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UCF May Force The Issue


Shmitty

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Every year there's a whole fucking bitchfest show about who didn't get into the basketball tournament and it's fucking 68 teams.  

Expansion to 8 or 88 won't fix anything - someone will still have a legitimate gripe that they should have gotten in. 

But the key is that no one should give a shit about someone whining "We should have gotten in."  The only legit argument worth considering is "We could have won the whole fucking thing if we'd been given the shot"  In 2016 Michigan State (and to some extent OU) got in and clearly had no shot.  Same with Washington the next year.  Shouldn't have been there.

In fact, the fewest legitimate gripes come when there were only 2 teams guaranteed to play each other. It's rare that three teams are really in play.

Anyone who wants more teams who have no shot is either a degenerate gambler hoping for a fluke upset or someone who likes chaos for its own sake.

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38 minutes ago, po elvis said:

playing one team in a bowl game that might not match up as well against you or might not give a shit about the game (some players are now skipping bowl games to save themself for the NFL) says nothing about what kind of team you have. you have to play a schedule full of teams that are at a certain level. teams of different skill sets that can test your team in different ways each week.

TCU. Did they "earn" inclusion into the BXII or was it a matter of desperation on the part of the conference?

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1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Another point I should have made is that a broader playoff needs a shorter regular season.  That won't ever happen.

That argument is as invalid as it was when it was shredded apart years ago.

High school state champions have to play more games to get there than anyone does in FBS
The other collegiate divisions have to play more games to get there than anyone does in FBS
The NFL's Super Bowl teams have to play, at minimum 19 fucking games and a 20th is possible if a WC team is involved.

8-team playoff=15 games played by the finalists. That's not even an excuse, that's just a series of useless words strung together to form an incoherent sentence that turns into a circular argument that routes back to an assumed conclusion.

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I agree it should be 16 teams and don't give me that it ruins the regular season bullshit or that is too many games.

As mentioned earlier all other divisions of college football manage somehow. Shit if you play for the state championship in Texas you play 16 games.

 

Simple....... all D1 conference champs qualify and the remaining field is at large teams.

First two rounds are played on the highest seeded team's home field.

The last 2 rounds go to neutral sites.

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4 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

That argument is as invalid as it was when it was shredded apart years ago.

High school state champions have to play more games to get there than anyone does in FBS
The other collegiate divisions have to play more games to get there than anyone does in FBS
The NFL's Super Bowl teams have to play, at minimum 19 fucking games and a 20th is possible if a WC team is involved.

8-team playoff=15 games played by the finalists. That's not even an excuse, that's just a series of useless words strung together to form an incoherent sentence that turns into a circular argument that routes back to an assumed conclusion.

They play 15 now just like FCS.  8 would be 16.

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7 minutes ago, JBJ said:

They play 15 now just like FCS.  8 would be 16.

Actually, exceptions exist in FCS but it's like the NFL. It's true you play 15 if you get a bye (their tournament includes 8 bye teams), but not if you don't. If you play in the first round, you play 16. 

Regardless, HS' have to do the exact same, the other NCAA divisions have more, and the NFL has considerably more.

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7 minutes ago, Randolph Duke said:

If they truly think Congress is going to get involved with college football, they are nuts.

If the AD at UCF wants to be taken seriously, he is going to have to start scheduling legitimate national powers as OOC opponents.

Who wants to take that risk? Auburn?

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7 minutes ago, Randolph Duke said:

If they truly think Congress is going to get involved with college football, they are nuts.

If the AD at UCF wants to be taken seriously, he is going to have to start scheduling legitimate national powers as OOC opponents.

Well if that doesn't guarantee it I don't know what will.

Fuck.

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No, that's backwards.  The most you play in either division is 15.  You can win it all and only play 14 in either if you get a wildcard bye or miss your CCG (Bama last year).

UIL plays 16.

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1 hour ago, 'stache said:

 

 

1.  The most logical system is win your conference and you make the playoffs.  But there are currently 10 FBS conferences and six "independent' teams.  At minimum, two conferences would be left out and bitch.  Independents would need special treatment and could displace a conference champion.  The simplest thing to do is drop two of C-USA, Sunbelt, MAC, and force independents to join a conference.  We've learned through realignment that this won't happen.

2.  The SEC would also bitch at the "win your conference" requirement.  They'll find a way to get an exception for themselves anytime they miss out on their conference championship.  

3.  Even if you could get to eight conferences, seeding would be inequitable.  If UCF goes undefeated but is seeded eighth below one or two loss SEC or Big 12 champs, they'll bitch.  Pro leagues are all on even playing fields in obtaining talent, and come seeding time there will have been several common opponents to use straight record for seeding purposes.  That doesn't work with 100+ teams and three conferences that are still demonstrably weaker than the top 5. 

4.  For the same reason, wild cards don't work.  SEC would always get a wildcard.  The G-5 participants would never get a wildcard.  Bitching would ensue.  

There are too many teams, too few common opponents, and a clear disparity between P-5 and G-5 schedules.  If you could cull it to the G-5 conferences with three wildcards, it might work.  It at least avoids the argument that UCF has played a much easier schedule that anyone in G-5.

Man, there's a lot I disagree with in your list. First off, the auto bids for being a conference champ would go to the Power 5. You'd then have three at-large bids available. Or hell, throw the non Power 5 schools a bone and guarantee one of their champions get auto bid and have two at-large bids. At-large bids makes your second point moot. This would almost certainly result in additional teams coming from Power 5 conferences. As far as #3 goes, seeding is the least of everybody's concerns. Seed the champs 1-5 and then beauty contest between the rest to slot 6-8. For #4 you're going to have at least one conference with multiple teams -- who cares about that as long as ALL Power 5 champs get auto-bids.

1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Another point I should have made is that a broader playoff needs a shorter regular season.  That won't ever happen.

As somebody else addressed, CFB schedules don't need to be 12 games long when that 12th game is against somebody like Incarnate Word.

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10 minutes ago, JBJ said:

The most you play in either division is 15.  

Look, I understand that you're trying really hard to make a point, but you need to stop. It's common knowledge that the FCS has an 11-game schedule (and they're considering making 12 a permanent number and not temporary, i.e. 2019 will allow them to do that), and it's also common knowledge that they have a 5-round playoff. You can't get through 24 teams without 5 rounds.

FBS is indeed 14-15: 12 reg, CCG (if applicable), 2 CFP's. I get that.

FCS works like this. It's a 24-team playoff (10 auto-qualifiers and 14 at-larges):

1st round: 24 teams remain
2nd round: 16 teams remain
3rd round: 8 teams remain
4th round: 4 teams remain
5th round: 2 teams remain

If you play in the 1st round and advance to the title game, you by definition play 16 games. That's basic arithmetic.

 

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32 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Every year there's a whole fucking bitchfest show about who didn't get into the basketball tournament and it's fucking 68 teams.  

Expansion to 8 or 88 won't fix anything - someone will still have a legitimate gripe that they should have gotten in. 

But the key is that no one should give a shit about someone whining "We should have gotten in."  The only legit argument worth considering is "We could have won the whole fucking thing if we'd been given the shot"  In 2016 Michigan State (and to some extent OU) got in and clearly had no shot.  Same with Washington the next year.  Shouldn't have been there.

In fact, the fewest legitimate gripes come when there were only 2 teams guaranteed to play each other. It's rare that three teams are really in play.

Anyone who wants more teams who have no shot is either a degenerate gambler hoping for a fluke upset or someone who likes chaos for its own sake.

I've seen this argument used a lot by those who oppose a playoff at all or an expanded playoff beyond what we have now. It's a red herring. The #5 team getting left out of a 4-team field is far more egregious than #69 getting left out of a 68-team field. #5 is exponentially more likely to win a championship than #69. 

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3 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Look, I understand that you're trying really hard to make a point, but you need to stop. It's common knowledge that the FCS has an 11-game schedule (and they're considering making 12 a permanent number and not temporary, i.e. 2019 will allow them to do that), and it's also common knowledge that they have a 5-round playoff. You can't get through 24 teams without 5 rounds.

FBS is indeed 14-15: 12 reg, CCG (if applicable), 2 CFP's. I get that.

FCS works like this. It's a 24-team playoff (10 auto-qualifiers and 14 at-larges):

1st round: 24 teams remain
2nd round: 16 teams remain
3rd round: 8 teams remain
4th round: 4 teams remain
5th round: 2 teams remain

If you play in the 1st round and advance to the title game, you by definition play 16 games. 

 

My bad.  They play an 11 game season, I thought it was 10.  Maybe it's D-II that plays 10.

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1 hour ago, Red Five said:

There are like 60-something teams that know before the start of every season that they can go undefeated and will have no shot at a championship. That is insane.

It's fucking unAmerican is what it is.   You do not have a legitimate playoff system, if 60%-70% of the teams in your league are disqualified before the season starts.     

"Sorry, you aren't a 'traditional school' with a big alumni base, (and we aren't in a business partnership with your conference)  so...you are banned from the 'playoffs' forever."

 

  

 

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1 hour ago, 'stache said:

Another point I should have made is that a broader playoff needs a shorter regular season.  That won't ever happen.

This is the money answer. There is no way in hell that a school like Texas, or Alabama etc. is going to give up at least one and possibly two home games. There would be to much money lost in this scenario.

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The only people fighting against Conference champ qualification is the SECESPN political machine.   Eye-ball tests and subjective criteria give ESPN's talkshows immense power.   

If you make the qualification objective, (conference champs)---like in every other sports on earth--then ESPN loses it's talking head-political power.  (And maybe the SEC doesn't bother to partner up)

On one hand, an 8 team playoff would make ESPN more money from ad revenue, BUT it would cost them power to control the narrative.  And if they don't get to control the narrative of who's in, who's out, then the SEC doesn't go into business with ESPN.  Which, I can only assume by the reality of where we are now, results in a net loss for ESPN.

In conclusion, playoff ad revenue < SEC business revenue.= college football fans get 4 teams picked by eye test.  (2 SEC teams most years)

 

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11 minutes ago, JBJ said:

My bad.  They play an 11 game season, I thought it was 10.  Maybe it's D-II that plays 10.

DII does still play 10 with an option to go 11 if you play an FCS team (very rare that teams play FCS teams, let alone pursue that option, but it does exist a la the old Hawaii Rule from back in the day). And I should have said earlier that the 16-game season in HS is kinda unfair as a standard because I'm pretty sure that Texas is the only state that does that (Florida only plays 14, if I'm reading these schedules correctly, California doesn't even have real state champions, etc)

Anyways, NCAA DII has expanded its bracket size twice just since I enrolled at Midwestern State, which was only 15 years ago. They've gone from 16 to 28 in that period. If they up it to 32 (very likely as DIII already has that), they'll have guaranteed that no matter who plays in the title game, they'll have to play an extra game than they did just 15 years ago.

Now it's true that would only render it to 15, but again it would do so for everyone, and that's kinda the true underlying point in all this horseshit falderal about "wah wah wah they play too many games":

The NCAA doesn't care about the number of games these kids are playing, and the schools don't either because they go right along with it. There's been 0 resistance to the growth of any of these brackets. Seriously, no conference or Athletic Department has protested this, which is why the expansions are happening fairly rapidly. It's the same reason FCS is toying with the idea of 12-game regular seasons in the wake of a recent expansion of their playoff (they're stretching the season from both ends, basically).

And even if this is really an issue (which it clearly isn't and only serves to generate crocodile tears for the change averse), why is a 12-game slate for FBS teams such a sacred cow? And what evidence is there that the AD's at those universities care how many games their teams play? And why does anyone give a shit whether or not Texas has enough room on its schedule to squeeze in fucking Tulsa?

The 12-game schedule only came out in 2006. Then the CFP happens less than a decade later, which again stretched the schedule from both ends within just an 8-year period. Did anyone say anything serious about returning to the 11-game schedule when the CFP came out?

The point is that the players, coaches, AD's, universities, the conferences, and the NCAA doesn't give a shit about the number of games that are played, and it's beyond naive to assume that they do. The only way to logically presuppose that is if it makes sense to you to say the following sentence:

"Well the players are much tougher now than they were in 2005, so it's ok to play them more often now."

Does anyone say that? Do any of you say that? Well if you don't, then it makes no sense to protest an expanded playoff on the grounds of "too many games," especially when such a standard is so blatantly arbitrary. Again, this is just man-made mythology, there is no truth in any of it, and it's circular argumentation in order to route back to an assumed conclusion.

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1 hour ago, fellside said:

No one loses except the SEC's hope to have half the playoffs come from their own conference

Agree that only the SEC loses, but those dipshits would still say deserve half the playoff, 1 automatic and all 3 at large spots.  Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if they argued that they should get 2 automatic, 1 SEC West and 1 SEC East.

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4 minutes ago, Monster said:

The only people fighting against Conference champ qualification is the SECESPN political machine.   Eye-ball tests and ever-shifting qualification criteria gives ESPN's talking heads, and their tv shows, immense power.   (and the SEC an extra seat at the table every year)

If you make the qualification objective, (conference champs)---like in every other sports on earth--then ESPN loses it's talking head-political power.

One one hand, an 8 team playoff would make ESPN more money from ad revenue, BUT it would cost them power to control the narrative.  And if they don't get to control the narrative of who's in, who's out, then the SEC doesn't go into business with ESPN.  Which, I can only assume by the reality of where we are now, results in a net loss for ESPN.

In conclusion, playoff ad revenue < SEC business revenue.= college football fans get 4 teams picked by eye test.

 

Yeah. This is as much about power as it is money. The idea that you could go undefeated for two straight years without a chance to enter the playoffs for your division is ridiculous on its face. 16 would be nice, even 12 with byes for seeds 1-4. 8 is so low there is little objectively that can be argued against it. Every other sport has playoffs, as do other levels of football. 8 would let all 5 P5 champs in, guarantee a spot for the top G5 champ (a la late BCS), guarantee a spot for a top-5 independent, and still have at least one more spot for the SEC an unrestricted at-large team. The Spare Parts Bowl will be no less desireable with another playoff round. The big bowls can be incorporated. Do it.

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March Madness is exciting. When it's over and done with nobody ever questions the champions because they earned it. You have "Cinderellas" that nobody ever expects to make a deep run in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 from time to time and they fight and claw their way there. More teams deserve that chance in NCAA Football. A 4 team playoff is better than the BCS, but it's not the best for the sport. Expand the playoffs and give more teams a legitimate shot. During the BCS teams like Boise and TCU were constantly overlooked, but they deserved more chances.

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3 hours ago, Steamboat1874 said:

How is an eight team playoff not feasible?

It is so simple it is stupid not to have it.

Lol. Have fun when the SEC starts sending four/five teams to the playoff every year. An eight-team playoff completely unbalances the conferences and gives ESPN and the media an inordinate amount of power over the process. 

CFB is not the NFL, so please stop trying to turn it into the NFL.

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Just now, satyanash said:

Lol. Have fun when the SEC starts sending four/five teams to the playoff every year. An eight-team playoff completely unbalances the conferences and gives ESPN and the media an inordinate amount of power over the process. 

CFB is not the NFL, so please stop trying to turn it into the NFL.

Nobody is trying to turn it into the NFL.  We would like to be just like every other NCAA sport, and every other level of college football, where you have a real National Champion, not a Mythical one.

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1 hour ago, Liquor and Poker said:

Every year there's a whole fucking bitchfest show about who didn't get into the basketball tournament and it's fucking 68 teams.

1. No there isn't

2. College basketball fucking blows and has nothing to do with expanding the playoff. The big giveaway being, you know, they're different sports. 

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5 minutes ago, satyanash said:

CFB is not the NFL, so please stop trying to turn it into the NFL.

The NFL isn't the only football league with a postseason tournament, nor is it the first. That's a weaker-than-shit strawman argument that exists merely to massage the ego of the person making it, and essentially nothing else.

And I just have to add, for the one millionth time, that even if the FBS playoff was fucking 16 teams large, as a percentage of their entire league, that would make it the most exclusive playoff in the sport of football at any level:

In high school, roughly 40-50% of any given league gets in
In the NFL, it's 37.5%
DIII with its 32-team playoff means 12.8%
DII with its 28-team playoff means 16.8%
FCS with its 24-team playoff means 19.2%
FBS with a hypothetical 16-team playoff would mean 12.3%
With a hypothetical 8-team playoff? 6.2%

So by using a playoff that incorporates 6.2% participation of its whole league, some of you dumbasses think that's too many and you think 3.1% is the absolute max that any human brain could possibly tolerate. That only makes sense in the Fairy World of Make Believe and Pretend.

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The issue here is that CFB is traditionally focused on finding the best team in the country each and every year.

In the NFL/pro sports, the best team in the country often doesn't win it all. The 2007 Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl. The 2016 GSW didn't win the NBA championship. 10-6 wildcards have won it all. And people are fine with that. NFL fans care about who wins the Super Bowl, not who is actually the best team. 

That's not the case in college football. You don't want a team playing for it all unless they have conclusively made a case during the regular season that they deserve to be considered as the best team in the sport. The regular season is hugely important, unlike in the NFL where any 10-6 or 11-5 team makes the playoffs. Before the BCS, polls would name a national champion. That's what I mean when I say CFB shouldn't be forced into becoming the NFL. The BCS, for all its flaws and controversy, produced a true #1 vs. #2 matchup and was therefore a step towards that goal. The playoff expanded it to four teams, which isn't terrible because you still generally need to only have one loss. An eight-team playoff? Fuck, ESPN would have a field day lobbying for as many SEC teams as possible to make it and drive up viewership. Two-loss and three-loss teams could justifiably make it because of the 'eye test' or whatever. And at that point, the focus has completely shifted away from the regular season. It's all about the playoffs now.

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53 minutes ago, C-Man said:

I've seen this argument used a lot by those who oppose a playoff at all or an expanded playoff beyond what we have now. It's a red herring. The #5 team getting left out of a 4-team field is far more egregious than #69 getting left out of a 68-team field. #5 is exponentially more likely to win a championship than #69. 

No one even pays attention to college basketball until the 68 teams are in place.  There is no bitching about being #69 because nobody has a clue what to bitch about.

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Quote

That's what I mean when I say CFB shouldn't be forced into becoming the NFL.

And you're still as wrong to assert that now as you were when you did it the first time. Invoking the NFL on a proposal for a playoff that would include 6% of the league is an abject strawman.

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Just now, Gene Parmesan said:

No one even pays attention to college basketball until the 68 teams are in place.  There is no bitching about being #69 because nobody has a clue what to bitch about.

In fact I'd wager that most people who watch the tournament rarely, if ever, watch those play-in games and a sizable chunk of even those miss the first round before they start paying any meaningful sort of attention to it.

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Just now, satyanash said:

The issue here is that CFB is traditionally focused on finding the best team in the country each and every year.

In the NFL/pro sports, the best team in the country often doesn't win it all. The 2007 Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl. The 2016 GSW didn't win the NBA championship. 10-6 wildcards have won it all. And people are fine with that. NFL fans care about who wins the Super Bowl, not who is actually the best team. 

That's not the case in college football. You don't want a team playing for it all unless they have conclusively made a case during the regular season that they deserve to be considered as the best team in the sport. The regular season is hugely important, unlike in the NFL where any 10-6 or 11-5 team makes the playoffs. Before the BCS, polls would name a national champion. That's what I mean when I say CFB shouldn't be forced into becoming the NFL. The BCS, for all its flaws and controversy, produced a true #1 vs. #2 matchup and was therefore a step towards that goal. The playoff expanded it to four teams, which isn't terrible because you still generally need to only have one loss. An eight-team playoff? Fuck, ESPN would have a field day lobbying for as many SEC teams as possible to make it and drive up viewership. Two-loss and three-loss teams could justifiably make it because of the 'eye test' or whatever. And at that point, the focus has completely shifted away from the regular season. It's all about the playoffs now.

At least you're consistent in your suckage suck across the boards. 

 

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11 minutes ago, satyanash said:

The issue here is that CFB is traditionally focused on finding the best team in the country each and every year.

In the NFL/pro sports, the best team in the country often doesn't win it all. The 2007 Patriots didn't win the Super Bowl. The 2016 GSW didn't win the NBA championship. 10-6 wildcards have won it all. And people are fine with that. NFL fans care about who wins the Super Bowl, not who is actually the best team. 

That's not the case in college football. You don't want a team playing for it all unless they have conclusively made a case during the regular season that they deserve to be considered as the best team in the sport. The regular season is hugely important, unlike in the NFL where any 10-6 or 11-5 team makes the playoffs. Before the BCS, polls would name a national champion. That's what I mean when I say CFB shouldn't be forced into becoming the NFL. The BCS, for all its flaws and controversy, produced a true #1 vs. #2 matchup and was therefore a step towards that goal. The playoff expanded it to four teams, which isn't terrible because you still generally need to only have one loss. An eight-team playoff? Fuck, ESPN would have a field day lobbying for as many SEC teams as possible to make it and drive up viewership. Two-loss and three-loss teams could justifiably make it because of the 'eye test' or whatever. And at that point, the focus has completely shifted away from the regular season. It's all about the playoffs now.

Then they shouldn't have had a playoff in the first place.  Upsets happen in bowl games/playoffs all the time.  Look at the 2017 championship game.  Bama was up 24-14 entering the fourth.  Clemson won.  You play that game again a few times and Bama wins most if not all of them.  Bama was the best team that year.  Clemson was the champion.  How is that different than the Giants beating the Patriots?  We are already having a "Superbowl" equivalent game that is winner take all, prior records or possible replays be damned.  May as well have a playoff before it, so every team has a chance.

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12 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

In fact I'd wager that most people who watch the tournament rarely, if ever, watch those play-in games and a sizable chunk of even those miss the first round before they start paying any meaningful sort of attention to it.

So what is your position on the assertion that an expanded playoff would devalue the college football regular season?

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4 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

Then they shouldn't have had a playoff in the first place.  Upsets happen in bowl games/playoffs all the time.  Look at the 2017 championship game.  Bama was up 24-14 entering the fourth.  Clemson won.  You play that game again a few times and Bama wins most if not all of them.  Bama was the best team that year.  Clemson was the champion.  How is that different than the Giants beating the Patriots?  We are already having a "Superbowl" equivalent game that is winner take all, prior records or possible replays be damned.  May as well have a playoff before it, so every team has a chance.

The 2016 Clemson Tigers went 12-1 and won the ACC championship. The 2016 Alabama Crimson Tide went 13-0 and won the SEC championship. The two teams had never played each other.

The 2007 Patriots went 16-0 and won the AFC East. The 2007 Giants went 10-6 and finished second in the NFC East, while losing to the Patriots in the regular season.

Massive difference. 

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Just now, satyanash said:

The 2016 Clemson Tigers went 12-1 and won the ACC championship. The 2016 Alabama Crimson Tide went 13-0 and won the SEC championship. The two teams had never played each other.

The 2007 Patriots went 16-0 and won the AFC East. The 2007 Giants went 10-6 and finished second in the NFC East, while losing to the Patriots in the regular season.

Massive difference. 

Okay then.  Who was crowned champion in 2011?  LSU or Bama?

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1 hour ago, C-Man said:

I've seen this argument used a lot by those who oppose a playoff at all or an expanded playoff beyond what we have now. It's a red herring. The #5 team getting left out of a 4-team field is far more egregious than #69 getting left out of a 68-team field. #5 is exponentially more likely to win a championship than #69. 

It’s not a red herring or you don’t understand what I am saying.  What I am saying is that just because a team is top 4 or 8 or 16 doesn’t mean they have a legit shot at winning.  In some years, theoretically speaking, #5 might have realistic shot.  But not usually.  And so “making sure they get in” isn’t what matters. It accomplishes nothing unless they really can win. 

Another way to put it is that it is far more useful and relevant to have the right choices make up a smaller group than to just “fix the problem” by making the group larger.  In most years, having the consensus best 2 teams would accomplish the same thing as having those 2 sprinkled in among 4, 8 or however many.  The pre-playoff problem to me always was that we didn’t always make that happen.  But in years like 2005, for example, no one was really thinking that we didn’t end up with the two best teams playing for the NC or that we needed a playoff with 2-6 additional teams to figure that out. 

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Just now, WBT said:

So what is your position on the assertion that an expanded playoff would devalue the college football regular season?

You know better than that. That's apples and oranges. The two are not related, nor can they be. You're talking about one sport where a team plays roughly 30 games in the regular season, up to a few conference tournament games, and has to play 6-7 national tournament games to reach the mountain top and another sport where a team plays 12 games in the regular season and would have to play 3 playoff games to reach the mountain top.

And that's to say nothing about the fact that you're comparing football to basketball in the United States. 

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