Playoff

by aorist9 on Oct 13, 2006 9:03 AM CDT in Texas Longhorns Football

The thread about a playoff ended up being one of the largest threads I've seen at BON that doesn't involve Gameday or a crying child, so I'm going to quickly recap the big arguments and try to make a little sense of this.

Brooklynhorn is completely against a playoff, saying that it doesn't always produce the BEST champion and that even an attempt to go to a 4-team playoff would result in an 8 or 16 team playoff, because the NCAA would want more money.

Billyzane is for a flexible playoff, which would only happen if there are more than two or only one undefeated team, I assume there would also be some sort of playoff with no undefeateds. He says it could be made so that it wouldn't be arbitrary by setting down rules like:

if there are only 2 undefeated teams, no playoff
if there is only 1 undefeated team, best team plays the winner of 2nd and 3rd teams
if there are 3 or more undefeateds, 4 team playoff

There was also a question brought up about scheduling. What kind of scheduling would an 8/16 team playoff promote, would teams play tougher schedules because they don't have to be undefeated to get a chance at the National title, or would they play weaker schedules, because they know that going undefeated will put them in the playoff.

As to this last part, I say we're trying to fix the problem from the wrong side. What we need to do is just make the BCS less cupcake-friendly. Adding strength of schedule either back into the standings themselves, factor them into the computer rankings better (don't say the BCS can't tell the computer polls what to do, they made them take out margin of victory).

A flexible playoff is too unpredictable for the major media outlets' liking, and if the media outlets don't like it, it's not going to happen. The flexible playoff is however the most ideal solution.

Before going in I was strongly on the side of a 4 team playoff, but after reading this thread I don't know what to think. Thank you all for confusing the hell out of me.

--AR--

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Flexable playoff = horrible idea

Not only do you have to figure out who plays who, but how many games you play. Only idea that is worse than that is to try to get two polls and a computer to figures out who are the best two teams in the country.

by Wells on Oct 13, 2006 9:17 AM CDT reply actions

how about 3 polls?

and a computer? Damn, that's even worse. I, for one, am still in favor of the 4-team thing. Oh, and crying OU children.

by hornbone on Oct 13, 2006 9:23 AM CDT up reply actions

4 or 8

A four- or eight-team format will definitely work best. Even with 8 teams, I think you still get a "true" national champion. If you can't beat another team on a neutral field, how do you have any claim to being the best team that year?

I agree with Wells, the flexible plan is horrendous from so many angles. First of all, there's no way to draw up a television contract for that kind of uncertainty (yeah let's pay and just hope they have a lot of games). Secondly, deciding who gets in would be a nightmare - too many what-ifs. For example, what if there are no undefeated teams? And this flexible idea would only encourage more cupcake scheduling to get in that unbeaten pool to get a shot at the playoff.

by Jason Mayer on Oct 13, 2006 9:43 AM CDT reply actions

as to the tv schedule

You can have 5 BCS game every year. The +1 game is the national championship game every year. The only difference is whether the other BCS games are a playoff or not. You have the same number of games every year. You can easily draw up a TV contract for that.

by billyzane on Oct 13, 2006 9:58 AM CDT up reply actions

not really

Because there would be a big difference between a "BCS" game featuring West Virginia and Georgia Tech that had no championship implications and a playoff game between the 2 and 3 seeds. At least now, Fox knows what it is getting every year when they entered into the deal. As a TV network, why put that much money into something as unpredictable as college football. It becomes a little bit of a harder sell to advertisers who I would imagine would be reluctant to pay higher commercial costs for that same uncertainty.

Plus, if you go to four teams for a playoff, that's four less bowl eligible teams that will get to go to a bowl. I know those schools likely to be in that position don't have the most pull, but it doesn't seem like much of an incentive. And if you make those BCS games, which conferences get left out in the cold in terms of BCS money?

It is kind of pointless, though, to discuss something that will never happen. As long as university presidents hide behind their phony reasoning of missed classes, etc. I doubt that we will ever see a playoff format in college football.

by Jason Mayer on Oct 13, 2006 10:15 AM CDT reply actions

no conferences would be left out of BCS

Until this year, there were only 4 BCS games. So that's 8 teams, 6 guaranteed spots for conference champions. Now there are 5 games, 10 teams, with still only 6 guaranteed spots.

Even if every single team in the top 4 of the BCS standings who get in the 4-team playoff is not a BCS conference champion (which is virtually impossible), there are still 6 spots that would go to the BCS conference champions. No one gets left out.

by billyzane on Oct 13, 2006 10:32 AM CDT up reply actions

two things

As far as the conference champions go, you're right, they would probably all get in. I didn't think that one through. But you still have the Notre Dame issue, and you're moving back from 10 spots to 8, which would be hard to get an agreement on.

by Jason Mayer on Oct 13, 2006 11:37 AM CDT reply actions

What if

Rather than implementing an elaborate playoff, two weeks of the regular season scheduling got taken out of the hands of the programs in an attempt to match up top teams in the mid to late portions of the season? If each program was left with two non-conference games to schedule on their own, the UT's of the world would continually play Rice and UNT and other schools would gripe about their non-conference annual games being much more challenging (USC/ND, UF/FSU, UF/UGA, UGA/GT, and on and on). That already happens, though. This would guarantee though, that every team with a chip in the big game would have to play two other top flight programs out of conference every year. It'd be sort of a playoff within the regular season to get to the same bowl structure and polls deciding the national champ. There'd just be less instances of doubt.

Now, how, where, and at what point in the season or before the season to schedule these games to make all the schools happy is the next big question (each team would need one home and one away). Think about it, though, the networks would love it and the bowl sponsors wouldn't lose their revenue. The money grubbers wouldn't have a gripe.

by littlevisigoth on Oct 13, 2006 1:36 PM CDT reply actions

Definitely something to think about

by aorist9 on Oct 13, 2006 2:03 PM CDT up reply actions

The implementation would be a nightmare

Who gets who. This year if that was happening, anyone that got to play WVU would be very lucky.

by Wells on Oct 13, 2006 4:38 PM CDT up reply actions

I doubt anybody's checking back this far

but I came back to see what people had written.

What if games were scheduled using some automatic algorithm based on the existing BCS ranking system? After the first week of the BCS rankings, schedule a week of enforced non-conference games. #1 plays #6, #2 plays #7, and on and on. Then #11 plays #16, and on and on, through all the D1A teams (and however the math would have to work at the bottom). To avoid rematches of currently scheduled teams, the matchups would have to flip-flop. If #1 already has #6 on their schedule, they flop with #2 or #3 on down until they get somebody not already on their schedule. Same evaluation with #2, then #3, etc. Not perfect, but would guarantee matchups to shake up the BCS rankings. Then the process would be repeated in the 2nd to last week of the regular season (to avoid conflicts with traditional games, like UT/A&M, UF/FSU). Lower seed gets home field first time around, higher seed gets home field second time around (or vice versa, or one-way for both). Would be easier to implement than a full blown postseason playoff system, and probably more attractive to networks.

by littlevisigoth on Oct 18, 2006 4:49 PM CDT up reply actions

Logistics

There's no way to have a "flexible" playoff where sometimes there are 4 teams, and sometimes there are 2 teams. To suggest it is silly. It's one way or another.

The 5th BCS game (remains at same Bowl as NC Game) was added for two reasons: 1.) Money 2.) Help allow mid-major's, ND, and the extra at large bids from getting (seemingly) screwed.

What they could do with the 4-team or +1 playoff is break up the 4 bowls into 2 semi-regional parts. A Rose Bowl/Fiesta Bowl pairing and a Sugar Bowl/Orange Bowl pairing. These would be based on whichever Bowl of the 4 have "dibs" on the NC game, that pair would get the playoff.

Keeping the games in a semi-localized area will help travel plans of teams and fans. Unfortunately, I dont imagine the cost of tickets for fans going down and traveling to these short notice games will get expensive.

For example, if it were to happen this year: You would have #1 vs #4 in the Fiesta Bowl and #2 and #3 in the Rose Bowl on January 1st. The winners would play in the Fiesta Bowl for the NC on January 8th (like this year).

This pairing scenario would only involve the teams/fans of one team (winner of #2 and #3 in the Rose Bowl) to travel to the location of the National Championship game. Tickets should be available at face value to the fans of the winning team (fan tickets should be pre-determined by section and not by some guy wearing winning team jersey to try to sell on ebay....so, if you happen to only get a ticket to the game by purchasing a ticket in the opposing section, you would not be eligible for another ticket at face value.)

The Sugar and Orange Bowl will still get their conference champion picks, or the rest of the best. You can still keep the 5th BCS game, allowing 10 teams in the payout in 2 ways. Give the 5th game to the Sugar or Orange Bowl so they'd have two of their bowl games that year, OR add another bowl (Such as the Cotton Bowl, pending stadium renovations of course) to the mix for the purpose of "sharing the wealth" and I doubt the Bowl Alliance would want to share money. Adding a 5th bowl game location would be ideal.

When it comes to cupcakes, I think that is the most important issue. If you allow a playoff, you MUST place more importance on the computer SOS, QW Bonus, and possibly even Margin of Victory w/ a 30 point cap. If not, we will just have teams scheduling cupcakes for the sake of making the playoff. With no reward, there is no reason for risk.

by bleed burnt orange on Oct 13, 2006 10:28 PM CDT reply actions

Bet you haven't thought of this...

How about we scrap the weekly polls? Just wait until the end of the regular season, after all the conference championships, and then take 10 days or so for the professionals to really analyze each team. Their wins, their losses, who they played when, how good their opponents were at game time (since team dynamics and ability change due to injuries, players getting arrested, etc.). You'll avoid the "if you're gonna lose, lose early" reality.

Here's a hypothetical - if Texas had 0 losses until Thanksgiving, and then (heaven forbid), we lose to A&M, we're probably out of the championship race. Some other 1 loss team would be a contender for our spot. As opposed to us losing our 2nd game, we drop in the rankings, and as long as we keep winning, we have a chance to eek our way back up towards the top.

I'd rather not worry about the rankings every week (oh, man, I can't believe WVU is ranked higher than us - what bullshit!). Just wait til the end, and you can get the big picture for the entire season.

Hook 'em Horns

by LonghornWSO on Oct 16, 2006 3:38 PM CDT reply actions