What the expanded playoffs have revealed is how questionable previous "national champions" have been

[Newell]

The 7 and 8 seeds are in the finals. None of the 1-4 seeds won a game and 3 of 4 games were not close. Only Big 12 school Arizona State got close to winning. It brings up the question of what the list of national champions would look like if we had expanded playoffs before instead of a group of bureaucrats with influence from the networks deciding what schools played.

The SEC with their $3 billion business partnership with ESPN didn't get a team in the finals despite having 3 schools in the tournament. How did the ACC get 2 schools in? SMU??? It was asinine for the Big 12 to be given only one spot.

 

[Cyhig]

I’ll be curious to see how teams perform in the playoffs in the future. Was this year an outlier where none of the top 4 teams advanced?

Look at the basketball tournament. There are always big upsets and teams that make the final 4 that were seeded low. But overall, the better seeded teams have a better history.

We just need more data for the football playoffs before we can make any rational conclusions about the structure of the playoffs

 

[buf87]

The main thing is the seeding and the automatic byes. I think the 1st round is probably going to always have a bunch of lopsided wins, especially if the higher seed get a home game.

Technically, Boise and ASU would not have been the #3 and #4 seed

 

[CapnCy]

I'm already annoyed at the chatter I anticipate next year, meaning, year to year shouldn't matter how a team or conference did.

The conf championship game deal is still a weird variable that's not consistent.

And wild ND gets PAID as a non con member.

 

[buf87]

So does Notre Dame get 100% of the CFP playoff money that it earns? No conference teams to divide it up with right?

 

[AlaCyclone]

There would obviously have been some different results with more teams but that doesn't diminish previous National Championships. 2004 USC, 2012 Alabama, 2019 LSU, etc. would have been hard to beat in any format. It just shows that there really should be a different award for the Regular Season Champion and for the new Tournament Champion.

Oregon had an incredible year in 2024. First year in the B1G, and they went undefeated, they beat Ohio State, and beat PSU in the B1G CCG. They just had a clunker in their Bowl Game. Happens. They defintely had a better Regular Season than either Notre Dame and certainly Ohio State (which they beat and finished 4th in their conference).

As for the selection problems, the Big XII defintiely deserved a 2nd team (BYU), and they need to limit the number of teams from any conference.

 

[BWRhasnoAC]

So does Notre Dame get 100% of the CFP playoff money that it earns? No conference teams to divide it up with right?

That would be pretty obnoxious.

 

[Drew0311]

So does Notre Dame get 100% of the CFP playoff money that it earns? No conference teams to divide it up with right?

That’s correct. Which is why they are smart to stay indy

 

[State2015]

So does Notre Dame get 100% of the CFP playoff money that it earns? No conference teams to divide it up with right?

Yep, which is why I’m rooting for them. Maybe it will force some of these upper-mid to mid tier programs in the SEC and B10 that 20 team conferences are not the answer.

Competition is so stiff and the pot you have to share with is huge. I’m being too optimistic but maybe this will force folks to see our current system is terrible

 

[KidSilverhair]

While I continue to think it’s worth it to give conference champions some kind of benefit in the playoff, it’s silly to use the playoff seedings of the championship teams to criticize the system. As mentioned above, Arizona State and Boise State weren’t actually “deserving”of the 3 and 4 seeds, in a true ranking; they were granted them by winning their conferences. Which again, fine with me, but that undermines all the whining over “how can the 7 and 8 seeds be in the championship?”

In the final rankings, Notre Dame was 5 and Ohio State 6. Ohio State was probably slightly under-ranked, but that’s gonna happen when you lose your final game, at home, and miss your conference championship game. It’s not a stretch to say they were both in the top five teams standing at the end of the season … and wasn’t that the main argument against the four-team playoff? That the number five team often had a legitimate claim to the title?

Notre Dame and Ohio State in the final says nothing to prove that the number 8, number 10, or number 13 team in the country really deserves a chance to play for a title, let alone number 16 or 17. It backs up the idea that four wasn’t enough, that’s all. And it also shines a light on whether CCGs or byes are actually disadvantages for the teams that earn them.

There’s no universe where Ohio State and Notre Dame are actually considered the 7th and 8th teams in a 2024 ranking, so using those artificial seedings to criticize the playoff or try to justify adding more teams is just nonsensical.

 

[KidSilverhair]

It just shows that there really should be a different award for the Regular Season Champion and for the new Tournament Champion.

Now this guy gets it. The final tournament doesn’t actually find the “best” team of the season, it just crowns the tournament champion from the entrants selected. If we got away from the “NCAA National Champion Best Team Of The Year!” thinking, I’d be less disturbed by the system in place to choose the contestants - because upsets can happen, the “best” team doesn’t always win, and if we just admitted that we’d all be a lot happier, lol.

I mean, Ohio State lost two (close) B1G games and didn’t even make their conference championship game as one of the two “best” teams in their own conference. And yet, the way they’re playing, they’re favored to be crowned as “best team of them all”? Makes no logical sense.

 

[ISU_Guy]

That’s correct. Which is why they are smart to stay indy

Yeah, but its feast or famine though. if they would have coughed up one more game after losing to N. Illinois, they may have been left out and got zero.

Here’s the summary for the Fighting Irish: $20M

$4 million for qualifying for the CFP
$4 million for advancing to the quarterfinals
$6 million for advancing to the semifinals
$6 million for advancing to the national championship game
There is no additional payment for the winner of the title game.

And unlike the other schools — Penn State, Ohio State and Texas — Notre Dame, as an independent school, won’t have to share its payout with a conference.
SEC does a performance based payout, which would mean Texas would get the most followed by Georgia, Tennesee.

another thing that earns ND more money that people are not talking about is the fact that they don't get a bye so when they do make the playoffs they are probably going to always be a 5-8 seed. Which means they get to host a game which brings in even more money for the university.

The Big12 with only one team is really going to start showing financial disparity head over time.
If Penn St would have played OSU in the title game, those two schools would have made 40M for the league.

 

[Hoggins]

So does Notre Dame get 100% of the CFP playoff money that it earns? No conference teams to divide it up with right?

We are going to see Florida State try this route in a few years is my guess. If ND & FSU have success with independence, there is a path to every blue-blood being independent. Dissolving the conferences might be the solution to realignment

 

[KidSilverhair]

Even if Notre Dame missed the playoff, they’re still going to a bowl - pretty much every year. And they don’t share those payouts with anybody, either.

I think they’re just fine with being independent, thank you.

 

[KidSilverhair]

We are going to see Florida State try this route in a few years is my guess. If ND & FSU have success with independence, there is a path to every blue-blood being independent. Dissolving the conferences might be the solution to realignment

People forget - as recently as the early 1990s, in addition to ND, teams like Penn State, Florida State, Miami, Louisville, South Carolina, Pittsburgh, Virginia Tech, and Syracuse were all independents. There were 26 independent D-1 football teams in 1990, five of them ended up ranked, seven went to bowl games (including three to New Years bowls).

 

[ISU_Guy]

While I continue to think it’s worth it to give conference champions some kind of benefit in the playoff, it’s silly to use the playoff seedings of the championship teams to criticize the system. As mentioned above, Arizona State and Boise State weren’t actually “deserving”of the 3 and 4 seeds, in a true ranking; they were granted them by winning their conferences. Which again, fine with me, but that undermines all the whining over “how can the 7 and 8 seeds be in the championship?”

In the final rankings, Notre Dame was 5 and Ohio State 6. Ohio State was probably slightly under-ranked, but that’s gonna happen when you lose your final game, at home, and miss your conference championship game. It’s not a stretch to say they were both in the top five teams standing at the end of the season … and wasn’t that the main argument against the four-team playoff? That the number five team often had a legitimate claim to the title?

Notre Dame and Ohio State in the final says nothing to prove that the number 8, number 10, or number 13 team in the country really deserves a chance to play for a title, let alone number 16 or 17. It backs up the idea that four wasn’t enough, that’s all. And it also shines a light on whether CCGs or byes are actually disadvantages for the teams that earn them.

There’s no universe where Ohio State and Notre Dame are actually considered the 7th and 8th teams in a 2024 ranking, so using those artificial seedings to criticize the playoff or try to justify adding more teams is just nonsensical.

I agree, but I don't understand why people are freaking out about this concept of bad seeding. Look at March Madness for an example. its never right.
MLB is always jacked up because of divisions. Look at the vikings this year in the NFL. Could you imagine if Texas would have had to play Clemson on the road in Round 1? That is what you get in the NFL.

I personally think the perfect storm happened this year to cause the talking heads to want to change the seeding. Fans were not ready to see Boise and ASU as the 3 and 4 seed IMO
What needed to happen year one is for SMU, Indiana not to make it and Boise getting a 12 seed.

 

[CyGuy5]

I mean, whoever wins this year might be one of the more fraudulent national champs of all
time. It’s either a team that lost to NIU and doesn’t play in a real conference, or a team that didn’t play in their conference championship because they couldn’t beat a mediocre Michigan team at home.

 

[beentherebefore]

We are going to see Florida State try this route in a few years is my guess. If ND & FSU have success with independence, there is a path to every blue-blood being independent. Dissolving the conferences might be the solution to realignment

Ironic, certainly. And I wonder if that really could hurt any school not in traditional top 20 or so.

 

[beentherebefore]

I mean, whoever wins this year might be one of the more fraudulent national champs of all
time. It’s either a team that lost to NIU and doesn’t play in a real conference, or a team that didn’t play in their conference championship because they couldn’t beat a mediocre Michigan team at home.

In many ways, then, football has become basketball.

 

[Peter]

Final CFP had 1. Oregon 2. Georgia 3. Texas 4. Penn state. OSU and ND were 5. 6. So to the OP’s point, I’m sure we would have had a number of different national champions throughout the years with a different system. This was really the first year we got to see it decided on the field.