2024-2025 College Football Playoff

Comish said:
I'd like them to tweak it next year to exclude the byes, add four teams, with the top eight playing at home and again the second week if they win, until moving to neutral sites to finish it out in traditional bowl sites.
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This could work but the reality is that there is a much greater disparity in teams 1 to 8 than 9 to 16, and having seeds 9 to 16 go on the road is likely to result in more blowouts like we saw this weekend.  I would definitely do away with the rule that guarantees a top 4 seed to every conference winner as ASU and Boise State do not deserve a bye and that high of a seed.  

 
I don't know what I am more amazed at: Nebraska taking Ohio State right down to the wire, or Ohio State completely blowing out a 10-2 Tennessee. 

 
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Red Five said:
This isn't a new phenomena.  There are playoff blowouts.  And there were blowouts in the old BCS (37-14 ring a bell), Bowl Alliance (62-24 ring a bell), and Bowl Coalition days.

Here is the average margin of victory in each year's 4 team playoff (3 games):

2014 - 23 points

2015 - 21 points

2016 - 17 points

2017 - 9 points

2018 - 22 points

2019 - 19 points

2020 - 22 points

2021 - 20 points

2022 - 22 points

2023 - 11 points

And here is the final score for each year's championship game.  Only 3 of the 10 games have been w/in 2 touchdowns (last close game was 2017).

2014 - 42-20

2015 - 45-40

2016 - 35-31

2017 - 26-23

2018 - 44-16

2019 - 42-25

2020 - 52-24

2021 - 33-18

2022 - 65-7

2023 - 34-13
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I don't disagree...I think my point was this wasn't ever going to be something that will fix what you've laid out in the immediate future.  The gap in talent is still far too great for the top few teams...I think this will help, eventually...but for now, still lots of stinkers.

 
Cobra Kai said:
I don't disagree...I think my point was this wasn't ever going to be something that will fix what you've laid out in the immediate future.  The gap in talent is still far too great for the top few teams...I think this will help, eventually...but for now, still lots of stinkers.
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You’re saying that at a point in time when all rosters are going through major changes. Give it time and see what happens. 

 
Street Novelist said:
I don't know what I am more amazed at: Nebraska taking Ohio State right down to the wire, or Ohio State completely blowing out a 10-2 Tennessee. 
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Nothing surprises me with OSU.  They are a bunch of talented over paid primadonnas that struggle staying focused to play week to week.  Losing to Michigan might be the best thing that happened to them.

I think overall the SEC is slightly down this year.  Texas has played no top 25 teams except Georgia.  I thought UT let a very average Clemson team play with them.  Georgia has it's own focus issues and should have lost to Georgia Tech.  Worst Alabama team in a while.  

SEC is very good football, but spend way too much time smelling themselves.  I don't expect ND to beat Georgia, but I woulnd't be shocked.  UT should desptoty ASU.

 
admo said:
I cannot speak for him, but sports are different.  For example, 

Golf is a skill sport.
Baseball is a reaction and skill sport.
Hockey is a contact sport on ice skates.
Football is a collision sport, with helmets using metal or carbon steel face masks.

Basketball is a cardio sport, with shorts and tank tops.  The more teams the merrier  :)

Personally, with my recent hind-sight, 8 teams seems to be the sweet spot with no bye weeks. 

Because the first round of games was less interesting then the conference championships week. 

However, 12 teams is fine and if they want to go 16 teams, that's fine too.  I don't have a problem, just an opinion.

But I mostly worry about injuries to key players during Round 1 and or in Round 2 that could keep a team from performing their best in a playoff run or before a championship game.  And with too many playoff games that could possibly happen.  Which would also destroy the dreams of the team and fan base.
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I appreciate your response but it doesn’t really address what I was asking Toe. I don’t disagree with your points on playoff sizes or the differences between sports.

My question was specifically about Toe’s position of “only the teams that could plausibly be #1” making it into a tournament. In nearly every sport (whether hockey, baseball, football, or basketball), we can usually identify just a small group of teams people would argue could be #1, so I'm curious if that was just a football-specific view or a broader view about tournaments in general.

 
Archy1221 said:
And I would add to that, the best team doesn’t always win the NCAA tournament or the Super Bowl.  Some times it just just the best team playing at that time (the last few weeks of the season).  I like the new format, I’m sure they can still tweak it some.  If this format sticks, I’m quite certain at some point a lower seed 9-12 with make it to the final four/championship game/win it all.   
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This is my thought, as well.

I think we would all agree a tournament champion is usually some balance between how good and how 'hot' they are at that time. The 9-12 seeds will likely rarely if ever win it all, but just like in basketball, being a "tournament team" helps a lot with a recruiting and just program visibility. Teams like SMU and Indiana are going to benefit from what happened to them this year even if they got blown out. I think 12 teams feels right for college football but that they probably need to do some tweaking to their eligibility and seeding rules.

I also think some people are going way overboard in their analysis of these first round games. Very few people thought Tennessee would poop the bed like they did and personally I loved the vibes of December home playoff games in college football even if the games were lackluster.

 
Dunno about you but I've enjoyed the hell out of this weekend in spite of the blowouts.

This is a dead week on the college football schedule and they've turned it into something good. And as alluded to before, I love seeing southern teams go north and get their butts handed to them in the cold.

 
BigRedBuster said:
You’re saying that at a point in time when all rosters are going through major changes. Give it time and see what happens. 
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Yeah...my word salad is hard to decipher...I think once the portal changes the balance of power this will be very intriguing.  Until then, we have to live with craptastic games in the first round or 2.

 
Cobra Kai said:
Yeah...my word salad is hard to decipher...I think once the portal changes the balance of power this will be very intriguing.  Until then, we have to live with craptastic games in the first round or 2.
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There has always been craptastic games involved with the NC. 

 
BigRedBuster said:
There has always been craptastic games involved with the NC. 
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Again...not arguing...but going 0-4 was bad year one.  It'll straighten out.  Look at what parody has done for the ncaa tournament...I'm not suggesting a 64 team tournament and 16s beating 1s...I'm just saying they've had transfers impact the landscape of cbb faster than cfb.  

It will get there...

 
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