College Football Playoff

[beamout2000]

Having been in the playoffs both in Division 2 and 1-AA following Texas State I can say I love the atmosphere of the whole system. Here is how 1-AA does it. There are automatic bids (conference champions) and four "at large" bids for teams that are highly ranked but didn't win conference. I would think the same thing could work for 1-A and would allow the smaller conferences to get in there and compete with the big boys. That's probably one reason there isn't a playoff system however, I don't think some of the big boys want to share their money and recruits with the little guys of 1-A.

 

[raw1]

Since I am relatively new to this board and no longer live in the great state of Nebraska

...a team like Michigan, who loses bad early and turns themselves around. Nebraska have had lots of those years under Tom Osborne where they lost early and battled their way back to the top five by the end of the year. It seems that the NCAA would want to find a way to reward student athletes who faced unexpected failure early and were able to turn themselves around. After all isn't that what college athletics is all about...it's very purpose?

...What is the opinion of the Husker Nation?

Huh?

I remember Osborne teams being undefeated until Turkey Day (the OU game) and then losing (the last game) to a Florida team in their backyard bowl game.

Although through years of therapy....Nope..Still have nightmares.

I'm impressed with the posts on this thread so far..Some of the same arguments I've expressed to anyone who would listen after they brought up their own version of the perfect playoff scenario.

The only thing I can add, besides what's so important about finding out who is best?

I know.."Strange Earth custom" and "It's the American Way".

The WHOLE season is a playoff..Every sperm ..er..game is precious-M.Python

There's so much luck involved in these games, especially as parity rears it's ugly head..The only way to determine who is really the best team between two is by having a best of 5 or at minimum best of 3.

Then you have teams matching up better with different teams... placing way too much power in someones hands to decide pairings: Rock U. Smashed Scissors A&M, Scissors A&M tore up Paper State, Paper State covered the spread over Rock U. during the regular season.

The "Best" team doesn't always win...But with the current system, Half the teams end their season with a win.

Some of the Best games are the ones that are never played..Just ask '97 Mechicken or '94 State Penn.

It's SILL fun to argue with (poke fun of) their fans about those non-games and how bad we would've beaten them.

The missing ingredient with most sports with playoffs is the "controversy factor"

In 1976 Nebraska was ranked number 1 in the pre-season polls then tied LSU 7-7 in the opening day game. Of course what I described has happened to Nebraska. And of course they have gone the whole season undefeated only to lose the big game in the end too. I am surprised you missed my point so bad.

I think the real solution to this playoff thing, if it ever gets off the ground, would be to move the conference games up in the schedule and play the non-conference games later. The NCAA would have to have a stronger hand in who is scheduled by whom and allow for some scheduling to happen after the season has already started. This idea, admittedly, is radical but I am thinking of keeping the schedule to approximately the same number of games and not allowing it go too far into January. But lets face it...most teams do not play at all for most of December...it could happen.

 

[DCHusker]

I feel strongly about the BCS system. Churchill once said that democracy is a terrible system for choosing a government, but it's the best one mankind has been able to come up with. I think the BCS is in the same boat. Here's why it's the best we've got:

1. Objectivity: Someone argued earlier that they don't like the BCS because it takes objectivity out and that wins/losses would be a better determinant. That is simply nonsensical, the computers add a degree of objectivity by measuring strength of opponents that does not exist in simply looking at a win-loss record. If you simply look at a win-loss record, does that mean a one loss team in the WAC deserves as high a seeding as an SEC team that only lost the conference championship game? Of course not.

2. Importance of playing a complete season: I like the premium placed on every regular season game, which actually makes the regular season feel like a playoff. I think even detractors of the BCS would agree that this is one point in favor of the current system (even if they believe the negatives outweigh it).

3. (and most importantly) The best team in the country usually wins the national championship: This can not be said of a championship like NCAA basketball, where the best team in March becomes the champion. People argue they want a basketball-style tourney because March Madness is sooo exciting. There's a reason March Madness is so exciting: Some team that isn't all that great can get hot for one game from the 3-point line and knock off the best team in the country. I guess that is exciting, but it's a poor way to figure out who deserves a championship.

The bottom line is that there never will be a perfect system for determining a national champion. If we had an 8 team tourney, there would be every bit as much controversy as there is now. If every BCS conference winner got in, we would still be having debates about who should fill the last two spots, the BCS conference runners up (especially if they play a conference championship), non-BCS conference winners, Hawaii, Boise St.? Same argument, different teams.

I trust this system to get it right 90% of the time, which is more than I would trust any tourney where it's one and done.

You do know that computer programs don't write themselves, right? That there is a group of geeks who has to write and tweak the code until it gives them the "right" teams? Computers are not objective and I never said that a playoff would be 100% "objective," if you read what I wrote, I said that you can tell which team is better based on whether that team wins or loses the game. I didn't know that i was being that unclear, but I was talking about the efficacy of a playoff in determining which team among several who have never met in the regular season is the better team (win/loss vs. factorX+factorY/FactorQ*inverse derivative of factorA/factorU etc etc). The notion that computers can make decisions without human intervention has passed non-sense and flown into delusion. Seeding is something that, like the wild card, can be left to a panel at the end of the season. The problem is that voters and a nerd-driven computer system has to decide which two teams (and ONLY 2) get to vie for the national championship. Why bother? Why not just let the computer pick the winner? Why play the game? If the computer knows the difference between 2 and 3 so clearly, why not let it decide between 1 and 2? If it gets it right 90% of the time, then it's definitely better than a coin toss, so the #1 team ought to win 90% of the time, right? D'OH! But it hasn't worked out that way! In fact, it's been just as good as a coin toss in determining the better team!

I don't get how you can see a value in a complete season but then trust the computers to arrange teams that have never played each other in any sort of coherent and reliable order. I don't trust computer models for anything but especially for things that are testable in the real world.

A computer system is more objective in that it can account for a consistent set of criteria over the length of the season without becoming biased, so that voters personal perceptions of a certain team name do not come into play. In the computer, there is no "oh this is Notre Dame, they must be ranked highly." They are just one of over 100 teams, and where they rank depends on who they beat and who they lose to, and who the teams they beat or lost to won or lost against. It is the most objective system you're going to find and the next best thing to having every team play every other team, since that would be impossible.

It's absurd to accuse me of suggesting the the computer model exists in some abstract world independent of human design. Of course the criteria used in the model are determined by human beings.

I did reread what you wrote, and it still sounds like you were saying win-loss record was sufficient to rank teams. If what you meant was that having teams play each other to determine relative strength was better than a computer model, then of course you're right, but then how do you determine which teams play which? Every team can't play every other team. There's a chicken and egg problem here.

I also never said that the computers picked the best team in the country 90% of the time. I said they get it right, in the sense that the two teams which have put together the two best seasons are playing for a championship.

And I can see a value in a complete season and still trust the computers to arrange teams because the computer model is designed to equally weigh each and every regular season game. The two are consistent, not contradictory.

 

[HUSKER 37]

Since I am relatively new to this board and no longer live in the great state of Nebraska

...a team like Michigan, who loses bad early and turns themselves around. Nebraska have had lots of those years under Tom Osborne where they lost early and battled their way back to the top five by the end of the year. It seems that the NCAA would want to find a way to reward student athletes who faced unexpected failure early and were able to turn themselves around. After all isn't that what college athletics is all about...it's very purpose?

...What is the opinion of the Husker Nation?

Huh?

I remember Osborne teams being undefeated until Turkey Day (the OU game) and then losing (the last game) to a Florida team in their backyard bowl game.

Although through years of therapy....Nope..Still have nightmares.

I'm impressed with the posts on this thread so far..Some of the same arguments I've expressed to anyone who would listen after they brought up their own version of the perfect playoff scenario.

The only thing I can add, besides what's so important about finding out who is best?

I know.."Strange Earth custom" and "It's the American Way".

The WHOLE season is a playoff..Every sperm ..er..game is precious-M.Python

There's so much luck involved in these games, especially as parity rears it's ugly head..The only way to determine who is really the best team between two is by having a best of 5 or at minimum best of 3.

Then you have teams matching up better with different teams... placing way too much power in someones hands to decide pairings: Rock U. Smashed Scissors A&M, Scissors A&M tore up Paper State, Paper State covered the spread over Rock U. during the regular season.

The "Best" team doesn't always win...But with the current system, Half the teams end their season with a win.

Some of the Best games are the ones that are never played..Just ask '97 Mechicken or '94 State Penn.

It's SILL fun to argue with (poke fun of) their fans about those non-games and how bad we would've beaten them.

The missing ingredient with most sports with playoffs is the "controversy factor"

In 1976 Nebraska was ranked number 1 in the pre-season polls then tied LSU 7-7 in the opening day game. Of course what I described has happened to Nebraska.. And of course they have gone the whole season undefeated only to lose the big game in the end too. I am surprised you missed my point so bad.

I think the real solution to this playoff thing, if it ever gets off the ground, would be to move the conference games up in the schedule and play the non-conference games later. The NCAA would have to have a stronger hand in who is scheduled by whom and allow for some scheduling to happen after the season has already started. This idea, admittedly, is radical but I am thinking of keeping the schedule to approximately the same number of games and not allowing it go too far into January. But lets face it...most teams do not play at all for most of December...it could happen.

1976..I got my drivers liscense, my 1st car and wasn't paying as close attention to feetball.

But we lost at home to Missouri (and Warren Powers?) Lost at Iowa State, and lost at home to Oklahoma.

http://www.huskers.com/SportSelect.dbml?SP...p;Q_SEASON=1976

And somehow never dropped below #13. <_<

a team like Michigan, who loses bad early and turns themselves around. Nebraska have had lots of those years under Tom Osborne where they lost early and battled their way back to the top five by the end of the year

Lots?..I don't even think we had one like that since I started watching in '70

In '76, we reached #3... 5 weeks after a TIE and lost to Missouri which knocked us down to #9..Then lost 28-37 to Iowa State 3 weeks later and only slipped one more spot to #10...Sounds fishy..and if I really cared, I'd wonder/research what was going on with the rest of the nation during that time..I never thought we were given that much bennefit of doubt in the ratings..

I do see your bad point (I think) but the older I get..The more I'm able to live with having Apalacian State take care of Michigan early so we wont have to later on in a Bowl or Playoff.

I can see how getting rid of your "preseason games" would be effective in freeing up more space at the end of the season for playoffs, I just hate the idea of not being glued to the TV on each play of each game knowing a loss here could ruin a whole season..Can any NFL teams garner that kind of obsessiveness?

I could almost live with a "Plus-one" compromise, but who would you have had last season? Florida vs. Boise State?

I doubt the Gators would have much trouble with the Smurfs, but could they take USC?.. who might not be able to beat BSU every given Saturday.

In order to keep the intense interest...You need the correct amount of Controversy.

 

[hastingshusker]

I personally believe that you can combine the two systems. I think the BCS is objective and is somewhat effective at ranking teams. However, I think the parity that we have seen in college football this season and in the past few show that the computers cant really pick the top teams. I think that we could have a bowl playoff system.

I personally get sick of seeing the whogivesacrap.com bowl. I think we could take the top 8 teams put them in 4 games in the opening week of bowl season, middle of december. That then knocks it down to 4 teams who could use two of the existing BCS bowl games (for the sake of argument Rose, and Fiesta) with the two winning teams playing one week later in a championship game (Orange). We already have the game a week later now why not make it really count. As for the other BCS game maybe make that go to the teams ranked 9 and 10 or have it be for an undercard game for the losers of the two BCS games.

I realize this is a fantasy and adds alot of games ot schedules but I also believe that conference championship games should be eliminated. I dont think its right for some conferences to have them and not. It should be all or none and i personally believe none. Then we would get that OU game back with a 9th conference game every year.