Joel Klatts hate for the CFP Committee

[OnlyCyclones]

There argument is not that a loss to Iowa State is worse than Syracuse. They factor in that Clemson's QB was injured during the game despite the fact they were losing when he went down.
I've always hated how they factor in injuries. It's a part of the game.

EXACTLY. You can't hypothetically project how a game would go with X player. And, as Klatt points out, injuries happen everywhere to everyone. ISU's potentially on their third quarterback. OU has had a number of injuries. Do only QB injuries matter? What about opponents injuries? Stupid.

As soon as they came out with a committee the playoff lost its integrity. The people were the problem with the BCS, and everyone who critically looked at the BCS knew that, but as soon as ESPN inked the deal to make this committee happen, they were trumpeting the computers as the problem.

And since ESPN paid a LOT more for the playoff while still getting the same ratings, there's huge financial pressure to pick the best brands. Regarding the Big 12, there's also the problem that most of the committee has real incentive to leave it out. If they continually leave out the Big 12, it collapses, which leaves more of the CFB pie for them. Not to mention it makes their own leagues look better by comparison.

If ESPN was as objective as they claim to be, 1. the playoff would have never had a committee, and 2. they would be burning this ***** down instead of pumping it up.

Financial conflicts of interest between the biggest brand in sports and the sport itself have defined college football since the 90's. You can't be the news if you own the story.

 

[OnlyCyclones]

I should have put a disclaimer.

I don't watch that trash show. I was trying to find the video from The Herd yesterday too but couldn't locate it as easily as this one.

Pretty sure Barney on PBS gets higher viewership, too.

Undisputed and The Herd are both more watchable/listenable than anything similar on ESPN. ESPN gets better numbers because of the strength of their brand and production quality. If Fox Sports would up the quality of their general production (and game production, which makes Big 12 and Pac 12 games look bad by association), I think a lot would switch to primarily watching FS1.

 

[cyhiphopp]

Then make it so you avoid rematches as well as possible like they do in the NCAA tournament. This is entertainment. If it's all about getting the trophy to truly the best team, go back to playing the top 2 teams in the BCS and leave no room for upsets. No one has any problem with a large tournament deciding the champ in any other sport. No one. Every other football organization does it. The NCAA puts 20% of it's teams in the tournament and somehow they figure this all out. Give me more exciting football in December. You also give 8 home games to those top 8 seeds. After the expense of putting the game on, split it 75/25 with the teams playing. Those places will be packed.

As it stands, your first 4 games would be:


TCU @ Wisconsin
USC @ Auburn
PSU @ Georgia
OSU @ Notre Dame

Are you kidding me? Those four games on a Saturday in December? I'm not leaving the couch all day. If it's chalk, you'd then have:

ND @ Bama
Georgia@Clemson
Auburn @ Miami
Wisconsin @OU

That's incredible. We haven't even played bowl games! You could see Georgia play PSU, Clemson and USC all within a month! People would pay even more money for this if it was a PPV type of deal. I just don't get the desire to make the season the shortest you can.

Those all seem like great matchups, and I would love to watch them, but I don't know how well a 12 team playoff would go over. The first time a potential first rounder gets a knee injury in that 16th game of the year, everyone is going to flip out that we are making college kids play too many games when they aren't getting paid.

I think a 6 or 8 game playoff is fair to all conferences and still gives us a better model.

 

[ZB4CY]

Undisputed and The Herd are both more watchable/listenable than anything similar on ESPN. ESPN gets better numbers because of the strength of their brand and production quality. If Fox Sports would up the quality of their general production (and game production, which makes Big 12 and Pac 12 games look bad by association), I think a lot would switch to primarily watching FS1.

I watch The Herd every day for about 45 minutes.

 

[Clonefan32]

EXACTLY. You can't hypothetically project how a game would go with X player. And, as Klatt points out, injuries happen everywhere to everyone. ISU's potentially on their third quarterback. OU has had a number of injuries. Do only QB injuries matter? What about opponents injuries? Stupid.

As soon as they came out with a committee the playoff lost its integrity. The people were the problem with the BCS, and everyone who critically looked at the BCS knew that, but as soon as ESPN inked the deal to make this committee happen, they were trumpeting the computers as the problem.

And since ESPN paid a LOT more for the playoff while still getting the same ratings, there's huge financial pressure to pick the best brands. Regarding the Big 12, there's also the problem that most of the committee has real incentive to leave it out. If they continually leave out the Big 12, it collapses, which leaves more of the CFB pie for them. Not to mention it makes their own leagues look better by comparison.

If ESPN was as objective as they claim to be, 1. the playoff would have never had a committee, and 2. they would be burning this ***** down instead of pumping it up.

Financial conflicts of interest between the biggest brand in sports and the sport itself have defined college football since the 90's. You can't be the news if you own the story.

Let's take this whole theory a step further. Let's say you were Notre Dame this weekend.You go down 21 points early-- should you take out a few of your most important players? Claim Adams ankle flared up on him? Given their logic, once your best player goes out the outcome of the game becomes some unpredictable to the point it doesn't count against you...

 

[Tre4ISU]

Those all seem like great matchups, and I would love to watch them, but I don't know how well a 12 team playoff would go over. The first time a potential first rounder gets a knee injury in that 16th game of the year, everyone is going to flip out that we are making college kids play too many games when they aren't getting paid.

I think a 6 or 8 game playoff is fair to all conferences and still gives us a better model.

Numerous lower divisions play that many games. I just don't get why the general public is against expanding at all. I get why Nick Saban would be. I get why Urban Meyer would be. Iowa State should be all aboard the expansion train because it gives them an infinitely better chance at getting in. The other thing I don't get is why TV and the NCAA aren't pushing for this. The money here would be huge.

 

[weR138]

That's really kind of a bad example because OSU blasted their way to winning the thing. You can argue TCU should have been in but it's real hard to argue OSU shouldn't have been. Florida State was actually the fraud that year.

I think the first year with tOSU is a perfect example of why all five P5 conferences must get to participate. If tOSU is able to leap frog TCU and go on to win it all it's not a stretch to say TCU could've have done the same thing.

If you include all conference champs you avoid the (valid) argument that teams can hide in the B1G West or SEC East. Gotta prove it in the CCG to get into the playoff.

 

[Cardinal and Gold]

Numerous lower divisions play that many games. I just don't get why the general public is against expanding at all. I get why Nick Saban would be. I get why Urban Meyer would be. Iowa State should be all aboard the expansion train because it gives them an infinitely better chance at getting in. The other thing I don't get is why TV and the NCAA aren't pushing for this. The money here would be huge.

I agree. The entire Big 12 should be on board with expanding the playoffs. Just think, if every P5 gets an automatic bid there would be no reason for the Big 12 to ever expand, and they may need to think of getting rid of the Big 12 championship game again to erase the possibility of a 3-peat game. Because of SOS the 2nd place big 12 would almost be a shoe in as well if the playoffs were expanded to at least 8. Other conferences (specifically the Big 10 and SEC) would hate it based squarely on raw numbers. A Big 12 team would have a 1 in 10 chance of making the playoffs while a Big 10 team would have a 1-in 14. This is probably a huge reason why they haven't expanded it yet. The Big 10 and SEC would be put at a disadvantage and ESPN has huge contracts with them.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

But how can we hold a larger playoff system? It's not like I-AA has been doing it for years...

 

[theshadow]

Numerous lower divisions play that many games.

The other divisions play fewer regular-season games. D-3 plays 10, D-2 either 10 or 11, and FCS plays 11. None of them have an extra conference championship game. Only the finalists in those divisions will end up playing 14-15 games (depending on RS schedule and any byes in the bracket).

The top FBS teams are playing 13 already (12 + conf champ). An 8-team bracket means 16 total games for the finalists. That's probably the upper limit.

 

[Tre4ISU]

The other divisions play fewer regular-season games. D-3 plays 10, D-2 either 10 or 11, and FCS plays 11. None of them have an extra conference championship game. Only the finalists in those divisions will end up playing 14-15 games (depending on RS schedule and any byes in the bracket).

The top FBS teams are playing 13 already (12 + conf champ). An 8-team bracket means 16 total games for the finalists. That's probably the upper limit.

Then get rid of those useless buy games that are irrelevant and replace them with one pre-season exhibition game.

 

[ccruzen]

But how can we hold a larger playoff system? It's not like I-AA has been doing it for years...

I can't help but think of this:

 

[CTTB78]

TCU a couple years back shows why we need an 8 team playoff.
As far as this year goes, I just want OU to win out and win the NC over Alabama 62-61. ESPN talking heads and CFP members are forgetting, it's only about who can score more than the other guy.

 

[awd4cy]

TCU a couple years back shows why we need an 8 team playoff.
As far as this year goes, I just want OU to win out and win the NC over Alabama 62-61. ESPN talking heads and CFP members are forgetting, it's only about who can score more than the other guy.

Agree except i would like it more if OU beats then 62-0

 

[AuH2O]

Klatt is spot on - hopefully more people join him so we can get rid of this system and start over.

8 team playoff - 5 conference champs auto-bid. Bring back the BCS ranking system and the 3 highest BCS ranked teams that aren't auto-bids get the 3 at-large spots. Take the human element out of it.

The BCS rankings themselves weren't flawed, the flaw was that the BCS rankings were trying to pick two teams to play in the title game, which is a terribly hard thing to do.

Exactly right. Along with the success of John Gruden and Bobby Bowden, this is proof you can be dumb as dirt and be successful in football. The solution to undefeated Auburn getting left out when three teams had legitimate claims to the BCS title game was not to expand but replace dem compooders with people and eyeball testin. Somehow that would fix the problem.

 

[cyclones500]

If conferences matter, and if conference championships matter, then conference champions must all be in any playoff.

Yes. Obviously, this requires playoff expansion of some sort. Only detail is by how many teams.

Each league is free to determine its champion however it sees fit.

 

[LindenCy]

Numerous lower divisions play that many games. I just don't get why the general public is against expanding at all. I get why Nick Saban would be. I get why Urban Meyer would be. Iowa State should be all aboard the expansion train because it gives them an infinitely better chance at getting in. The other thing I don't get is why TV and the NCAA aren't pushing for this. The money here would be huge.

The 1-AA teams or champion subdivision or whatever it's called only plays 11 regular season games still, don't they?

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

Conglomerates using their power to control the markets and influence the public towards their bottom line? Never, not in America!

 

[cyhiphopp]

Numerous lower divisions play that many games. I just don't get why the general public is against expanding at all. I get why Nick Saban would be. I get why Urban Meyer would be. Iowa State should be all aboard the expansion train because it gives them an infinitely better chance at getting in. The other thing I don't get is why TV and the NCAA aren't pushing for this. The money here would be huge.

An overwhelming percentage of those lower division players have no chance at playing in the NFL. A larger than average percentage of top players on FBS playoff teams would have a lot to lose if they get hurt in one of their up to 4 playoff games.

I agree they could dump some regular season games, but the networks who have shelled out big money for regular season games would be pretty upset to lose a couple non-con games for every team in the conference.

If the NCAA monster forced players to play 14, 15, or 16 FBS games they would get torn up for exploiting players who get paid nothing. The NCAA would make tons of money off those expanded playoffs and it would be more evidence that the NCAA gets rich off of amateur college players.

Part of me would be perfectly fine with a 12 or even 16 team playoff, but that would basically be the end of the Bowl era as we know it. No way would they make enough money off games between a bunch of teams with losing records and having none of the top 12 elite teams available to come to their bowls.

It would be sad if ISU never has a chance for post season play unless they get into the playoffs.

 

[Tre4ISU]

An overwhelming percentage of those lower division players have no chance at playing in the NFL. A larger than average percentage of top players on FBS playoff teams would have a lot to lose if they get hurt in one of their up to 4 playoff games.

I agree they could dump some regular season games, but the networks who have shelled out big money for regular season games would be pretty upset to lose a couple non-con games for every team in the conference.

If the NCAA monster forced players to play 14, 15, or 16 FBS games they would get torn up for exploiting players who get paid nothing. The NCAA would make tons of money off those expanded playoffs and it would be more evidence that the NCAA gets rich off of amateur college players.

Part of me would be perfectly fine with a 12 or even 16 team playoff, but that would basically be the end of the Bowl era as we know it. No way would they make enough money off games between a bunch of teams with losing records and having none of the top 12 elite teams available to come to their bowls.

It would be sad if ISU never has a chance for post season play unless they get into the playoffs.

What do you mean with the bowl stuff? Like I said, you keep that system in place. The four teams that get beat in the first round and the 4 teams that get beat in the second round all go back into the bowl game pool and go play their bowl just like they had before. The final four teams would play it out just like they do today. The bowl system doesn't have to end.

Also, I don't really care about the lower level bowls. A whole bunch of teams lose money playing them right now and if we got rid of about 5 of them that would be fine. The people making the money are the people organizing them and I don't see a real good reason for programs to line their pockets. What I would really like to see is more of these bowls get sponsored and instead of destinations, play home games. So, say Iowa State and Arizona St were similar. You have someone sponsor and put on that bowl game but you do it at ASUs place but you make sure those visiting teams are getting solid ticket allotments and it's not a home crowd. Then you split the gate like 60/40 or something. It's not a huge deal for P5 teams because they typically aren't the ones losing money on these deals but teams like Tulsa or UCONN may. That shouldn't happen.