Do we need to expand the Playoff?

[JoAllan]

In a 12 team playoff there will already be teams that absolutely have no business in the playoff……….who are actually in.

I also absolutely HATE the mandatory top 4 seeds……so dumb!!

Can you imagine say a 2 loss UNC or maybe a 2 loss Illinois getting a top 4 spot with a bye while say a 1 loss Tennessee or Michigan is maybe ranked 3rd and 4th and have to play the first game.

This very well could…….and probably will happen at some point. We will see a team ranked as low as 8th make the top 4………could be worse with a several upsets on championship day.

 

[Voltopia]

.
Using your logic, there should be no playoff all.

I would love that very much, yes. The playoffs killed the bowls and ruined the uniqueness of college football's old post-season, which was nuts, and had wacky matchups, and was wonderful. And when it was all over, we argued about who was the best team that year. I would rather teams be judged by their entire seasons, rather than a single-elimination tournament held at the end of the year. In that scenario I cited, where a team was 14-1 with a top 10 SOS, and some other team ends up being 12-3 with, say, the 50th best schedule, but they got hot at the end of the year? Or maybe the 14-1 team lost their quarterback in the semi-finals? Whatever. Point is, the 14-1 team was the BETTER TEAM that year.

But that would involved subjectivity and debate, rather than an easily monetized tournament that allowed for maximum advertising revenue, and we can't have that.

 

[Action_1505]

Go 8 or 16. Leave it to some committee to screw it up with the number 12. Why give anyone a bye. Conference champs and 3 highest ranked teams or 5.

 

[OptimisticFan]

An 8 team playoff is balanced enough to select for the highest quality teams through excellent regular season play. Anything more than that starts letting in teams like Penn State or Utah play for the national title. No thanks, we’re good.

 

[CR-vol]

Pre-transfer portal era, no. There were only 3 or 4 teams good enough every year anyway. Still don't like an expanded playoff but parity that the transfer portal appears to be giving college football seems to make it necessary. More than 6 teams seems like a stretch tho.

 

[JohnSteed1974]

Yeah as really six teams seems to be a lot there. Would be nice but need to look at the pros and cons there. If you are to expand it. Transfer portal is going to make it harder and harder for the BCS to make a very tough decision.

 

[zaqhhh]

I used to be against expansion because I thought it threatened the bowls which I felt were a crucial part of the postseason.

But honestly, there is just too much room for controversy with 4. I'd prefer we did 8 or 16 and not 12 but whatever.

 

[Vol in Buckeye Land]

I’m beginning to question the value of the playoff expansion. How many teams are capable of beating Georgia, Tennessee, or Ohio State that won’t already have the opportunity in the regular season or a four team playoff? Not many and possibly 0. Look what happened to Cincinnati last year. Massacred. You really want Tulane playing a team like us or Bama or Michigan in a quarterfinal? What purpose does that serve?

It also has the danger of devaluing the regular season. The college football season is always electric, because of the matchups and also because every game has consequences. I can’t stand to watch NFL games because they feel absolutely anemic. Ho hum, we lost a game, whatever. Teams make the playoffs with losing records. With a 12-team playoff, Alabama is still alive for a national title run right now, TCU’s game at Texas is a lot less consequential, and the game between OSU and Michigan doesn’t matter to anyone outside those fanbases.

Actually, I’m not “beginning to question” the 12-team playoff. I disagree vehemently, and I hate that they’re doing it.

 

[Persian Vol]

I personally thought 12 was too excessive. For me what would be be interesting is an 8 team playoff with the 5 power 5 conference champions and 3 at larges. Teams in the top 4 would host a match.

 

[sami]

Expanding the playoff is foolish. It give the Alabamas and Ohio States multiple chances to make the playoffs and take care of business. To say nothing of making the regular season even more of a total joke. I mean, really, the first time some 9-3 team rides a hot streak to finish 12-3 and be named "champion" over a 14-1 team that played a much harder schedule, that'll be the end of any of it mattering. That's idiotic. But that's where we're headed.

Football should have never become about who gets hot at the end of the year, but that's what all this CFP business does. That's why Oregon can get demolished by UGA two months ago, have a much weaker overall schedule than Tennessee, and yet ESPN's talking heads are saying if they get on a hot streak against a weak PAC-10 and win out, they could get in over Tennessee - because of recency bias. If you looked at the whole year, you'd say "wow, Tennessee did a lot more." But in this March Madness playoff mindset, you don't care about body of work, you care about who's hot at the end. September? Who cares. The playoff mindset leads to caring more about about who looks good going into the playoff than it does a total season of work. Which is why Oregon, UCLA, USC, and even LSU could be jumped ahead of Tennessee under the right conditions.

Football should be about who assembled the best season from start to finish. It should be about the best team from bell to bell, not the best team the last week. The more the playoffs grow, the less anything before the playoffs will matter.

Agree 100%.

All of the intrigue and scenario discussion that is going on right now is gone with the expanded playoff. Every game from here on is do or die for any team in the top 10, but with a 12-team playoff these huge games lose their impact, as the top teams are not playing for a spot, but simply for seeding, hardly the same thing.

In some ways, getting to a conference championship game, once the goal of a season, might be a detriment. If you're an 11-1 SEC team with a strong SOS, you know you're in the playoff, so is risking injuries or a bad loss in the SEC title game instead of having that time to rest and prepare for the playoff a good or bad thing?

There are only ever 3-4 teams at most with a realistic chance to go through 3-4 playoff games and win a national championship. The rest of the field is window dressing for extra revenue. Sure, you'll get an upset every now and then, but if anyone believes that there will be March Madness like 'cinderella' stories, think again. Football is a different animal, and depth of talent will always win out over the course of 3-4 games.

 

[Vol in Buckeye Land]

Expanding the playoff is foolish. It give the Alabamas and Ohio States multiple chances to make the playoffs and take care of business. To say nothing of making the regular season even more of a total joke. I mean, really, the first time some 9-3 team rides a hot streak to finish 12-3 and be named "champion" over a 14-1 team that played a much harder schedule, that'll be the end of any of it mattering. That's idiotic. But that's where we're headed.

Football should have never become about who gets hot at the end of the year, but that's what all this CFP business does. That's why Oregon can get demolished by UGA two months ago, have a much weaker overall schedule than Tennessee, and yet ESPN's talking heads are saying if they get on a hot streak against a weak PAC-10 and win out, they could get in over Tennessee - because of recency bias. If you looked at the whole year, you'd say "wow, Tennessee did a lot more." But in this March Madness playoff mindset, you don't care about body of work, you care about who's hot at the end. September? Who cares. The playoff mindset leads to caring more about about who looks good going into the playoff than it does a total season of work. Which is why Oregon, UCLA, USC, and even LSU could be jumped ahead of Tennessee under the right conditions.

Football should be about who assembled the best season from start to finish. It should be about the best team from bell to bell, not the best team the last week. The more the playoffs grow, the less anything before the playoffs will matter.

Spot on. This is something I admire about the way they do the other sort of football in the European leagues. The season is the championship. A win is 3 points, a draw is 1 point, a loss is 0. Team with the most points at the end of the season wins. They play a very long schedule and yet every game matters. Now they do have a playoff system for the Champions league and various cups and such, but the league championships themselves are all about how you perform through an entire season.

 

[Jeff Clark]

Why

It would be very interesting in my opinion

 

[Vol in Buckeye Land]

I would love that very much, yes. The playoffs killed the bowls and ruined the uniqueness of college football's old post-season, which was nuts, and had wacky matchups, and was wonderful. And when it was all over, we argued about who was the best team that year. I would rather teams be judged by their entire seasons, rather than a single-elimination tournament held at the end of the year. In that scenario I cited, where a team was 14-1 with a top 10 SOS, and some other team ends up being 12-3 with, say, the 50th best schedule, but they got hot at the end of the year? Or maybe the 14-1 team lost their quarterback in the semi-finals? Whatever. Point is, the 14-1 team was the BETTER TEAM that year.

But that would involved subjectivity and debate, rather than an easily monetized tournament that allowed for maximum advertising revenue, and we can't have that.

I don’t mind the current playoff system relative to the old BCS model because you have years like 2005 where an undefeated SEC champ in Auburn didn’t get a shot because Texas and USC were also undefeated. Everybody hypes Vince Young and that Texas team, but I think Auburn would have beaten either of those two that year.

 

[sami]

Pre-transfer portal era, no. There were only 3 or for teams good enough every year anyway. Still don't like an expanded playoff but parity that the transfer portal appears to be giving college football seems to make it necessary. More than 6 teams seems like a stretch tho.

I'm not really a fan of any playoff beyond the old BCS championship game, but the playoff number I always thought would be ideal is 6 teams, which, as you said, is enough to include teams with a legit shot at winning. It would also have first round byes for the two top teams, rewarding those who had the best regular seasons.

 

[butchna]

They won’t stop til it’s18. Even then they’ll keep kicking the golden goose…see March Madness.

 

[sjt18]

They're going to 12, how many do you need, 32?

Honestly there's maybe 6 or 8 teams tops that can win if everything goes right for them, the rest are just filler for TV money.

I want 16 or 8. 12 is stupid and inherently unfair to those that don't get a bye.

 

[CR-vol]

I'm not really a fan of any playoff beyond the old BCS championship game, but the playoff number I always thought would be ideal is 6 teams, which, as you said, is enough to include teams with a legit shot at winning. It would also have first round byes for the two top teams, rewarding those who had the best regular seasons.

I feel the same about liking the pre-playoff era. It's funny how back then everyone supposedly hated the lack of a playoff now there are people who want the old system back. The old BCS was far from perfect but the bowl games just meant more back then. Now anything that's not in the championship 4 is just something that half the players opt out on/don't care about and that sucks for college football fans.

 

[Vol8188]

There’s a lot better chance of having 8 teams with a legitimate shot at making a run than 12. There’s zero chance of making a case for 12.

So yes I could make a case for 8.

That didn’t answer the question of why 8 over 4?

 

[temptn]

I don't see a need to expand beyond 4. What problems are we trying to solve?

One problem is that a very good team, Tennessee, is going to be left out of the playoffs.

 

[spacificislander]

This one is funny cause some years more than 4 should go. This year if everything plays out like it seems like it will we could just have a championship game. If only OSU/Mich and UGA are undefeated they should be it.

 

[temptn]

There are only ever 3-4 teams at most with a realistic chance to go through 3-4 playoff games and win a national championship.

Pre portal that was true.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

I want 16 or 8. 12 is stupid and inherently unfair to those that don't get a bye.

Doesn’t that help keep the relevancy of the regular season intact? Right now we wouldn’t get a bye because we lost to UGA, but we would host UCLA or someone at Neyland in the 5/12 game. That to me is the exciting part of all of this. I think the part where the 12 team cfp loses sight of things is in the quarterfinals where they make the 1-4 seeds play the first round winners at bowl sites and not their own home stadium. I find that to be ludicrous . If your team goes to the National title they are expecting fans to travel to 3 different big cities during the holidays? Get out of here w/ that. The games on college campuses will be huge when that time comes.

 

[Voldawg1970]

Drop half of the pointless bowls and go to 10 or 12 team playoff. One loss shouldn't dictate a teams season. The playoffs could be completed in place of pointless bowl games and not need to extend the schedule...

 

[Vol8188]

One problem is that a very good team, Tennessee, is going to be left out of the playoffs.

The goal of a playoff isn’t the identify very good teams. And you should check the betting markets. The odds are right now that UT is in

 

[sjt18]

Doesn’t that help keep the relevancy of the regular season intact? Right now we wouldn’t get a bye because we lost to UGA, but we would host UCLA or someone at Neyland in the 5/12 game. That to me is the exciting part of all of this. I think the part where the 12 team cfp loses sight of things is in the quarterfinals where they make the 1-4 seeds play the first round winners at bowl sites and not their own home stadium. I find that to be ludicrous . If your team goes to the National title they are expecting fans to travel to 3 different big cities during the holidays? Get out of here w/ that. The games on college campuses will be huge when that time comes.

Why not 16 teams with the first two rounds played at home sites?