Possible solution other than a playoff

[General Blackshirt]

Just because they use useless statistics when they put the percentages in, like strength of schedule. Even if a team isn't playing well the computer's don't know that. I have never understood them and never will. Most coaches will be honest and they can tell how team's are playing

These computer polls are designed by people a lot smarter than anyone on this board can probably understand, so maybe we're not supposed to understand why it does what it does. Going by the orignial proposed solution in this thread, a computer would rank the teams based on some algorithm. I'm sure there's plenty of Harvard math geeks out there willing to write an algorithm to objectively determine the best teams in football, and I'm sure it would be a heck of a lot better than a stupid coaches poll.

 

[tmfr15]

A national championship is not being offered in D1 college football. The BCS doesn't claim to crown a national champion.....they crown a BCS championship game winner. The NCAA doesn't have anything to do with the post season in D1 and does what it can to distance itself from the bowl selection process.

Until the NCAA decides they want to crown a champ, we won't have one.

Here is what we do have.

We have a group of bowls, five of which are the most illustrious. Those bowls, all labeled as BCS bowls, are the Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, and Rose....plus the BCS championship.

We have a very definite system for reaching those bowls. Champions in the Big 6 conferences get auto bids. Other teams must gain an at large bid. Notre Dame has an advantage in this area because, like it or not, they are considered to be one of the top programs in the country. Other conferences must scratch and claw to get their way in, and they should have to do that. Most of the time they must go unbeaten, and, again, they should have to do that. It's only fair.

When the D1 football season starts, programs aim for bowls. The lower conference teams aim for a conference crown and the best bowl possible. Teams in the Big 6 hope for BCS bowls or the level of bowl just under BCS level.

Teams are assigned at the end of the season and no thought is given to pairing them in the best way to determine a national champion because, as asserted before, the NCAA and the BCS don't have that as part of their agendas.

Teams that win their bowl are happy because they get to end the season with a win. Teams like Boise State, and Utah, twice, end the season with the feeling of having slayed a giant. Teams from the Big 6 that win a BCS bowl of any kind get validation. Their program is one of the tops in the nation. And, finally, that one team that wins the BCS championship leaves the stage knowing they have done the best they possibly could do in any season.

People should realize these truths and stop praying for a playoff because the NCAA doesn't want one. End of story.

Look on the bright side. At least we have a system that rewards solid play and has a clear-cut methodology. It is a bummer that no team can say they are the true national champ, and, at the same time, it's a blessing. Teams that win a BCS game of any kind, including the BCS title game, have the best case to make for their team being the best in college football. Fans love the debate and they love that their teams are in the limelight.

Forget about the playoff.

Go with what we got and try to be happy. It's all we are ever going to get.

 

[drmathprog]

I think every team that is bowl eligible should automatically be declared co-champion. :nutz

 

[VA Husker Fan]

Computers don't have the ability to take mitigating factors in. The BCS forced them to take out margin of victory to avoid teams running up the score, and even if you allowed it, it's hard to tell apart a garbage TD you score in the 4th vs. a legitimate blowout but with a meaningless TD given up in the last seconds. And without it, if the obviously best team in the country wins in a bunch of blowouts, but loses one game due to terrible weather, terrible calls, and injuries that knock out their top 2 QBs they may be behind a team that gets blown out once and lucks out a win every other game.

Injuries, luck etc. shouldn't be taken into account. They are part of the game. To illustrate the point, let's take it to the extreme, and say that our 10 best players all go down with serious injuries right before the season starts. They are all out the first half of the season, and we lose four games without them. They then come back and we finish the season 5-1, finishing 8-5. Even though we are clearly a great team with everyone healthy, what matters is what actually occurred on the field. Injuries, weather, or luck should make no difference in determining the highest rank team. So let's say some other team-- we'll say Arkansas-- gets tons of lucky breaks, and even though they are clearly inferior talent-wise, their incredibly lucky season ends up 11-1. Even if Nebraska is the better team, Arkansas produced the far more deserving results, and thus should be ranked well ahead.

Always keep in mind that rankings, when determining the national champion, are in place to find the most deserving team based on the results on the field, not the most talented team. If it was the other way around, there would be no reason to play any games. We would simply have a team of skilled talent scouts watch every team practice for a couple months, then declare the most talented team (probably USC) and crown them champions. The fact that many things (injuries, luck, weather, bye weeks, home field, off-the-field distractions, etc.) factor into the outcome of any given game, and the superior team talent-wise can still come out on the losing end, is a huge part of what makes football (or any other sport) so great.

I'm ok with that, but I'm not talking about a good 8-5 team vs a lucky 11-1 team. I'm talking about 2 teams playing a similar schedule and both going 11-1, but one team being very clearly dominating with one unlucky loss vs. a very lucky 11-1 team.

I guess if you let the computers put back in margin of victory those things will sort themselves off better, but then you'll have teams putting up style points.

Let's put it this way: for many years there have been human polls and computer polls. The only reason people have started paying attention to the computer polls is because they are part of the BCS formula. Before that, the only one that counted were the human polls. If the computer polls did it better, why didn't anyone care about them?

Writing a computer program to rate teams isn't all that difficult. The hardest part is to decide which factors to include and how to weight them. If you let the NCAA dictate that, the problem is that they are going to tweak it every year when the program doesn't give the output that humans think is right, just like they do the BCS formula. Remember "Quality Wins"? That was a direct result of Miami beating FSU but FSU getting a higher BCS ranking. So they "fixed" that, and eventually figured out that trying to adjust to that one special situation made the system worse, so they removed it.

And back to the original post, the NCAA can't tell the AP they can't have a poll pre-season or any time they want any more than they can tell me I can't post my top 25 to this forum. They can tell the AP they aren't going to use it for anything, but in fact the AP beat them to the punch and told the NCAA they can't use their poll in the BCS.

 

[T_O_Bull]

What do I think? I think that greatest ending for a college sport got all screwed up because a bunch of money hungery NCAA execs, and whinny sports channel talking heads (both TV and sports radio people) started to say, "We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff." And now all of us have fallen in behind them saying, "We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff." Sorry but as far as I am concerned, "We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff."

T_O_B

:boxosoap :bang :boxosoap :bang :boxosoap :bang :boxosoap

So what you are saying is that you don't want a playoff? I not quite sure.....

What I would like is for the College Football season to end on New Years Day like it did for 40 plus years. Why you may ask...

1. New Years Day is a great party day.

2. 4 or 5 great Bowl games lasting from 11:00 AM to well into the evening.

3. Lots of different ways for the final rankings to end up.

4. Lots to debate for the next few months.

5. All in all it was just a lot more fun.

T_O_B

 

[BeachBuffs]

What do I think? I think that greatest ending for a college sport got all screwed up because a bunch of money hungery NCAA execs, and whinny sports channel talking heads (both TV and sports radio people) started to say, "We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff." And now all of us have fallen in behind them saying, "We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff. We need a playoff." Sorry but as far as I am concerned, "We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff. We don't need a playoff."

T_O_B

:boxosoap :bang :boxosoap :bang :boxosoap :bang :boxosoap

So what you are saying is that you don't want a playoff? I not quite sure.....

What I would like is for the College Football season to end on New Years Day like it did for 40 plus years. Why you may ask...

1. New Years Day is a great party day.

2. 4 or 5 great Bowl games lasting from 11:00 AM to well into the evening.

3. Lots of different ways for the final rankings to end up.

4. Lots to debate for the next few months.

5. All in all it was just a lot more fun.

T_O_B

Either create a playoff system or go back to the way it was, they scream tradition about Bowls but they have ruined the bowls anyhow. Either make it fair or go retro.

 

[krc1995]

I think that the system should be left as is, and then when the bowl season is over (except shorten the bowl season considerably, with ALL of the bowls ending on the 1st), have a final four of the four most impressive teams at the end of the season.

the biggest complaint i hear is when a team playing in a bcs bowl that isn't the championship game stomps on their opponent, and then whines that they should have had a shot. well, now they do get their shot for playing well in their bowl game.

Yes- this is similar to the setup I have been fantasizing about. I have never really understand the hype behind going to a BSC bowl- more money maybe but there is still only one national championship game. A system like this utlizes the BCS bowls, while still having all other bowls. Also IMO, I think that the bowl season is stretched out too far and it would easy to condense the season to alot for two more games at the end of the year. If all the BCS bowls were played on January 1st, then a week later there would be two games, and then the next week would be the championship. That makes the season end on January 14th. Not alot different from when it ends now. Plus, we would have more games during the week between Christmas and New Years- and I would love that.

This makes sense too me so it must be flawed.

I also am not in favor of getting rid of the human element of polls and ratings. I love the having something to gripe about for years. The human element of college football is what makes it special-It would be sad to not have Beno Cook vote Navy #1 for no good reason. If college football were perfect what would be commiserate about?

 

[huzkerbob]

Arguing about a CFB playoff is like arguing politics or religion. Everyone is basically wrong, but we all think we're the ones that are right.

 

[VA Husker Fan]

What I would like is for the College Football season to end on New Years Day like it did for 40 plus years. Why you may ask...

1. New Years Day is a great party day.

2. 4 or 5 great Bowl games lasting from 11:00 AM to well into the evening.

3. Lots of different ways for the final rankings to end up.

4. Lots to debate for the next few months.

5. All in all it was just a lot more fun.

T_O_B

Personally I prefer to settle it on the field rather than debate it for months or years like 1994 and 1997. The BCS gave us great games like Miami-Ohio State and USC-Texas that wouldn't have been possible in the old system. So sometimes there's controversy over who gets the #2 spot. That doesn't seem any worse than the manipulation and randomness of the old bowl assignments, and it guarantees that if there's a true #1 and #2, they will face it off on the field.

 

[huskertim]

Just because they use useless statistics when they put the percentages in, like strength of schedule. Even if a team isn't playing well the computer's don't know that. I have never understood them and never will. Most coaches will be honest and they can tell how team's are playing

These computer polls are designed by people a lot smarter than anyone on this board can probably understand, so maybe we're not supposed to understand why it does what it does. Going by the orignial proposed solution in this thread, a computer would rank the teams based on some algorithm. I'm sure there's plenty of Harvard math geeks out there willing to write an algorithm to objectively determine the best teams in football, and I'm sure it would be a heck of a lot better than a stupid coaches poll.

Yeah, noone knows football like a Harvard math whiz.

 

[huskertim]

I think I'm probably part of the minority in that I'm against a playoff system in college football and I know that this topic has been debated for a long time. I agree with most that the current system is not the best system, but I strongly disagree with a playoff system. I wonder if it's coincidence that college football is one of America's most popular sports when the most obvious difference is the lack of a playoff system. I don't want to see a playoff because it takes away from the importance of the regular season. With the current system every game matters and I like that. I agree that the Championship is supposed to decide who the best team is, but we don't have that with playoffs either. For example: The NFL In 2007, the Patriots were obviously the best team in the league with their 18-0 record going into the Super Bowl against the Giants' 13-6 record going into the Super Bowl... The Giants won, but are they really the best team? There's many examples like this, so a playoff system won't decide the best team any better than the current system.

I don't want to debate about BCS vs Playoff though. I want to bring up another solution that might work with your ideas thrown into what I've come up with. So here it is...

1. No more preseason polls.

I don't believe there is any reason to have preseason polls. We want to know who the best team is each year, so basing polls on what happened in previous years, recruits (by stars? hardly accurate), and worst of all your schools name.

2. Bring out the very first polls 3-4 weeks into the season.

Base these off of stats and facts on the current season.

3 Do away with human polls.

No more AP, media, or coaches polls for example. This is like being a judge in a case where your own child is on trial. I have a hard time believing that it's going to be done fairly. (Stupid example, but you catch my drift)

4. Only have a computer poll.

I know a computer must be programmed by a human, but if done before a season begins every team will be helped and hurt equally. The only thing is that I believe after a team is ahead by a set number of points, that team no longer benefits from more scoring (trying to get away from running up the score for computer points/votes)

This is more like something I would like to see for college football. I want it to be fair and I agree with most people that playoffs would be better than the current system, but I really don't want playoffs either.

I'm really not trying to get the BCS vs Playoff debate started because we've already been there, right? But I haven't found many ideas for another option. I wonder if part of the reason the majority of people are for a playoff is because there haven't been many other options presented.

Do you have something you would add or change with the system I would like to see?

Do you have another system you would like to see?

Thoughts?

1 The NCAA has no authority to tell SI, ESPN, Lindy's, Athlon etc not to post a pre season poll. BTW, that's how they make money.

2 The BCS poll does come out in week 4 I believe, and is based on many of the same things.

3 All polls are human polls. If you tell a computer what to look for, it looks for that, programing isn't magic, it's just math.

4 See above.

Personally, I think a full playoff system would be ruinous. One of the greatest aspects of CFB is that every game counts. There are leagues in sports were a team can lose half thier games and still get in the playoffs. So why even watch half the games. With the bowl system intact many teams have an objective to aim for even if they're not in the hunt for the NC.

I would love to see a very limited playoff, Ideally 5 teams with #1 gettin a 2 week bye or even 3 teams with a one week bye for #1, this rewards that top performance but gives more teams a shot at the ring.

As to ending Jan 1. I feel the nastalgia but I can't get enough CFB as is so I say play em all.

 

[Apathy]

Screw the playoff system and the BCS...........they should have an online poll that the American people can vote on who gets to play in the BIG GAME. What I'm trying to say is count on playing in the National Championship game every year!!!!!!

:snacks:

 

[theneguy95]

I understand that there are many human polls and the BCS has no say over them, but I'm saying the BCS doesn't have to recognize them in their formula. Of course the polls will still be around.

I believe that there are plenty of genius minds out there to put together a computer system that would be fair and that would be able to find a "true national champion" through a true "national championship."

I definately believe that there is way too much bias and room for error in human polls. It's because of this that I would like to see rankings decided by the only unbias source, which I can only see in a computer.

What year is the current systems contract up or whatever? When will they actually be able to make changes? 2011? 2012? I can't remember.

 

[huzkerbob]

Just because they use useless statistics when they put the percentages in, like strength of schedule. Even if a team isn't playing well the computer's don't know that. I have never understood them and never will. Most coaches will be honest and they can tell how team's are playing

These computer polls are designed by people a lot smarter than anyone on this board can probably understand, so maybe we're not supposed to understand why it does what it does. Going by the orignial proposed solution in this thread, a computer would rank the teams based on some algorithm. I'm sure there's plenty of Harvard math geeks out there willing to write an algorithm to objectively determine the best teams in football, and I'm sure it would be a heck of a lot better than a stupid coaches poll.

Yeah, noone knows football like a Harvard math whiz.

Exactly! The same minds who devised ingenious ways for Wall St. CEO's to fleece america's capitol while everyone else was losing their pensions.

That sounds like a fool proof plan! :sarcasm

 

[huKSer]

Yeah I don't think there should be a preseason pole either but I think that the polls should start after week one not after week 3 or 4. It gives the fans something to look at. I do think there should be human polls. I like the human aspect of it. I honestly think that they should get rid of the computer rankings. Thats just me though.

What don't you like about the computer rankings? What do you like about the human aspect? I see the computer rankings as being based on facts and stats and the human polls being skewed and bias. What are your thoughts on this?

Just because they use useless statistics when they put the percentages in, like strength of schedule. Even if a team isn't playing well the computer's don't know that. I have never understood them and never will. Most coaches will be honest and they can tell how team's are playing

Most coaches don't complete the ballot, some assistant coach does it. I know he isn't most coaches, but Spurrier always voted Duke #25 in the pre-season poll.