 1-loss team getting in to the nc game over another 1-loss team (because most years there is only a handful of 1 loss teams)...or even worse an undefeated team being left on the outside looking in.
• sherm03

  

  trep14;477713 wrote:The fact that an unbeaten team could barely crack the top 10 of the polls is more of an indictment on the fact that preseason polls carry so much weight than anything about a playoff. Preseason polls are a joke. It takes forever to drop teams out of the top 25 and forever to reward teams that are deserving of actually being in the top 25 because of preseason polls.

  I agree wholeheartedly with this.
  
  Like I said before...if you can eliminate preseason polls, it would eliminate SOME of the complaints with the BCS. Obviously that is not the overall fix for everything. But I do think that eliminating the preseason polls will give you a better idea of who the best teams are and eliminates the problem of a team ranked low or not at all going undefeated and not cracking the top 10.
• jordo212000

  

  Nobody answered my first question... Why do they play the National Championship? Why can't they let the computers decide who the better team was? Couldn't the BCS just decide who the champion is?
  
  My point is that nobody in their right mind would think that using a computer and a couple of polls to decide the champion is the right thing to do. You have to settle it on the field. Now consider that this the way they decide who plays in the championship. There are so many variables and biases that come into play, it's not even funny. Time to settle the championship on the field. It shouldn't be who has the largest fan base, or who made the rules, or who might get the best ratings.
• sherm03

  

  jordo212000;477745 wrote:Nobody answered my first question... Why do they play the National Championship? Why can't they let the computers decide who the better team was? Couldn't the BCS just decide who the champion is?
  
  My point is that nobody in their right mind would think that using a computer and a couple of polls to decide the champion is the right thing to do. You have to settle it on the field. Now consider that this the way they decide who plays in the championship. There are so many variables and biases that come into play, it's not even funny. Time to settle the championship on the field. It shouldn't be who has the largest fan base, or who made the rules, or who might get the best ratings.

  So then how do you propose to select the teams to go into the playoffs? Your words are that there are biases and variables that come into play if you let polls and computers decide the bowl games. So then what should we use to select the teams for the playoffs?
• enigmaax

  trep - You argument has a very narrow focus. There is a title game in the BCS system and in a playoff. Your whole drastic change revolves around one game that you'd like to see more teams have a different chance to make. It isn't a flaw in the system, it is just your opinion of how those two teams are selected. Overall, you'd like for 8 teams to play 7 games in a series that crowns a champion than have 35 games in a series that crowns a champion. You are excluding far more teams than you are including and ultimately there's still only going to be two teams that play for a title. How many times has there really been a huge controversy over who deserved to be playing in the title game? By and large teams know what they need to do and what they need to have happen and for the most part, the choices of who is and should be playing in the title game are pretty much a consensus.
  
  The thing I find funny about the polls argument is that the same people who say they shouldn't even start those until midseason are the ones who get pissed off when there's a mass change whether a team wins or loses. Like when LSU jumped some teams a few years ago or when Florida jumped Michigan. The only real vote that counts is the last one (regular season) and voters have proven that they are willing to evaluate the overall resume at that time and make the best decision. The whole preseason-polls-screw-teams argument is another lame one. I know Auburn will come up on this one and no one was going to vote Auburn ahead of those teams at any point, so no, their starting position did not screw them.
• jordo212000

  

  sherm03;477754 wrote:So then how do you propose to select the teams to go into the playoffs? Your words are that there are biases and variables that come into play if you let polls and computers decide the bowl games. So then what should we use to select the teams for the playoffs?

  
  The key is to make the variables play a much lesser role. One of the biases is the "________ can't play with the big boys so they never make it past #5 in the polls." If a playoff were around the little guy (who has been Utah and Boise) gets their chance when the game matters. Both teams have been stellar in the BCS. Now you put them to the test and make them beat two big boys two weeks in a row. Now we know good/bad they really are. Which is much better than the little guy sitting around still undefeated saying "what if?" after the season
• enigmaax

  sherm03;477754 wrote:So then how do you propose to select the teams to go into the playoffs? Your words are that there are biases and variables that come into play if you let polls and computers decide the bowl games. So then what should we use to select the teams for the playoffs?

  
  Guarantee you the only answer for this is to let every conference champion in. And anyone who says that is an idiot because then you're going to get 5-loss Sun Belt champs and 4-loss CUSA champs taking spots from 1 or 2 loss SEC and Big Ten teams and those same people are going to be pissed about getting slighted for a crappy team. And they'll be right back in the same spot as we are now, which is another reason why a playoff isn't any better, just different.
• jordo212000

  

  There's no way the Sun Belt will get anywhere close to a playoff. Heck Boise has had enough trouble and they have had an actual argument for them being there. It took external pressure to get the Boises and Utahs of the world more opportunity