Dr. Saturday's Playoff Plan

[Hercules]

But Miami (OH) would not deserve a shot to be the champion more than Ohio State does. In reality, Ohio State probably has a good chance to advnace and maybe even win the whole thing. Miami is most likely going to slaughter. They may have nothing to complain about if they buy into that principle, but that's a principle that ignores the 'finding the best team' idea while trying to address it. Ohio State is a 1-loss team that doesn't make it. What if everyone else in the field all have at least 1 loss as well? Ohio State is punished because of the timing of their loss, then, and nothing more. 11-1 Oklahoma, which wins an easy Big 12 field but loses to OOC Florida, would get in. Maybe even win. Both OU and OSU would have lost to one good team all year. The difference is Oklahoma's came in a meaningless OOC game.

 

You do make a good point with the Missouri example, though, it would hurt CCGs. Teams should not get punished for playing in them. Even with a Final Four (I don't like 16 teams as this opens up a LOT of those scenarios) a similar scenario is probable to happens. I don't have an answer to that, right now.

 

But you were suggesting a playoff system without at-large bids, and solely only for conference winners? That can't happen. The independent schools, such as Notre Dame, would not have a shot. And it would not allow schools to be independent, something which is their right.

 

"Finding the best team" is virtually impossible. Unless every team plays every other team, or unless championship contenders play each other in best of 5 or best of 7 series, you're never going to know who would have won more games if they had met more than once (see Nebraska vs. Washington via 2010).

 

It's a matter of HOW you're going to decide your champion. Are you going to do it on the field, or in the polls?

 

As far as that scenario goes, Ohio State isn't punished for the timing of their loss, because the polls don't matter. They could have lost to Michigan in the last game of the year, and still have played for the conference championship and had a shot at the playoff berth. Their problem is that they lost the conference championship game, the most important game of their season, essentially the first round of the playoffs. They should be eliminated because they lost when it mattered most. That's how playoffs work, that's how championships are decided on the field - it's the only way.

 

As far as comparing Oklahoma and Ohio State - there's no point in doing that. They play in different conferences, they shouldn't be concerned with one another. If Ohio State can't win its own conference, it has no right to point at another conference and say "Well, that conference is easier, I could have won over there!" Just win your own conference - if you can't do that, chances are that you can't win the national championship anyways. I would go as far to say that if you can't win your own conference, you don't deserve a shot at the national championship (see 2001 Nebraska).

 

Somebody mentioned earlier that conference championships being used to determine playoff berths would actually be good for OOC play. Ohio State could lose to Florida without it hurting their championship hopes, which means that we could maybe have a few less Nebraska - South Dakota State type matchups through out college football's "preseason."

 

I also don't care about the independents. The NCAA could require them to join a conference, or they could simply host a play-in game between the two highest rated independents. There would be any number of easy, reasonable solutions to that problem which would allow the conference championship system to work. If you want championships decided on the field and not by the voters, it's the closest thing you're ever going to get.

[zoogs]

As far as that scenario goes, Ohio State isn't punished for the timing of their loss, because the polls don't matter.

 

But they are punished for the timing of their loss. More specifically, they are punished because their loss occurred in conference, rather than out of conference. Ohio State loses one game all year and it happens to be to another good team in their own division. Let's say Oklahoma happens to play Nebraska OOC that year, and loses to Nebraska as well. Now both teams have the same record, and a loss to the same team. But because Nebraska belongs to OSU's conference, OSU is the team that can't be in the playoffs. And conferences with different numbers of members mean very different CCGs. The Big 12 won't even have a CCG unless things change. Certainly one of the even smaller mid-major conferences wouldn't have a CCG, and whoever wins the conference in season play, gets a playoff berth. How much sense does it make for the 8-team MWC to have a championship game to decide its winner, but for the 6-team Pac-10 West Division not to?

 

The principle is "you must win your <organizational structure> on the field" to have any claims to anything. Which is noble, but the organizational structures are not even equal in form & function across the nation, and themselves are fairly arbitrary.

 

I'm all for better OOC games, but then we get to a scenario where it makes a LOT of sense - if there are X conferences - for X number of dominant teams to jockey for position into each of the top conferences. And conferences will realign such that each conference is dominated by a couple teams, and then filled with creampuffs. Diluting the SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, into the other conferences, pretty much the opposite from now where the best teams in the small conferences are moving up the ladder. Or maybe combine everything into a couple of superconferences with the powers split between them. That's kind of a more messed up scenario than what we currently have, in my opinion. Way too much trouble for the sake of the national championship question.

 

The NCAA can't force them to join a conference though. They shouldn't be able to. A school should be able to be unaffiliated if they feel it's in their best interests, rather than find a conference to attach to or be unable to play in the championship game. Notre Dame is down now, but they are the big reason in reality why it can't happen.

 

Let's say instead of the top four teams by polls, we say this. Undefeated teams - regardless of conference, ranking, whatever - are first in. From then on, any H2H records, teams that have the highest winning percentage, or # of wins, and some other series of factors, decide the tiebreakers in some convoluted order. Kind of like each conference must use some system of tiebreakers to decide its division winners, but applied on a much larger scale. Or, #1 and #2 are automatically in, and #3 and #4 are determined by tiebreakers.

[Hercules]

As far as that scenario goes, Ohio State isn't punished for the timing of their loss, because the polls don't matter.

 

But they are punished for the timing of their loss. More specifically, they are punished because their loss occurred in conference, rather than out of conference.

 

No, they're punished because they lost in the conference championship game. They could have lost at any point in their conference season, just not in the conference championship game.

 

You might as well argue that a playoff system would be unfair because teams are punished for the timing of their loss. I mean, if 12-1 Nebraska lost to 8-4 Virginia Tech in the playoffs, then is Nebraska being punished for the timing of their loss? What about an undefeated team losing to a one loss team in the national title game? Now they both have one loss, isn't the loser simply being punished because of the "timing" of their loss? Or is it that the game that they lost had that much more weight attached to it?

 

Futhermore, you're trying to argue in favor of a poll based system, where teams are punished for the timing of their loss way more brutally than in a system where conference champions are rewarded playoff berths. In your system, a team can lose any game at all towards the end of the season, and they'll drop out of contention as a result, while a team that lost early in the season moves ahead of them. In my scenario, teams have to win their division, and they can do that no matter when they lose during their conference schedule. Teams in my scenario would actually be punished less for timing than in yours.

 

You can argue that the OOC schedule is made less relevant by a playoff system which rewards conference champions alone. But the OOC schedule in college football has already been ruined by the longer conference season and championship game, forcing most powerhouses to schedule cupcakes throughout the OOC in order to gain revenue and schedule wins. A playoff may help alleviate these trends by rewarding teams and conferences with extra revenue, and by placing less emphasis on early season losses.

 

I'm all for better OOC games, but then we get to a scenario where it makes a LOT of sense - if there are X conferences - for X number of dominant teams to jockey for position into each of the top conferences. And conferences will realign such that each conference is dominated by a couple teams, and then filled with creampuffs. Diluting the SEC, Big 12, Pac 10, into the other conferences, pretty much the opposite from now where the best teams in the small conferences are moving up the ladder. Or maybe combine everything into a couple of superconferences with the powers split between them. That's kind of a more messed up scenario than what we currently have, in my opinion. Way too much trouble for the sake of the national championship question.

 

Your idea of how and why conferences exist is also faulty. Conferences wouldn't become diluted because of a playoff system placing more emphasis on winning conference championships. It would create less incentive for teams like Boise State and TCU to move into tougher conferences, but it would not lead teams like Nebraska toward weaker conferences so they could compete for playoff berths. That ignores the main reason conferences exist at all: Money. Super-conferences aren't going to be the product of a playoff system, they're going to be the cause of a playoff system. They're going to be the product of people wanting to make more money.

 

The NCAA can't force them to join a conference though. They shouldn't be able to. A school should be able to be unaffiliated if they feel it's in their best interests, rather than find a conference to attach to or be unable to play in the championship game. Notre Dame is down now, but they are the big reason in reality why it can't happen.

 

The NCAA can't force a team to join a conference, but they can set standards for playoff berths, and if only conference champions are allowed in, then they are pretty clearly incentivizing independents to join conferences. That's no different than it is now, since the BCS emphasizes conference play over independents, and even favors certain conferences (AQ) over others. Like I said before, it wouldn't be hard to host a play-in (a de facto conference championship game) for the 2 most highly rated indpendents, or to find some other reasonable solution to that problem.

 

Let's say instead of the top four teams by polls, we say this. Undefeated teams - regardless of conference, ranking, whatever - are first in. From then on, any H2H records, teams that have the highest winning percentage, or # of wins, and some other series of factors, decide the tiebreakers in some convoluted order. Kind of like each conference must use some system of tiebreakers to decide its division winners, but applied on a much larger scale. Or, #1 and #2 are automatically in, and #3 and #4 are determined by tiebreakers.

 

Your tiebreaker system would never work either. First of all, what if TCU, Boise State, UConn, and Ohio State all go undefeated? Then you have 3 weak-conference teams with Ohio State, and one-loss teams like Alabama have the same argument that they do with the BCS, that they're more deserving than an undefeated Boise State. Say you have 3 undefeated teams, and then you have 3 one loss teams from separate conferences who didn't play each other. They have the same # of wins/losses (and winning percentage), no head to head record to discuss, so what are you going to go on? Strength of schedule? Common opponents? You're just creating an even worse version of the BCS.

[zoogs]

You make some good points, and I don't have anything to say to most of them.

 

On the last point, at some point the fallback would be on poll ratings. But not as the first option, but a tiebreaker in the events that other factors make the teams equivalent.

[Saunders]

All I can say... is that Hercules and I must be cut from the same cloth (or something) because that's exactly how I see it. I was going to rebutt all the responses to my Conference champs only plan, but you did it better than I could have.

 

Bravo good sir, Bravo!!!

[Blaze1up]

I like his system, 10 teams fits good with that setup. I've always preferred the 12 team pro format but either one would work well, just give us a playoff already.

[VectorVictor]

Meh--10 teams is too weird. Not getting into the playoff vs. non-playoff debate; honestly fine either way.

 

If they do go to a tourney, though, I think it should be:

 

16 teams - 12 from conference champions (keep it fair and keep politics out of it, for the most part), and four at-large as determined by highest placement in the BCS at the end of the season (including conference title games).

 

At-large automatically have lowest seeds, first rounds are played on campus, second round on played in BCS bowl sites. Lower seeds with stadium capacities lower than 45k* are obligated to find an alternate venue (read: closest pro or college stadium willing to take game) or defer home field to the higher seed.

 

BCS bowls rotate pecking order yearly. Two week break between round of four and NC game where all toilet/secondary bowls get played.

 

Nice, neat, uses existing mechanisms which value regular season/conference title games, and the toilet/secondary bowls can be a week/two week celebration leading up to the big game. And if the weak sister schools don't want to expand seating to accommodate the bigger programs they claim they want a shot at, then they have two options.

[Enhance]

I also don't care about the independents. The NCAA could require them to join a conference, or they could simply host a play-in game between the two highest rated independents.

You may not care, but there are thousands of Irish fans out there that would disagree with you from one of the most prestigious college football teams of all time. There will be no playoff picture that doesn't include non-AQ or independent teams and I can almost guarantee this.

[Enhance]

I feel I must reiterate that no system is perfect and everybody is not going to agree on one system. But right now, any legitimate playoff system derives a more realistic champion than what the BCS offers and there really is no way of disputing this.

[Saunders]

I also don't care about the independents. The NCAA could require them to join a conference, or they could simply host a play-in game between the two highest rated independents.

You may not care, but there are thousands of Irish fans out there that would disagree with you from one of the most prestigious college football teams of all time. There will be no playoff picture that doesn't include non-AQ or independent teams and I can almost guarantee this.

If the goal of a playoff is to ensure that everyone gets a chance to win the title, then ND has no choice. Join a conference.

[Saunders]

I feel I must reiterate that no system is perfect and everybody is not going to agree on one system. But right now, any legitimate playoff system derives a more realistic champion than what the BCS offers and there really is no way of disputing this.

Don't disagree at all. Where the problem lies, is how much do you dilute the pool to try to make everyone happy. By only using conference winners, teams that don't get in only have themselves to blame.

[VectorVictor]

I also don't care about the independents. The NCAA could require them to join a conference, or they could simply host a play-in game between the two highest rated independents.

You may not care, but there are thousands of Irish fans out there that would disagree with you from one of the most prestigious college football teams of all time. There will be no playoff picture that doesn't include non-AQ or independent teams and I can almost guarantee this.

If the goal of a playoff is to ensure that everyone gets a chance to win the title, then ND has no choice. Join a conference.

 

Well, or set up a system where you have 'wild card' slots that can be won by independents.

[Saunders]

I also don't care about the independents. The NCAA could require them to join a conference, or they could simply host a play-in game between the two highest rated independents.

You may not care, but there are thousands of Irish fans out there that would disagree with you from one of the most prestigious college football teams of all time. There will be no playoff picture that doesn't include non-AQ or independent teams and I can almost guarantee this.

If the goal of a playoff is to ensure that everyone gets a chance to win the title, then ND has no choice. Join a conference.

 

Well, or set up a system where you have 'wild card' slots that can be won by independents.

You could, but ideally, everyone that is eligible is in a conference with a championship game. That CCG acts as part of the playoff, and gets a team in. The problem with the independents, and non CCG conferences, is you'd have to use the stupid tie-breakers, and you could have situations where teams from a same conference don't play each other.

 

The 6 BCS champs, and top 2 Non-AQ champs. You then use the polls to create the seeding, and determine the Non-AQ teams. I know somebody will complain that there is still a human element (the polls) for the Non-AQ teams, but I think we can all agree that an 8-5 FAU team is not worthy....

[Overland Park Husker]

Give me a plus one and I'm happy.

[Enhance]

I feel I must reiterate that no system is perfect and everybody is not going to agree on one system. But right now, any legitimate playoff system derives a more realistic champion than what the BCS offers and there really is no way of disputing this.

Don't disagree at all. Where the problem lies, is how much do you dilute the pool to try to make everyone happy. By only using conference winners, teams that don't get in only have themselves to blame.

Too wide of a selection pool is a bad idea, which I agree with you on.

 

The reason I opine for the wildcard picks is because the NFL uses a system with wildcard selections and it works out pretty well for them. Completely different things, yes, but the NFL felt it necessary to include more than just division winners for some reason. Some of it was probably monetary though, I'm sure.

 

I also feel just because you didn't win your conference (or didn't play in the conference championship game) doesn't mean you're not a great team and don't deserve a shot to be in the playoffs. Plenty of great teams don't win their conferences but still get a shot at the national title in other sports. I know it further dilutes the system the more teams you add but I love when wildcard teams beat higher seeded teams and it makes for good sports entertainment.

 

Plus, the current NCAA basketball tournament involves roughly 20 percent of division one basketball schools. A 10 team playoff with two wildcard spots would be only 8 percent of division one football schools. Doesn't seem to shabby in my eyes.