fiverhityeight.com article on playoff picture

beorach

beorach

New member
I figure this isn't Husker-related so, even though the board seems far less than lively, I'll drop this interesting reading in the dust:

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/college-football-week-13-preview/

I like ND but I don't have a huge problem with the leapfrog there. OU has been more dominant and I understand the committee isn't just taking the records and strength of schedule into account as the main criteria (although it might be fairer than what they are doing). When you want to talk about quality wins, you have to talk about relative strengths of teams that largely don't play anybody. We've got 128 FBS teams and the P5 mostly plays from the pool outside the P5 for out-of-conference games. I think it'd be a huge step forward, w/r/t competition and judgment, if the P5 teams were limited to one cupcake. With that in mind, though, I'd be plenty happy with a playoff featuring all P5 conference champs and at least one extra team from outside the P5.

 
The thing that worries me is the Big 12's strategy of a smaller conference without a champ game to "trip up" a top team on their way to the playoff.

We have laughed at them the last few years for staying at 10 teams, but if the playoff expands there is less impetus to be in a large conference that is difficult to win. JMHO.

 
Moiraine said:
I just want 6 teams. The more teams we add the less important the regular season games are.
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Strictly speaking that's true but I don't think it's true practically speaking. It's not like teams are going to take games off because they know they're in the playoffs.

I think it will go to 8. I've said that's the right number for a long time. I don't want it to go to more than that. Six would be OK but I don't like the byes. Depending on how the schedule is set up, I don't think the to teams getting the bye would even like the longer layoff.

The reason I think 8 is right is because it catches all the one-loss teams. It's just too hard to compare schedules with basically no common opponents to say one one-loss team is that much better than another. One got a couple more breaks than another one did. I'd rather settle it on the field than in the conference room.

Last year, there was only one undefeated team (Florida State) and five one-loss teams (Alabama, Oregon, Ohio State, Baylor and TCU). That particular case would have worked for a six-team playoff but I doubt the cut will be that clean very often. There were only two two-loss teams (Michigan State and Mississippi State) which would have made the eight-team playoff cut very easy. You can say two-loss teams shouldn't get in but Michigan State's two losses were to #2 Oregon and #4 Ohio State. Mississippi State's two losses were to #1 Alabama and #9 Mississippi so it's not like they were bad losses. And who's to say that if Baylor or TCU played their schedules that they wouldn't have lost two games as well.

Right now there are two unbeatens (Clemson and Iowa), and ten one-loss teams (Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Baylor, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Florida, North Carolina and Navy). There will be several more losses in that group as there are games between them but it's pretty likely that there won't be a clean break at four team with one loss or fewer. Lots to argue about for that last spot (or two). I'd rather let them play it out. None of those teams is going to have anything taken away from their regular season by having four more teams in the playoffs. If anything, it would give some of those schools at the back end that much more to play for - to try to get the #8 spot.

 
Anything less than 8 teams is a joke and anything less than 16 is not ideal. I've said it so many times, but literally every other level of college football has had a better system in place than this for many years. The three other levels of NCAA football have 24 team tournaments and NAIA has 16. It is just an insult that there was no playoff at the top level until the last year and that it is only four teams.

 
mrandyk said:
Anything less than 8 teams is a joke and anything less than 16 is not ideal. I've said it so many times, but literally every other level of college football has had a better system in place than this for many years. The three other levels of NCAA football have 24 team tournaments and NAIA has 16. It is just an insult that there was no playoff at the top level until the last year and that it is only four teams.
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And even though it wasn't always fair it's a part of why college football was/is my favorite sport. You HAD to go undefeated or get lucky. Every single game was a must win game. I love/loved that.

 
Interesting how Navy and even 3 loss UCLA still have a chance. I guess that's the Armageddon scenario, where everyone else loses.

And there are still people who think Notre Dame gets every break in the rankings and everything else, but even if they finish with a win over a top 10 team, they still have less than 50% chance to get in, behind at least 2 other 1 loss teams. Probably 3.

 
Moiraine said:
I just want 6 teams. The more teams we add the less important the regular season games are.
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Agreed. 6 is the max I want in. It's plenty. If you can prove you belong in the top 6, then it's your own fault.

Most years it'd be the P5 champs and then 1 at large.

 
I know many teams and fans are hoping for major upsets in the upcoming conference championship games. I am as well but most likely not for the reasons others are. If Alabama and/or Clemson get upset, I predict that it will start a national media conversation about not all power 5 conferences having a championship game.

It is not a level playing field IMO. Last year the Big XII rolled the dice and came up on the short end of the stick in eyes of the playoff committee. This year, they rolled the dice again and came up roses. Thus, some teams with a final game have every thing to lose and nothing to gain. Perhaps an argument could be made the other way as well, but I still believe consistency across all conferences is required to ensure a fair evaluation when selecting the final teams.

 
adc7236 said:
I know many teams and fans are hoping for major upsets in the upcoming conference championship games. I am as well but most likely not for the reasons others are. If Alabama and/or Clemson get upset, I predict that it will start a national media conversation about not all power 5 conferences having a championship game.

It is not a level playing field IMO. Last year the Big XII rolled the dice and came up on the short end of the stick in eyes of the playoff committee. This year, they rolled the dice again and came up roses. Thus, some teams with a final game have every thing to lose and nothing to gain. Perhaps an argument could be made the other way as well, but I still believe consistency across all conferences is required to ensure a fair evaluation when selecting the final teams.
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Agree. Either all have a champ game or none. I think making automatic qualifiers (P5 conference winners) would force this issue. It would also help put pressure on ND to finally join a conference.

I prefer an 8-team playoff, but a 6-team with Power-5 champs would REALLY squeeze out Notre Dame. And that would make me happy.

 
Right now I think my preferred number is 16. It's not like the regular season is going to become totally irrelevant. Think of it more as the quality of the postseason -- you know, where it *should* matter -- getting much, much better.

 
We had more consistency with the BCS formula. Record mattered most and then SOS...although the voters managed to mess with things, too, of course. There just aren't enough out-of-conference games scheduled between P5 teams to get much of a feel for the quality of conferences. I'd be interested to read a logical explanation of why we shouldn't just take the conference champs and at least one FBS team from outside the mix. I believe the old complaints are still valid starting points in settling the matter of the national title. If you can't win your conference, you shouldn't be able to play for the national title. If you aren't in the P5, it shouldn't mean there's no way you can play for the national title. Who but SEC fans want two SEC teams in the hunt? They seem to be an odd bunch anyway...cheering "SEC" places. I'd think that most fans would only care about a team that didn't win its conference getting in when that team was their favorite. With all that expressed, I could deal with teams that weren't conference champs getting in if we went to 16 teams. That would certainly settle things and we'd get to see more great teams playing each other. Who could complain about that? In the meantime, incremental progress is still progress....

 
My main issue is that conference championships totally ignore non-conference games. That means conference champions are decided on only a subset of the games. I'd rather see the national championship decided based on all games.

Take an extreme scenario: Team A plays and soundly beats Florida State, Alabama, and Oklahoma out of conference, with one of them being an end of the season rivalry game. Team B loses to 3 FCS or lower tier FBS schools, including a late season game (like some SEC schools schedule), and loses to the worst team in their conference.

However, Team B upsets Team A on a fluke or terrible weather or due to one-week injuries to Team A's star players, and also manages to win the rest of their conference games. They go to the conference championship game on the head-to-head tiebreaker and win that too. Or it's like the Big 12 and they have no conference championship).

Or Team B is in the other division, and gets in the conference championship game with 2 or 3 conference losses, and upsets team A.

Clearly Team A is the better team, probably best in the country, and B really isn't very good, but B gets to go instead of A.

And say something similar happens in every conference and we have a bunch of team Bs in the playoffs.

Just pick the best teams for the playoffs. If you can make the field big enough to include the Team A or two that was clearly one of the very best but got shut out of it due to a fluke, ok, but don't make exclusive playoffs based on champions. It didn't work that well for hoops before the expanded the tournament, IMO.

 
VA Husker Fan said:
My main issue is that conference championships totally ignore non-conference games. That means conference champions are decided on only a subset of the games. I'd rather see the national championship decided based on all games.

Take an extreme scenario: Team A plays and soundly beats Florida State, Alabama, and Oklahoma out of conference, with one of them being an end of the season rivalry game. Team B loses to 3 FCS or lower tier FBS schools, including a late season game (like some SEC schools schedule), and loses to the worst team in their conference.

However, Team B upsets Team A on a fluke or terrible weather or due to one-week injuries to Team A's star players, and also manages to win the rest of their conference games. They go to the conference championship game on the head-to-head tiebreaker and win that too. Or it's like the Big 12 and they have no conference championship).

Or Team B is in the other division, and gets in the conference championship game with 2 or 3 conference losses, and upsets team A.

Clearly Team A is the better team, probably best in the country, and B really isn't very good, but B gets to go instead of A.

And say something similar happens in every conference and we have a bunch of team Bs in the playoffs.

Just pick the best teams for the playoffs. If you can make the field big enough to include the Team A or two that was clearly one of the very best but got shut out of it due to a fluke, ok, but don't make exclusive playoffs based on champions. It didn't work that well for hoops before the expanded the tournament, IMO.
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I see your point, but fluke plays and upsets are going to happen. It's football. One could argue that Ohio State just had a bad game against MSU, but is the superior team. ---- Too freakin bad. Win or you are out. It's one of the really great things about college football. No excuses. Think of the Conference Championship games as an extension of a single-elimination playoff.

 
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