What do you do when the number 3 team, who also won their fomerly BCS bowl complains that they should go the championship over #2?
Deace On The Mark Regardng Bowl Games
- Thread starter Wingback
- Start date
What do you do when the number 3 team, who also won their fomerly BCS bowl complains that they should go the championship over #2?
First, I don't think the # of bowls has to be regulated. Free market will determine whether or not San Fran or Detroit or Boise thinks it is cost effective to host of bowl for tourism sake. No one makes you go or watch it on TV, so the # and quality of lower tier bowls will pretty much shake itself out as some games lose sponsorship. No different than MBB having the NIT and the CBI. Money will determine if those other tourneys last.
I do agree with Deace that the BCS system has ruined the major bowls. I really hate not having all of these games on Jan 1. Maybe it would have happened anyway that the Fiesta or Sugar or Orange would have moved to a later date to capture an exclusive TV slot, but I think the BCS has accelerated this change and it sucks.
An easy system to implement right now with no changes is an "And One" concept. Keep the fifth BCS game as the NC game one week after Jan 1. The top 8 BCS teams would consist of the 6 BCS conference champs, ND if eligible, and one mid-major champion (or 2 if ND is not eligible). Make the Rose/Sugar/Fiesta/Orange bowl games play on Jan 1, with the NC game one week later. You could even have the Rose Bowl go back to Big10/Pac10 every year, which would thrill them. The other 3 bowls rotate selection order.
On Jan 2, have the polls redone and the BCS recalculated based on the big four bowl games. #1 vs #2 (at that time) for the NC. It would be hard to argue that a team that won its conference, won a BCS bowl against anotehr conference champion, and then turned around and beat another BCS bowl winner a week later would not be worthy of the NC title.
I do agree with Deace that the BCS system has ruined the major bowls. I really hate not having all of these games on Jan 1. Maybe it would have happened anyway that the Fiesta or Sugar or Orange would have moved to a later date to capture an exclusive TV slot, but I think the BCS has accelerated this change and it sucks.
An easy system to implement right now with no changes is an "And One" concept. Keep the fifth BCS game as the NC game one week after Jan 1. The top 8 BCS teams would consist of the 6 BCS conference champs, ND if eligible, and one mid-major champion (or 2 if ND is not eligible). Make the Rose/Sugar/Fiesta/Orange bowl games play on Jan 1, with the NC game one week later. You could even have the Rose Bowl go back to Big10/Pac10 every year, which would thrill them. The other 3 bowls rotate selection order.
On Jan 2, have the polls redone and the BCS recalculated based on the big four bowl games. #1 vs #2 (at that time) for the NC. It would be hard to argue that a team that won its conference, won a BCS bowl against anotehr conference champion, and then turned around and beat another BCS bowl winner a week later would not be worthy of the NC title.
We do what we always did in the past...argue about who the "real" champion is. That's what was done for years (that is why it was normally referred to as the 'mythical' national championship), and some of us loved the discussion.
Heck, to this day, Nebraska and Michigan fans argue over who the "real" national champion was in 1997. For Deace's benefit, if he really thinks Michigan could have even played with Nebraska, much less beat them that year, he is a bigger dreamer than I take him for. You, me and nine other guys could have beaten the Washington State team they squeeked by in the Rose Bowl. Now tearing apart Tennessee in the Orange Bowl, like Nebraska did that year, is a whole different story. That's why the Big 12 champion received the big trophy and the Little 11 champion received the little one!
Sorry Deace, I simply couldn't resist.
Cause as much as people complain, they still consume the product.
IF by some crazy luck ISU were to make the craptastic bowl this year, you know you would all watch and many of us would be going to it.
Come on, CycloneWarning, how in the world would a "Plus One" solve anything. There is no way it would ever solve today's problem.
Let's just take this past season as an example. You say, you would put the six major conferences in BCS games plus two teams from the smaller conferences. Here's how it could have looked:
Rose Bowl (Big 10 versus Pac 10): USC beats Penn State
Orange Bowl (Big 12 versus ACC): Oklahoma beats Virginia Tech
Sugar Bowl (SEC versus at large): Florida beats Boise State
Fiesta Bowl (Big East versus at large): Utah beats Cincinnati
After the bowls, here's what you have to choose from for your "Plus One" game:
Utah 13-0
USC 13-1 (assuming a win in a conference championship game)
Oklahoma 13-1
Florida 13-1
Okay, now you tell me who you put in the "Plus One" game. It absolutely, under no rational circumstances, solves anything!
Let's just take this past season as an example. You say, you would put the six major conferences in BCS games plus two teams from the smaller conferences. Here's how it could have looked:
Rose Bowl (Big 10 versus Pac 10): USC beats Penn State
Orange Bowl (Big 12 versus ACC): Oklahoma beats Virginia Tech
Sugar Bowl (SEC versus at large): Florida beats Boise State
Fiesta Bowl (Big East versus at large): Utah beats Cincinnati
After the bowls, here's what you have to choose from for your "Plus One" game:
Utah 13-0
USC 13-1 (assuming a win in a conference championship game)
Oklahoma 13-1
Florida 13-1
Okay, now you tell me who you put in the "Plus One" game. It absolutely, under no rational circumstances, solves anything!
Exactly! Now if you put those same teams in an 8 team playoff, here is how it might go:
1 Florida vs. 8 Cincinnati - Florida Wins easily
2 Oklahoma vs 7 Boise State (rematch!!) - Oklahoma wins most likely
3 USC vs 6 Va Tech - USC wins
4 Utah vs 5 Penn St - Utah Wins
1 Florida vs 4 Utah
2 Oklahoma vs 3 USC
I think this 8 game playoff (or a similar style, possibly without automatic berths for Cincinnati or VaTech) would be awesome and I would watch every play.
If this is what we had, it would be hard for me to say that I wouldn't be glued to my television set, too!
Most eight team playoff formulas however, would include the six power conferences plus two at-large teams. You probably would have been "stuck" with Virginia Tech and Cincinnati whether you wanted it or not.
Still, no matter how you slice it, a pretty good eight team playoff. Other than the fact that you probably would have had Alabama crying over why they didn't get a berth instead of Boise.
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Right, because if you had an 8-team playoff, it's so easy to finish in the top 8 in the nation, most teams would take a week or two off.
I've never understood this argument, that a playoff would render the regular season meaningless. Makes zero sense. They need to do an 8-team playoff. DO NOT guarantee a spot to conference champions because then you'd have weak champions from weak conferences taking the spots of more deserving teams with better records from stronger conferences. You take the top 8 from the final AP rankings, seed them, and go. Incorporate the Big 4 bowls into the playoff structure somehow. All the other bowls can still be played.
The regular season would be incredible. Every team in the country would be busting arse for that top 8 finish. It's a lot easier to justify keeping the #9 team out from a shot at the title than it is with the current system, where an equally deserving #3 team gets screwed.
I've never heard "meaningless" used. Less meaningful, is more corrrect.
I used to be all caught up in the playoff hype too, until I really thought about it. (again….I drank the talking-heads Kool-Aid on this issue, without thinking it through for myself.) I opened my eyes and changed my mind after 2002.
There are several examples one could give to illustrate how you'd deemphasize the importance of each and every game during the reg. season if you instituted playoffs. . Playoffs allow for "do over's" so to speak, and because of that, the critical nature of each regular season game is reduced. This is what is so great about college FB. As mentioned, this hit home with me after the 2002 season.
Case and point (and very close to home).
2002 - The Hawkeye ended the regular season 11-1. That one loss was all it took to wipe out their chances to play in the national championship game that year. One critical, crucial loss that could not be overcome. They had to take care of business each and every game that season and had they done it, they'd have played for the N.C.
Rollback back the clock and institute one of the many proposed playoff systems. With Iowa ending the regular season as #5 in the country, I think it is safe to say they make the playoffs no matter what system you roll out. More importantly, they get a "do over". Their REGULAR season loss early to ISU becomes just an annoyance. Fodder for the discussion boards. It is no longer the dagger that killed their chances to play for the NC. One loss, in week 3 of the regular season is all it took.
Seriously, what other sport has such finality with just one loss, early in a season?
Put in playoffs, and a regular season loss becomes a minor setback, rather than a death sentence on the hope for a national championship.
The argument really is, I want playoffs and don't care that is waters down the regular season. Period.
You can't both maintain the unique, critical per game nature of college football regular season and have a playoff system.
I just showed one of hundreds of examples that you could draw upon to illustrate this very point.
If you are for the playoffs, than you are for a less meaningful regular season. That's fine if that doesn't mean as much to you, but I'd hope people would at least acknowledge this first, before deciding where they fall on this issue.
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How would you seed the teams? Since it's likely that all eight teams would finish with either a 12-0, 11-1 or 10-2 record, you can't used winning pct. Do you just use the AP poll? History has shown that pre-season ranking can have a significant impact on post-season ranking, so that doesn't really seem fair either. Compare season-long stats? That doesn't take conference strength or playing style into account. You could try to normalize it based on the average performance of all teams in all leagues, but that might involve a computer and no one wants a computer making any decisions in college football.
You will still likely end up with very valid arguments about seeding and the path to the title game (remember, ISU vs. Michigan State was the "real" national championship...).
From what I've always understood, the NCAA really has nothing to do with the Bowl games other than you still have to follow NCAA rules. And the major obstacle facing any real play off is more so the conferences. I've never really looked into it, but I would be very interested to see a breakdown of how the money would get paid out in a playoff system. Right now you are looking at at least 5 bowl games with 10s of millions of dollars in payouts to each team. This sets up conferences like the Big 10, XII and SEC to see a significant payout at the end of the year. I don't see that kind of payout going to each of the teams showing up for a playoff. It would end up a giant cash bowl for those who end up in the Championship game. It's just like conference championships. Every year they vote on it in the Big XII, the university presidents get 12 votes for it, the ADs get 12 votes for it and the coaches usually have 12 against it. It's not really a matter of finding a champion, that's not what matters, what matters is the $$$ that comes flowing in for the game.
I'm not here to argue one way or another, But, I'd imagine that Fed Ex is a lot more willing to put their name on the Orange bowl, as the Orange Bowl, than they would the "Fed Ex Quarter Final Match up." Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that if say the Rose Bowl decided they didn't want to be part of the NC playoff, but they would still offer $12,000,000 for Ohio State to come play USC, that the ADs at those schools would pretty much say, "**** on the Championship, let's take the cash!"
I think for it to really work, the NCAA would have to eliminate all remnants of the Bowl system. I still wonder, if there was no Bowl Competition, what's to stop the Cotton Bowl, from getting Fed Ex to put up the money and steal a few teams from the championship.
Anyways, As has been stated multiple times by multiple people, it's not about finding a champion, it's about getting millions of dollars in the hands of the schools and the conferences. Money that I just don't believe would exist in a playoff system.
I'm not here to argue one way or another, But, I'd imagine that Fed Ex is a lot more willing to put their name on the Orange bowl, as the Orange Bowl, than they would the "Fed Ex Quarter Final Match up." Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion that if say the Rose Bowl decided they didn't want to be part of the NC playoff, but they would still offer $12,000,000 for Ohio State to come play USC, that the ADs at those schools would pretty much say, "**** on the Championship, let's take the cash!"
I think for it to really work, the NCAA would have to eliminate all remnants of the Bowl system. I still wonder, if there was no Bowl Competition, what's to stop the Cotton Bowl, from getting Fed Ex to put up the money and steal a few teams from the championship.
Anyways, As has been stated multiple times by multiple people, it's not about finding a champion, it's about getting millions of dollars in the hands of the schools and the conferences. Money that I just don't believe would exist in a playoff system.
You seed it based on the rankings. Simplest and fairest. No system will be perfect, and either way you have to win 3 games against the best to win it all, whether you're seeded #1 or #8.
I never said anything about pre-season rankings. Have the first poll come out after week 3.
lol..."on the mark" apparently only means that he agrees with you.
All Bowl games are meaningless. Always have been. And so are the lower division playoff games. That's the whole point of them.
All Bowl games are meaningless. Always have been. And so are the lower division playoff games. That's the whole point of them.
Deace is never on the mark for anything as far as I'm concerned. The only thing he had right in that whole thing is that the current system doesn't work. Real original thought there.
I have not read the whole thread so maybe this has been thrown out there already.
Why be hatin the minor bowl games - if you don't like them don't watch. If it wasn't for the minor bowl games I wouldn't have gotten to set Herman's offense at Rice.
I don't want to go back to the old bowl traditions - same teams going to the same bowls doesn't sound like much fun. I say get rid of all bowl affiliations and line up the bowl games from highest paid to lowest paid and match them with the polls so 1 v 2, 3 v 4, 5 v 6 ... 63v64. Teams could have the possibility of going to many diff bowl locations.
Also, for everyone who wants a playoff - how many of you could afford to go to two or three bowl games in the same winter? Because that would be the result - you think the NCAA tourney is sparsely attended wait until the sencond game in a playoff - most fans just don't have the coin to do that.
Why be hatin the minor bowl games - if you don't like them don't watch. If it wasn't for the minor bowl games I wouldn't have gotten to set Herman's offense at Rice.
I don't want to go back to the old bowl traditions - same teams going to the same bowls doesn't sound like much fun. I say get rid of all bowl affiliations and line up the bowl games from highest paid to lowest paid and match them with the polls so 1 v 2, 3 v 4, 5 v 6 ... 63v64. Teams could have the possibility of going to many diff bowl locations.
Also, for everyone who wants a playoff - how many of you could afford to go to two or three bowl games in the same winter? Because that would be the result - you think the NCAA tourney is sparsely attended wait until the sencond game in a playoff - most fans just don't have the coin to do that.
