Auto Qualifiers Need Done Away With

#26
#26
rocytop2624 said:
UNLV was ranked 22 I guess they could take Boise state's spot .

But
ACC
MW
BIG 12 5-7 Kansas beat the 3 of the top 4 teams BYU, Iowa st, Colorado.
Iowa St plays Arizona st for the Big 12 championship.

IS there another conference that could take their spot? There is Army but they are behind UNLV.

Notre Dame needs to join a conference.
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The winner of the Mountain West is a lock for the playoffs. Tulane may have had an opportunity if they hadn’t lost to Memphis and won the AAC.
 
#27
#27
Doberman said:
I can live with the AQ’s but they shouldn’t get locked into a top 4 seed and a bye.
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For me it is a pretty simple question: how many conference champs do you feel like are usually/mostly/almost always among the top 12 teams in the country? How many of them are HONESTLY worth considering as possible best team in the land?

Two? Sure, that works -- would usually be the SEC and B10, and winning those two conferences is a near-guarantee of being well up in the Top 12.

Three? Probably, yah. I mean, we're adding the best team among the ACC, B12, and G5 conference champs. Usually at least one of those is a very good team, worthy of consideration as the best in the country.

Four? Now we're starting to push it. This year is a great example. The current 4th-best conference representative in the CFP rankings is Boise State. Litmus test: who here honestly believes Boise may be the best team in the country? Probably no one. I'm not even sure Boise State fans could say this honestly.

So four might be over the limit.

Maybe the top 3 should be guaranteed a spot. Not a bye, but a spot.

Then again, those top 3 teams are almost certainly going to be ranked among the top 12 anyway, so we could abolish this rule entirely. No guaranteed spots for anyone, just the best 12. Or better yet, best 8 or 16.

Need to get rid of byes, either by shrinking the pool down to 8 teams, or going up to 16. Byes don't belong.

For those who say "then conference championships don't matter, I disagree. Getting to and perhaps winning your conference CG is ONE OF THE WAYS you prove you're among the best 12 teams in the country. We don't have to explicitly tie the accomplishment to a rule in the CFP selection process for it to have value and meaning.

Final thoughts: each CFP Committee member should be required to show their work. Every year, two of them should be voted off the island for idiocy, and replaced by two new ones. And no actively serving ADs or Coaches. And no one who hasn't played college and/or pro football; other sports simply aren't similar enough (except maybe rugby or Aussie football).

Go Vols!


p.s. Here's a hoot of a thought: the five automatically-qualifying conference champions in 2024 could be:

#4 Penn State as the top seed
#7 UGa in the two-seed
#12 Clemson is three-seed
#16 Arizona State at four-seed; and
#22 UNLV as the last qualifier

Teams ranked, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 9 just have to get sorted in wherever they fit. These champs have priority.

Can you imagine Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, Tennessee and Notre Dame standing aside so these champs can enter first? Heh.
 
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#28
#28
EZE said:
Er, maybe the 12th place team….

But I think you miss the point. I think most would agree that conference champs should be in…just not automatically in the Top 4.
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I strongly disagree that conference champions automatically deserve to get in. A 12-team tournament is different from a 68-team tournament in that the 69th team has no realistic chance at winning the NCAA tournament. The 13th team in many years might have a legitimate chance to win the college football playoffs. I think the goal should be that the 12 best teams get in the playoffs. Just because a team wins their conference, that doesn’t mean they are one of the 12 best teams. College football isn’t the NFL in that, while all divisions aren’t equal in the NFL, they are a lot closer than the conferences in college football. For example, I think 11-1 Indiana would be 8-4 AT BEST if they played Tennessee’s schedule this year, and that’s even with Tennessee having a relatively weak schedule by SEC standards. The conferences are way too uneven to just give bids to teams that win weak conferences.
 
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#30
#30
Majors said:
What determines the best teams? Journalism majors ranking teams based on their opinions or on the field play? If you don’t have conference champions then you have no need for conferences.
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I think you can let the conference winners in the playoffs but don’t auto peg them for top 4 bye weeks…just my opinion.
 
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#31
#31
I don’t mind the top four conference champs getting the bye. But the next round should be re-seeded based on final CFP rankings.
 
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#32
#32
I’m cool with AQ but there is no logical reason to have them as first round byes. I would have been saying the same thing had A&M won, so this isn’t some SEC bias thing. They would not have deserved to get a bye. In March Madness, they give auto bids to conference champs but that doesn’t automatically mean you are a 1 or 2 seed. You could be the worst team in conference and go on a magical run and get in. You sure as hell aren’t getting a good seed though. In baseball, it’s the same thing and the top overall 16 ranked teams get to host a regional, regardless of conference championship. What they’ve done with the CFP is a joke and everyone knows it.
 
#33
#33
Baseball25 said:
Take the best teams and to away with automatic qualifiers. Now, we have Clemson backing into a possible playoff spot if they luck up and win the ACC.
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This is only for 2 seasons. This was the only way to get buyin from the other conferences.
 
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#34
#34
VolPack22 said:
I’m cool with AQ but there is no logical reason to have them as first round byes. I would have been saying the same thing had A&M won, so this isn’t some SEC bias thing. They would not have deserved to get a bye. In March Madness, they give auto bids to conference champs but that doesn’t automatically mean you are a 1 or 2 seed. You could be the worst team in conference and go on a magical run and get in. You sure as hell aren’t getting a good seed though. In baseball, it’s the same thing and the top overall 16 ranked teams get to host a regional, regardless of conference championship. What they’ve done with the CFP is a joke and everyone knows it.
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I kinda agree and disagree. This format more so mimics professional playoffs where the conference champs get a bye and then the rest have to play an additional round. The difference is that in most pro sports, they don’t have set seeding all the way through and re-seed by round depending on who advances.
 
#35
#35
newyorkvol said:
I kinda agree and disagree. This format more so mimics professional playoffs where the conference champs get a bye and then the rest have to play an additional round. The difference is that in most pro sports, they don’t have set seeding all the way through and re-seed by round depending on who advances.
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The problem is all conferences are not created equal and they know this. In the NFL they have a system in place that wherever you finish in your division, that’s who you play from the other divisions the next season to create more balanced schedules. College football has never had balanced schedules. It was built on traditional rivalries. There are too many teams involved to do balanced scheduling. So we are left with biased human beings ranking these teams. Professional sports don’t require humans to vote on who is “deserving”. The format in the NFL is what it is and you know what you have to do to get in from the beginning. College football changes on a weekly basis.
 
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#36
#36
VolPack22 said:
The problem is all conferences are not created equal and they know this. In the NFL they have a system in place that wherever you finish in your division, that’s who you play from the other divisions the next season to create more balanced schedules. College football has never had balanced schedules. It was built on traditional rivalries. There are too many teams involved to do balanced scheduling. So we are left with biased human beings ranking these teams. Professional sports don’t require humans to vote on who is “deserving”. The format in the NFL is what it is and you know what you have to do to get in from the beginning. College football changes on a weekly basis.
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Right. But unfortunately college isn’t just one big entity so there needed to be negations to get all involved. I think its a reasonable solution.
 
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#37
#37
Doberman said:
There’s already no reason to. Only money.

Texas won the SEC. Oregon won the B1G. SMU won the ACC. Only the Big 12 is in doubt.
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You need the SECCG to determine a winner in a 16-game conference. Record alone can’t do it with the schedules so uneven. Texas lost head to head to UGA and did not play either of the teams that beat UGA.
 
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#41
#41
The CFP shouldn’t be just a lovefest for the BIG10/SEC + Notre Dame. To keep interest up and buy in from the other schools they have to throw a bone to the other conferences where they can get one school in while the SEC can get 3 or more schools in.
 
#42
#42
Baseball25 said:
Take the best teams and to away with automatic qualifiers. Now, we have Clemson backing into a possible playoff spot if they luck up and win the ACC
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I’m not against it. It’s like winning your division in the NFL at 9-7. Just because your division sucked doesn’t mean you don’t get a shot at the Super Bowl.

And let’s be real, you are telling me if TN loses an early season OOC game, let’s say let’s to tOSU or the like, then goes on to have a similar season as this year. 2 losses but beating one of UGA or Bama. Somehow it works that we get into the SECCG and win. You are saying a 3 lass TN doesn’t deserve a spot in the playoffs?
 
#46
#46
njvols said:
I think you can let the conference winners in the playoffs but don’t auto peg them for top 4 bye weeks…just my opinion.
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For P4 teams there has to be a reward to winning your conference. It’s harder to win the SEC, than it is to win a national title. Other conferences not so much but same rules.
 
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#47
#47
BenGrimm said:
I’m not against it. It’s like winning your division in the NFL at 9-7. Just because your division sucked doesn’t mean you don’t get a shot at the Super Bowl.

And let’s be real, you are telling me if TN loses an early season OOC game, let’s say let’s to tOSU or the like, then goes on to have a similar season as this year. 2 losses but beating one of UGA or Bama. Somehow it works that we get into the SECCG and win. You are saying a 3 lass TN doesn’t deserve a spot in the playoffs?
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We can only knee jerk at the current scenario. If what you say ever happened we would have another knee jerk reaction.
 
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#49
#49
Baseball25 said:
Take the best teams and to away with automatic qualifiers. Now, we have Clemson backing into a possible playoff spot if they luck up and win the ACC.
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But then it’s all committee. We need a model like the NFL. It will take a new Super Conference being formed.
 
#50
#50
Preach OP. Format is trash this year. Need straight rankings possibly with some at large bids for conference titles. Human element on ranks needs to be be mitigated or removed all together
 
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