dutch91701 Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 NCAA Football is not comparable to basketball. Basketball is way less popular to start, has been hurt a lot the the early jumps to the NBA, and has a ton more games. Basketball games are just games - football games are day-long events. This playoff is not going to hurt college football in any way, shape, or form. Nor will an 8 or 16 team playoff. Adding more teams adds more randomness, which will hurt college football long-term. Just like it's hurt the NFL right? It will absolutely not. Having more teams in championship contention or playoff qualification contention at any point in time will only increase interest. How many years have wildcard road teams (5 and 6 seeds) made or won the Super Bowl? They didn't even win their division. Anything can happen in the playoffs and the more teams you add, the more ridiculous it becomes. As an example, how many times does the best team win the NCAA basketball tournament? Rarely. Football and basketball aren't the same, as you've said but, the same principle applies. The more teams you add, the greater the chance of someone less deserving winning the title. Quote Link to comment
Michiganball Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Notre Dame Joe is just worried no one will allow their special snowflake team to get into that playoff without having won an actual division and judging by what a poor choice ND was last year they would be right. ND just need to go full "Fredo" leave the Midwest and join ACC in football, problem solved. Quote Link to comment
Michiganball Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 like college basketball got better with an expanded tourney? yeah, the NCAA Tournament got better while the regular season is ignored. Sure it did, it's one of the most exciting times in sport, it's damn March madness. And stop crying about the regular season being ignored your just talking nonsense now. Every team wants to win it's division for F's sakes, what are you talking about? Quote Link to comment
Notre Dame Joe Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 How many ND-Pitt bball games did you watch ever? It's the same as the UM basketball games I watched that weren't in the NCAAT. Quote Link to comment
tschu Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 NCAA Football is not comparable to basketball. Basketball is way less popular to start, has been hurt a lot the the early jumps to the NBA, and has a ton more games. Basketball games are just games - football games are day-long events. This playoff is not going to hurt college football in any way, shape, or form. Nor will an 8 or 16 team playoff. Adding more teams adds more randomness, which will hurt college football long-term. Just like it's hurt the NFL right? It will absolutely not. Having more teams in championship contention or playoff qualification contention at any point in time will only increase interest. How many years have wildcard road teams (5 and 6 seeds) made or won the Super Bowl? They didn't even win their division. Anything can happen in the playoffs and the more teams you add, the more ridiculous it becomes. As an example, how many times does the best team win the NCAA basketball tournament? Rarely. Football and basketball aren't the same, as you've said but, the same principle applies. The more teams you add, the greater the chance of someone less deserving winning the title. If the best team always won every game, every series, and every championship in every sport, what would the point of being a sports fan be? That isn't fun for anyone. I think you have to give the best teams a shot (the best shot, in fact, by home game or seeding or byes or whatever you want) but then let the cards fall as they may. Quote Link to comment
Notre Dame Joe Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 How many years have wildcard road teams (5 and 6 seeds) made or won the Super Bowl? They didn't even win their division. Anything can happen in the playoffs and the more teams you add, the more ridiculous it becomes. As an example, how many times does the best team win the NCAA basketball tournament? Rarely. Football and basketball aren't the same, as you've said but, the same principle applies. The more teams you add, the greater the chance of someone less deserving winning the title. I'm not sure if it increases the luck factor or not. Trying to go 12-0 requires a bit of luck for any team, but 11-1 teams are a dime a dozen. It's probably close. The primary beneficiaries will be teams that 1 schedule patsies ooc and 2 play in easy divisions so they can afford to rest up for the playoffs. Quote Link to comment
Michiganball Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 NCAA Football is not comparable to basketball. Basketball is way less popular to start, has been hurt a lot the the early jumps to the NBA, and has a ton more games. Basketball games are just games - football games are day-long events. This playoff is not going to hurt college football in any way, shape, or form. Nor will an 8 or 16 team playoff. Adding more teams adds more randomness, which will hurt college football long-term. Just like it's hurt the NFL right? It will absolutely not. Having more teams in championship contention or playoff qualification contention at any point in time will only increase interest. How many years have wildcard road teams (5 and 6 seeds) made or won the Super Bowl? They didn't even win their division. Anything can happen in the playoffs and the more teams you add, the more ridiculous it becomes. As an example, how many times does the best team win the NCAA basketball tournament? Rarely. Football and basketball aren't the same, as you've said but, the same principle applies. The more teams you add, the greater the chance of someone less deserving winning the title. Why don't we just eliminate all that actual playing on the field that messes up preconceived notions about the teams abilities and give the cup to the number 1 ranked team? This would prevent that #2 team from messing up the preconceived abilities of the two teams as well. Quote Link to comment
California Husker Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Skipping the semantical yammering, there were fewer teams eligible for a national title after the bcs came into existence. Underf the old NYD bowls, @ 6 teams in the big 5 had a chance for a natty if the things worked out. And btw, college ball used a meaningful regular season to crown a champion. Wins in Jan are not naurally better than ones in September. There is absolutely NOTHING that diminishes the regular season with a play off of 4 teams. If you move it to 8 team and make it 6 conference champions plus two wild cards then it even makes the regular season even MORE exciting. It creates an atmosphere where if you are in contention to win your conference, then you are in contention for an NC. That is huge and right now, most conference champions have absolutely no chance of an NC. You can take a loss and only lower your playoff seed a little. Furthermore, many teams will get a mulligan in a conference championship game. Pitt @ ND 2012 wasn't the 13th highest rated game of the year because people wanted to know where the Irish would be seeded. You are throwing away what makes CFB special so ESPN can make more money off banality. Man this is the most old-fogey short-sighted crap ever College football is only going to get better because of the playoff. Not all change is bad! I want to reply to this comment without giving the impression that I am attacking your position. You are absolutely correct that "not all change is bad". I would just like to lay out why I, in my most humble opinion, think a multi-team playoff IS bad. Before I say anything else, let me also say that I don't necessarily think that the BCS was a good thing either. First: I think that the bowl system is one of the greatest parts of college football. It gives kids, whose season may have been otherwise disapointing, a chance to go out as a champion. The "Rose Bowl champion" or the "Orang Bowl champion", or even the "Poinsettia Bowl champion" for God's sake. It is something exciting for the players and fans to look forward to. It is a chance to go out a winner and give the teams something to build on for the next season. They have meaning and value. I believe a playoff takes that away. This year Oklahoma is the "Sugar Bowl champion". if that were a playoff game (as some have suggested the bowls should be), then they would have won the first round of the playoff, but still might go out a loser in the end. So who does that benefit? Fans who just have to have a bracket type playoff to satisfy their need to have a definitive winner? Let's assume that FSU would have won the championship this year with a multi-team playoff (just for argument's sake). Would they have proven anything more? They already won a game to prove they were the best team in their conference. Then they beat a team that played a game to prove they were the best team in their conference (the mighty SEC no less). I don't think winning one more game would have been any more convincing this year. FSU was pretty clearly the best team and they proved it. Second: Since there is no parity in college football, and the different conference play by different rules (ie, they have their own officials, academic standards, admission standards, recruiting rules, scholarship offer rules, etc.), seeding a playoff would be pretty much of a joke at this point particularly if you are only going to take 4 teams. Before a playoff would even be legitimate, they would have to fix the sport so that all teams from all conferences have an equal shot at making the playoffs. I realize that in pro football it seems to work well to some degree (although there are even problems there), but the NFL is one league and it does control the way teams aquire players and the rules the players play by. Third: I know, I know, there is a playoff in college basketball and it seems to work. Well, yeah...sort of. But don't forget that at one point the NCAA tournament had 32 teams...then it was expanded to 64...and there were still complaints about good teams, deserving teams, being left out. So now they have "play in" games...and there is still controversy as to which teams should be in the tournament. I don't think a 4 team trournament is going to give the other teams in the top 10 (or even top 20) any satisfaction that they were treated fairly. Fourth: I know, the playoff also seems to work in division two (I know FCS). But there is not near the microscope on that level of play that there is on division one (I know FBS). Is anyone outside of students and alumn (and only some of them) going to be outraged if Portland State gets snubbed? But imagine the discussion this year when trying to determine the "top 4" to be in a playoff. Alabama was ranked in the top four, but they didn't even win their conference. And in retrospect, couldn't even beat the second best team in the Big XII. Imagine the injustice, in retrospect, of taking Alabama over Oklahoma in a four team playoff. I know the past system of AP and coaches voting for the champion was not perfect; far from it. I just don't think we should trash it in favor of something worse. In my opinion, the way they are going is worse. Unless they fix the other things that give huge advantages to some conferences (cough, cough, SEC), then a playoff, as I said above, just satisfies some weird need to have a "proven champion"; a champion who "wins it on the field". But how much proof of champion status does that really give when the deck is so heavily stacked in favor of some teams and against others. Just my two cents. Quote Link to comment
Michiganball Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Dunno cal Husker, Bowl games are a dime a dozen and have very little of their old luster left, it's just a money grab these days. I do agree with your second point, this new playoff is going to be very controversial as well, for me it's a partial step in the right direction , take this step and hope it will expand the number of teams in the next 10 years, but it still clings to opinions as a basis. For me it should come down to champs from each division to get a shot at a national championship. As Far as B ball, there is almost no controversy by the time you get to 60 and up, the chance of the sport being robbed of a champion from that bracket is next to nil. Your fourth point is similar to third and yes, there will be lots of tears, unfortunately this is still an extension of what we have now and there would have been the same tears anyway. However at least two more deserving teams(bar sec hype) will get a shot at this. As far as you final thoughts, I sort of agree also, but I don't think it will get worse, it will just be almost as bad. Yes the games will still be mostly in the South, yes the hype machine like espn will favor teams where they invested billions into a network. However every year for decades I often wanted to see that third and fourth seeded team play, I am pretty damn positive that little sec run would have never happened with a 4 team playoff as there were some outstanding teams that were snubbed. Overall I think it will be slightly better but for me at least even a slight improvement is a step in the right direction. Quote Link to comment
tschu Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 Yep. The "Bowl Games are sacred!" crowd is usually the same crowd that complains about there being too many bowls, or how the bowl tie-ins often create terrible matchups, or how the bowls are now just a money grab. Quote Link to comment
Notre Dame Joe Posted January 11, 2014 Share Posted January 11, 2014 #1 Bears repeating because ESPN doesn't want to talk about it. 16 teams get to end their season on a winning note. Can you even try to quantify the amount of goodwill that creates? And they all benefit somewhat in recruiting, which is partially a free market. In the playoff model everyone but 1 ends the season with a loss. The fanbases benefit too because college fans are more loyal and tend to have longer memories. You can probably recall Husker teams from the 1950s that won an Orange Bowl and can say "We would have trounced that year's champion." Those are great memories, that have no NFL equivalent oh remember that year we lost in the divisional round? That was so cool because we might have beaten the Super Bowl champion As for the excess of bowls, that's a byproduct of spreading the wealth around. You don't have to watch them, but they deliver goodies for the smaller programs. Realistically, how often is Navy going to be in the playoff? Quote Link to comment
Redux Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Going to a bowl and winning does not garauntee riches for that university. All we are doing with the 4 team playoff is giving 3 and 4 a legitimate shot at a National Championship for a deserving season i stead of being left out in favor of the more popular team. It doesnt hurt anything. If 3 teams lose in the playoff do yoi really think a recruit is gonna say "Wow, you couldnt win a tournament, Im decommitting and going to Appalacian State now. Quote Link to comment
BigRedBuster Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Ok....I gotta comment on this because this argument the anti playoff crowd makes just makes my head explode. You can still have your bowls!!!!!!!!!! If Iowa state and Vanderbilt still want to go to the Blue Bonnet Butter Me Up bowl. .....guess what....they still can. A playoff changes nothing with the bowls. Quote Link to comment
tschu Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 #1 Bears repeating because ESPN doesn't want to talk about it. 16 teams get to end their season on a winning note. Can you even try to quantify the amount of goodwill that creates? And they all benefit somewhat in recruiting, which is partially a free market. In the playoff model everyone but 1 ends the season with a loss. The fanbases benefit too because college fans are more loyal and tend to have longer memories. You can probably recall Husker teams from the 1950s that won an Orange Bowl and can say "We would have trounced that year's champion." Those are great memories, that have no NFL equivalent oh remember that year we lost in the divisional round? That was so cool because we might have beaten the Super Bowl champion As for the excess of bowls, that's a byproduct of spreading the wealth around. You don't have to watch them, but they deliver goodies for the smaller programs. Realistically, how often is Navy going to be in the playoff? Well we aren't getting rid of the bowls man. The lower-tier bowls aren't going anywhere Quote Link to comment
tschu Posted January 12, 2014 Share Posted January 12, 2014 Ok....I gotta comment on this because this argument the anti playoff crowd makes just makes my head explode. You can still have your bowls!!!!!!!!!! If Iowa state and Vanderbilt still want to go to the Blue Bonnet Butter Me Up bowl. .....guess what....they still can. A playoff changes nothing with the bowls. Exactly. Quote Link to comment
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