Playoff expansion is the wrong way to go

[Lawrence Wright]

I agree with the time off, but at best Ok State would only get a 50/50 crowd split against a team like Ohio State, Bama, UF, etc…I just think the top seeds should get home games as well and then move the final 4 to neutral sites.

Oklahoma State would no excuse for not having more than a 50/50 split under that scenario. They’d have over a month to secure tickets and travel accommodations over their opponent.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Oklahoma State would no excuse for not having more than a 50/50 split under that scenario. They’d have over a month to secure tickets and travel accommodations over their opponent.

Maybe so. Do you think asking 2 fan bases to travel 3 weeks around the holidays would be too much?

 

[give_him 6]

It was a poorly produced TV product with at least one really bad football team...all the time, every Saturday.

There was no prestige or allure associated with playing at noon on Jefferson Pilot. It meant either your team sucked, or your opponent sucked…AND there were other compelling games worth waiting for at 3:30.

Jefferson Pilot was garbage.

Your opinion. I loved it. Free country LW

 

[Lawrence Wright]

Maybe so. Do you think asking 2 fan bases to travel 3 weeks around the holidays would be too much?

Possibly, which is why the home game argument for top seeds has merit.

I also think Oklahoma State’s fan base would jump at the chance to go to their first ever CFP playoff game in Orlando, while Ohio State’s fan base might wait it out until the semi-finals or the finals.

 

[Raebo]

So this year Cindy would have gotten a first round bye and then on top of that, home field advantage for the 2nd round game against someone like Ohio State???
This is why I prefer 8 teams (or maybe 16 teams) and no home field advantage. The advantage of being highly ranked is that you get to play against a fairly low ranked opponent. After each round you could even reseed the ranking.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Possibly, which is why the home game argument for top seeds has merit.

I also think Oklahoma State’s fan base would jump at the chance to go to their first ever CFP playoff game in Orlando, while Ohio State’s fan base might wait it out until the semi-finals or the finals.

I was basically using Ohio State as the argument against neutral sites because they are a fanbase that always travels. And I was using Okie State because they are good program, but don’t have quite the following as a other big time P5 schools. It would be interesting to see that if they did have neutral sites quarterfinals if they would allow a larger ticket allotment for the higher seeded teams.

 

[CAVPUT]

Personally, I just want a punchers chance. Can't land a blow from outside the ring. Let's make it 12 or even better....16.

 

[RhodesVol]

Maybe so. Do you think asking 2 fan bases to travel 3 weeks around the holidays would be too much?

I think the more home games the better, because it's just a better college football product.

College sports are so predicated on the passion of the fan bases and the atmosphere this produces, and like it or not, many of the fans that are able to travel hundreds (or thousands depending on location) of miles for a bowl game are not always the fans that contribute the most to a rowdy atmosphere. Call it a "wine and cheese" crowd if you'd like.

I'm just saying, I love a home atmosphere, and I fully believe that asking fans to travel three times would be too much. Add in the fact that the tickets for these neutral site games get scooped up by secondary market sellers and then their prices jacked all to high heavens.

Give me college environments any day of the week.

 

[rocky top buzz]

Before they came out with a playoff I felt like the perfect solution was to play 4 bowl games, and then take the 2 best after to play for a National Championship in 1 week. So this year would have had:

- 1 Bama vs 8 Ole Miss
- 2 Michigan vs 7 Baylor
- 3 Georgie vs 6 Ohio State
- 4 Cincinnati vs 5 Notre Lame

From that game, you pick the top 2 to play. If Ole Miss blows out Bama and the rest of the games are snoozers, Lane get's a shot at the title. Cincy and ND get a rematch. It still introduces 3 new teams (Baylor, Michigan and Cincinnati) and honestly maybe if you just need to get to the top 8, a team like A&M coming off that bama win goes on a run. It still preserves the importance of bowls and maybe you can rotate these 4 games between the 6 cities.

 

[Devo182]

Kids are going to top 3 so they can "play for championships" aka bama...osu...clemson...now uga (2x) go to the playoffs regularly.

Expand the playoffs and more and more teams can claim "come here and you can play for the chance at a title".

Imo it would be a good thing to spread out talent, which is what's been killing parity.

 

[hbjordan]

Kids are going to top 3 so they can "play for championships" aka bama...osu...clemson...now uga (2x) go to the playoffs regularly.

Expand the playoffs and more and more teams can claim "come here and you can play for the chance at a title".

Imo it would be a good thing to spread out talent, which is what's been killing parity.

I really don't think that's as true as it once might have been. Today, I think it's "What I am looking at NIL wise?" and can you get me ready for the NFL?

 

[hbjordan]

It is the only way to go if you want to determine who is the best team.

You're measuring two different things. A playoff is a post season tournament. Any playoff measures who is playing best at the end of the season, who improved the most over the season, who is healthy at the end. The old system mandated you had to be good from game 1. Your whole season first game to last was measured. There was an urgency to every Saturday.

The Giants winning the Super Bowl after finishing 9-7 always struck me. Clearly they weren't the best team in the NFL across the season. They were the best at the close in the post season tournament.

I guess both systems have their plusses and minuses. They are just rewarding different things.

 

[Vol423]

You want to leave it up to the polls to determine the championship game?

It sounds like he's advocating for a return to the time period when there was no national championship game (prior to the BCS). The result of such a plan would be that in the rare event that Alabama didn't win the national championship in the polls, they would claim it anyway.

 

[VOLINVONORE]

You're measuring two different things. A playoff is a post season tournament. Any playoff measures who is playing best at the end of the season, who improved the most over the season, who is healthy at the end. The old system mandated you had to be good from game 1. Your whole season first game to last was measured. There was an urgency to every Saturday.

The Giants winning the Super Bowl after finishing 9-7 always struck me. Clearly they weren't the best team in the NFL across the season. They were the best at the close in the post season tournament.

I guess both systems have their plusses and minuses. They are just rewarding different things.

If you are playing better at the end of the season, then you are the better team and should be playing. Just like a player is hitting 30% at the beginning of the season and 60% at the end of the season, you are then a better player than you were when the season started. That is pretty simple to most people.

 

[beachvol23]

It was a poorly produced TV product with at least one really bad football team...all the time, every Saturday.

There was no prestige or allure associated with playing at noon on Jefferson Pilot. It meant either your team sucked, or your opponent sucked…AND there were other compelling games worth waiting for at 3:30.

Jefferson Pilot was garbage.

Aw come on everyone loved Dave Neal and Bob Kesling! can we send Bob back on assignment? Maybe he could team up in studio with someone? That’s a better place for him!

 

[beachvol23]

Thinking about it this way, playoff expansion seems like the only path forward! First and 10: There’s only 1 way to stop Alabama and Georgia — and it can’t happen fast enough to save college football

 

[luthervol]

I didn't read through the thread so I may have missed something similar.
My proposal would go something like this:
28 teams. (First round bye to top 4)
Round 1 - 12 games that rotate every two or three years through the lower tier bowls.
Round 2 - 8 games hosted by mid tier bowls
Round 3 - 4 games
Semi - 2 games - These six games rotate among the big six (Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Rose, Fiesta, Peach)
Championship - goes to bid city (like super bowl)

 

[turbovol]

Expanding the playoffs is about nothing more than greedy networks and colleges making more money at the expense of gullible fans who think they're
7th- or 11th-ranked team might win the national championship. Please. Won't happen. We just had the top four teams play and what happened? Two
blowouts. All you'll get with more playoff teams and more games is a lot of fraudulent hype aimed at getting lots of TV viewers for bad, lopsided games. Oh, if it's a 12-team playoff and, say, the teams ranked 6 and 10 play, you might get a competitive game--but it ultimately won't mean anything. The bottom line is that it's just greed--the same instinct that we've seen shamefully expand the playoffs in every pro sport--and add another game (and more player injuries) to another already too lengthy NFL season. Expanding the playoffs just means adding lesser teams to the mix and then pretending that these lesser teams have a chance. They don't. It's just the sports and the leagues, er, conning believe-anything fans for TV ratings and more money.

 

[GreveHaller]

I didn't read through the thread so I may have missed something similar.
My proposal would go something like this:
28 teams. (First round bye to top 4)
Round 1 - 12 games that rotate every two or three years through the lower tier bowls.
Round 2 - 8 games hosted by mid tier bowls
Round 3 - 4 games
Semi - 2 games - These six games rotate among the big six (Sugar, Orange, Cotton, Rose, Fiesta, Peach)
Championship - goes to bid city (like super bowl)

 

[West Vol]

We need an expanded play offs because the SEC are so much stronger than the rest. Just look how outclassed CIN and MICH were in the semis, aTm and and others would have put up a better fight, even the Vols pushed both ALA & GEO harder and we are stronger now than when we played them. And dont forget the SEC are about to get OKL & TEX.

If you want competitive matches you need at least 4 SEC teams in the play offs.

There’s no point in having a regular season if you’re going to put four teams from one conference in.

 

[West Vol]

Why should Georgia be punished for playing in a tougher conference than the Big 10?

Because we don’t need a playoff to determine who is better between UGA and Bama. We already did that a neutral site.

 

[luthervol]

View attachment 425931

That's some top notch penetrating analysis.

It's the perfect system. This crap of going from 2 teams to 4 teams to maybe 6 or 8 teams is nonsense.
They need to go ahead and go all in. The bowls are dying. More and more of the top players are going to refuse to play, attendance will continue to dwindle, viewership will continue to plummet. Few people are interested in a game with no meaning, especially when there are games with meaning. My system gives 27 bowls a year a game with meaning, and leaves no current bowl out in the cold.

Like I said.....perfect.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Expanding the playoffs is about nothing more than greedy networks and colleges making more money at the expense of gullible fans who think they're
7th- or 11th-ranked team might win the national championship. Please. Won't happen. We just had the top four teams play and what happened? Two
blowouts. All you'll get with more playoff teams and more games is a lot of fraudulent hype aimed at getting lots of TV viewers for bad, lopsided games. Oh, if it's a 12-team playoff and, say, the teams ranked 6 and 10 play, you might get a competitive game--but it ultimately won't mean anything. The bottom line is that it's just greed--the same instinct that we've seen shamefully expand the playoffs in every pro sport--and add another game (and more player injuries) to another already too lengthy NFL season. Expanding the playoffs just means adding lesser teams to the mix and then pretending that these lesser teams have a chance. They don't. It's just the sports and the leagues, er, conning believe-anything fans for TV ratings and more money.

Or maybe greed, kickbacks and luxurious all expenses paid trips to all of these bowl executives are the root problem to college football’s $hitty postseason, and have been for nearly a century. Is there any other sport that kowtows to a city because of a parade and a stadium? Is there any major team sport that has a lesser postseason than college football? I’m not an advocate of a March Madness style of college football, but things can be done to maintain the integrity and relevance of the regular season, while at the same creating and exciting postseason.

 

[wmcovol]

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I miss the conference ties to particular bowls and the disputed split national championships. Every bowl mattered. I can't count how many times this bowl season that I read about how such and such bowl was pointless and there was no reason for players to risk injury. Bowls mattered more before the BCS and I hate what the playoffs are turning bowl games into. I am a fan that would like to dissolve the playoff. Is college football profiting more from the playoffs? That is the only way it would go back.

Respectfully disagree. I’ve seen Butler play for the NCAA Basketball Championship twice. I doubt they’d ever got in the tournament if only 4 teams were in.

 

[MAD]

Send Bama to the NFL, problem solved.