Facing same team three times a year

[bigl3327]

It's partially about money, but it's also an effort to keep some of the best players in the nation to actually playing in the bowl games. People are tired of NY6 bowls being somewhat regarded as meaningless.

 

[RockyTopTexas]

It will have to rotate eventually

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Bump because it looks like the OP scenario may not only come true and, if SEC remains dominant, could be a possibility year after year.

Then, the pundits will complain about that!

Yep, it is possible.

But for some reason the invisible powers of probability and statistics have kept it from becoming an issue over the years.

Perhaps this is one of those things we can wait to worry about after it happens for the first time (two teams playing each other three times).

Go Vols!

 

[cyclevol]

I think the playoffs should be reserved only for conference champions. If you aren't good enough to call yourself the best team in your conference, how can you say you are the best in the nation (alabama 2x)?

Really??? So you think that the top team from the watered down PAC 12 or Big 12(or whatever they are) could beat any one of the top 4 SEC teams?

 

[Visiting Dawg]

The best team is always one of the top 4. Expanding beyond that is just about money

First, it's ALWAYS about the money and that can be bad or good. More money can mean prostituting the sport but it can also mean more opportunities for more students.

Next, how do you build a brand to compete with Bama, UGA, Clemson, OSU and Michigan if those teams are getting the benefit of a doubt and getting selected for a 4 team playoff while other deserving teams are left out? Even if it's only 3 of the 4 and a different team gets the token 4th spot, 1 playoff appearance isn't going to build your brand to the level of the other schools you must compete with to win a championship.

So, let's take UT for example. In order to win a championship, you must play for the championship and championships are what builds brands. Yeah, folks like to use the 64 number as a straw man to argue against 12 but would a team like Gonzaga be taken seriously if they didn't have a chance to compete and were simply NIT winners? I look at the expansion as having some compelling football before Christmas. I really don't get the idea that less football and a clique dominating the playoffs is a good thing.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

I think the playoffs should be reserved only for conference champions. If you aren't good enough to call yourself the best team in your conference, how can you say you are the best in the nation (alabama 2x)?

Do you mean to include all ten FBS conference champs?

Do you mean you would include unranked (by the CFP committee*) Toledo (MAC champ) and Fresno State (Mtn West champ)? Over, say, #3 TCU or #4 Ohio State or #6 Tennessee?

You think because they won a conference championship that they deserve more of a shot at the national title?

Not being sarcastic. Honestly want to know if this is your proposal.

~ ~ ~

Or perhaps you only meant the Power 5 conference champs. Just #1 UGa (SEC), #2 Michigan (B10), #7 Clemson (ACC), #8 Utah (PAC), and #9 Kansas State (B12).

But, would you really pick the last three of those over our Vols, TCU, or Ohio State?

~ ~ ~

Or maybe, to get to an 8-team playoff, you meant those 5 from the Power conferences, plus the three highest-ranked from the Group of 5: #16 Tulane (AAC), #24 Troy (Sun), and #25 Texas-San Antonio (CUSA).

But that's even worse, isn't it, when you consider the better teams they leapfrogged?

~ ~ ~

However you slice it, I can't see "conference champs only" working. The conferences are simply too imbalanced. Even among the Power 5, there are the strong (SEC, sort of B10) and the weak (ACC, B12).



* all rankings used in this post are from the final CFP committee slate of 2022.

 

[VolNExile]

NFL junior league is coming . Bye bye NCAA , conferences will discipline their own universities. So if their universitys are doing some shady **** but are in playoff contention with money at stake are they really going to discipline them. Probably not.
How are the other conferences going to handle their disciplinary actions.
Who draws the line in the sand, and will it be equal across the board?

Isn't this what already happens under the NCAA? There's pretty obviously a magic umbrella of protection over multiple programs in multiple sports.

 

[sjt18]

Anything more than 4 and they might as well go to 64. Same difference.

It needs to be 16 teams selected from 4 super conferences made up of 16 teams each. Or divide each of those conferences into two 8 team divisions with the conference CG being the first round of the playoff. Each team could play all 7 teams in their division and only those games would count toward the playoff berth. Teams would not be punished for scheduling tough OOC games.

 

[JRich]

 

[pimo1]

99% is hypothetical. In reality, since the playoff started the best team has 100% of the time been in the top 4. It doesn’t matter who might be hot at the end of the year.

You have no facts to base that on... the only reason one would think the best team is always in the top 4 is because that's all we've ever gotten to see. Now being realistic the best team will almost always be in that top 4 but the top 4 rarely contains the top 4 teams. TCU had no business in the playoffs last season and anyone that is not a TCU fan or a flat-out SEC-hating contrarian should be able to see it.

The 12-team playoff actually benefits the SEC and to a lesser extent the Big Ten more than anyone else. It will be the proving ground that the SEC is the dominant football conference because most yards we should easily place 3-4 teams in there and the big ten 2-3. We almost always have a good 3 teams in the top 10 often 4. I'm trying to remember the last time we didn't (end of season).

 

[OrangeBeachVol]

The best team is always one of the top 4. Expanding beyond that is just about money

I agree with you on the $ statement, however, the one thing that has soured me on the 4 team playoff is the committee seemed to pick the 4 teams from the same pool of 5-6 teams, AL, GA, OSU, OK, Clemson for several seasons and some other team when one of those 5 are having an off year. Even with 12 the best 4 may still make to the semi finals.

And the 4 team playoff basically made all the other bowl games meaningless and this should help that. And TN should be able to make the playoffs more now to.

 

[landscapingvol]

The assumption that the best team is one of the top four is a flawed argument in college football because it is based on polling that is even more flawed than the playoff system itself. It's pretty safe to assume that the SEC champion is probably one of the four best teams in college football but that same argument cannot be made about any other conference especially the Big 10 which is generally the other major conference with consistent representatives in the playoff. It will not be shocking to see some of the so called elite football schools being bounced by supposed inferior teams and conferences with the expanded playoffs. It also wouldn't shock me to see a lesser SEC representative get bounced in one of the playin games because quite frankly outside of Georgia and Alabama there really isn't a lot of separation between the other teams. By that logic, we might as well go back to the BCS era and just crown the favorite without a playoff at all.

 

[VFLCodyGBO]

I think the playoffs should be reserved only for conference champions. If you aren't good enough to call yourself the best team in your conference, how can you say you are the best in the nation (alabama 2x)?

Is this still your opinion after the number 1 ranked Tennessee falls to Number 2 Alabama in the sec championship game on a last second 50 yard field goal, gets dropped to number 2 and doesn’t get a shot at a national title because they didn’t win the conference?

 

[GetEmVols]

I think the playoffs should be reserved only for conference champions. If you aren't good enough to call yourself the best team in your conference, how can you say you are the best in the nation (alabama 2x)?

happens in every other sport like baseball and basketball. Best team hardly wins.

 

[Visiting Dawg]

You have no facts to base that on... the only reason one would think the best team is always in the top 4 is because that's all we've ever gotten to see. Now being realistic the best team will almost always be in that top 4 but the top 4 rarely contains the top 4 teams. TCU had no business in the playoffs last season and anyone that is not a TCU fan or a flat-out SEC-hating contrarian should be able to see it.

The 12-team playoff actually benefits the SEC and to a lesser extent the Big Ten more than anyone else. It will be the proving ground that the SEC is the dominant football conference because most yards we should easily place 3-4 teams in there and the big ten 2-3. We almost always have a good 3 teams in the top 10 often 4. I'm trying to remember the last time we didn't (end of season).

TCU is one of only seven teams to win a playoff game. Only Bama, Clemson, UGA and OSU have more playoff wins than TCU. Yeah, they got rolled in the finals for a lot of reasons but if they didn't belong, what does that say about Michigan?

 

[VOLINVONORE]

Really??? So you think that the top team from the watered down PAC 12 or Big 12(or whatever they are) could beat any one of the top 4 SEC teams?

Could is the key word. While the odds are not great for it to happen, it is possible with some of todays Referees.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

TCU is one of only seven teams to win a playoff game. Only Bama, Clemson, UGA and OSU have more playoff wins than TCU. Yeah, they got rolled in the finals for a lot of reasons but if they didn't belong, what does that say about Michigan?

TCU was the drunk who just kept winning at the craps table.

Every game of the season, folks thought, "this is the week they get exposed?"

But they kept winning. Didn't win their conference championship, but otherwise kept winning. Even beat Michigan in a high-scoring shootout.

And then they lost spectacularly, 65-7 (let that sink in...sixty-five to seven) in the championship game.

So did they belong?

Some teams have very tight performance variability. I mean, they're the same team every week. The players are disciplined, the coaches are steady, everything just kind of seems to go the same, week after week. Bama under Saban is like that. One could argue Georgia is like that under Smart, though this is a team personality thing and we still need to see how UGa looks post-Stetson Bennett.

Bad teams, too, can be very dependable, unchanged week to week. But discipline and organization are such an important part of the game of football, teams who are that tight tend to be better rather than worse.

So 2022 TCU was the opposite of tight. They were spectacularly loose, almost volatile. One never knew from week to week which kind of performance they were going to turn in. Everyone could feel that looseness in them.

And yet they kept rolling 7s and 11s. With that vast range of possibilities, they kept finding the top end.

That is what convinced the CFP committee to include TCU. We all knew they were mercurial, but darn it, they just kept rolling the dice and winning. So let them in!

Did they deserve to be in the playoffs? Sure. Because at the end of the day, you are what your record says. Nonetheless, they were perhaps the only team in the history of the four-team playoffs who could lose 65-7.

65-7.

Go Vols!


p.s. This is, by the way, what I think Jeremy Banks cost the Vols in 2022: dependability. Others too, probably, but Banks was the lightning rod. He and like-minded fellows are THE reason something like the South Carolina game could happen. We simply weren't as tight, as consistent, as disciplined and steady with folks like Jeremy on the squad.

 

[Ghost of Archvol]

This isn’t ever going to happen. Not in football

it absolutely could happen and probably will in our limetime. a 1 loss or undefeated georgia/tn facing a 1-loss or undefeated alabama/lsu in the SECCG. winner and loser of that game will both be in the playoff and there is a good chance they faced each other in the regular season. odds are low, but it is probable.

 

[Visiting Dawg]

TCU was the drunk who just kept winning at the craps table.

Every game of the season, folks thought, "this is the week they get exposed?"

But they kept winning. Didn't win their conference championship, but otherwise kept winning. Even beat Michigan in a high-scoring shootout.

And then they lost spectacularly, 65-7 (let that sink in...sixty-five to seven) in the championship game.

So did they belong?

Some teams have very tight performance variability. I mean, they're the same team every week. The players are disciplined, the coaches are steady, everything just kind of seems to go the same, week after week. Bama under Saban is like that. One could argue Georgia is like that under Smart, though this is a team personality thing and we still need to see how UGa looks post-Stetson Bennett.

Bad teams, too, can be very dependable, unchanged week to week. But discipline and organization are such an important part of the game of football, teams who are that tight tend to be better rather than worse.

So 2022 TCU was the opposite of tight. They were spectacularly loose, almost volatile. One never knew from week to week which kind of performance they were going to turn in. Everyone could feel that looseness in them.

And yet they kept rolling 7s and 11s. With that vast range of possibilities, they kept finding the top end.

That is what convinced the CFP committee to include TCU. We all knew they were mercurial, but darn it, they just kept rolling the dice and winning. So let them in!

Did they deserve to be in the playoffs? Sure. Because at the end of the day, you are what your record says. Nonetheless, they were perhaps the only team in the history of the four-team playoffs who could lose 65-7.

65-7.

Go Vols!

LSU wasn't far from 65-7 vs Okie and Oregon throttled FSU and then got throttled in the finals by OSU. Now, I believe TCU would have been a middle of the pack SEC team but they did crush Okie, beat Tex as bad as Bama in Austin, beat Michigan and split with KState. It's not like the sneaked in with a 21 Cincy schedule.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

LSU wasn't far from 65-7 vs Okie and Oregon throttled FSU and then got throttled in the finals by OSU. Now, I believe TCU would have been a middle of the pack SEC team but they did crush Okie, beat Tex as bad as Bama in Austin, beat Michigan and split with KState. It's not like the sneaked in with a 21 Cincy schedule.

I get it. You would like TCU to be considered legit so that your 2022 national title isn't tarnished.

Don't worry, it isn't tarnished. You legitimately deserved to be there, and beat some very good teams along the way to prove it. No one doubts 2022 UGa.

But TCU is not the torch to hold aloft. They were exactly as I described them. You got them on a day they didn't happen to roll lucky, and their mercurial inconsistency showed.

Go Vols!

 

[Visiting Dawg]

I get it. You would like TCU to be considered legit so that your 2022 national title isn't tarnished.

Don't worry, it isn't tarnished. You legitimately deserved to be there, and beat some very good teams along the way to prove it. No one doubts 2022 UGa.

But TCU is not the torch to hold aloft. They were exactly as I described them. You got them on a day they didn't happen to roll lucky, and their mercurial inconsistency showed.

Go Vols!

Never said they were a marquise win but they deserved to be there and are now one of only 7 teams to have posted a win in the NCAA football playoff. Imo, they got rolled in the finals for several reasons like match up issues, not being ready for the intensity of the game, shooting their wad in the Semi and not having the tools to rebound for an even tougher match up, etc but that's not the point of my post or the thread.

My point is even though expanding to 12 teams will certainly create some bad match ups, (we've had plenty of those with 4) it will give programs like Cincy, TCU and even historical programs like Tenn and Tex an opportunity to enhance their brand by being on the field. When you consider that 3 of the 4 spots have virtually been penciled in from a pool of 5 or 6 teams before the first kickoff, I would think you'd love the idea of expansion in order to prove it on the field. Not to mention that I would loved to have seen a play in game like Tenn vs PSU and then maybe a Tenn vs TCU in the first round over a bunch of garbage bowls before Christmas and NY6 games with marquise players sitting it out.

 

[VFL-82-JP]

Never said they were a marquise win but they deserved to be there and are now one of only 7 teams to have posted a win in the NCAA football playoff. Imo, they got rolled in the finals for several reasons like match up issues, not being ready for the intensity of the game, shooting their wad in the Semi and not having the tools to rebound for an even tougher match up, etc but that's not the point of my post or the thread.

My point is even though expanding to 12 teams will certainly create some bad match ups, (we've had plenty of those with 4) it will give programs like Cincy, TCU and even historical programs like Tenn and Tex an opportunity to enhance their brand by being on the field. When you consider that 3 of the 4 spots have virtually been penciled in from a pool of 5 or 6 teams before the first kickoff, I would think you'd love the idea of expansion in order to prove it on the field. Not to mention that I would loved to have seen a play in game like Tenn vs PSU and then maybe a Tenn vs TCU in the first round over a bunch of garbage bowls before Christmas and NY6 games with marquise players sitting it out.

There are four teams who stand out for frequent appearances in the CFP: Bama (7 times), Clemson (6), Ohio State (5), and Oklahoma (4).

And yet, two of those four haven't been in the playoffs in a few years. And don't look to get back there any time soon. The "favor of the playoffs" is not a permanent thing, it comes and goes in waves. Yes, even for Bama and Ohio State, we simply haven't yet seen those two trends play out.

UGa is the beneficiary of that flow. With three recent appearances, it is to your gain that Clemson and Oklahoma are no longer regular participants. [you have legitimately earned it every single time you got invited; not trying to imply you weren't deserving]

Others benefit, as well. And have from the start. Remember Oregon in the inaugural playoff year? Yep, they haven't been back since, they were already a program on the wane (not to mediocrity, Oregon is still a good program, just no longer a championship caliber one). FSU has benefitted. And Washington. Cincinnati for sure. Michigan State. Notre Dame, more than once. And yes, TCU.

My point is, you don't need to expand to 12 spots to find the best team in college football. You usually find it in the top 2. Certainly always in the top 4. And when the pool is at 4, teams do get in who never really had a shot at winning it all. Like some of those I just listed. Again, including TCU.

Go Vols!

 

[pimo1]

TCU is one of only seven teams to win a playoff game. Only Bama, Clemson, UGA and OSU have more playoff wins than TCU. Yeah, they got rolled in the finals for a lot of reasons but if they didn't belong, what does that say about Michigan?

Michigan had a bad game and has a track record playing big-time teams there is no universe where OSU or Michigan get boat raced the way TCU was ... maybe soundly beaten but not crucified. Georgia beat them by 55 points.... Georgia only scored 55 points one other time in the season vs Vandy. Epic powerhouses Samford and Kent State were able to hold them under 40 points.

65-7 in a natty with no holdouts or major injuries is glitch in the matrix-type stuff

 

[HooahVol]

Many pod projections have our pod being Tennessee, Kentucky, Vanderbilt and Bama, I would be good with that.

 

[Visiting Dawg]

Michigan had a bad game and has a track record playing big-time teams there is no universe where OSU or Michigan get boat raced the way TCU was ... maybe soundly beaten but not crucified. Georgia beat them by 55 points.... Georgia only scored 55 points one other time in the season vs Vandy. Epic powerhouses Samford and Kent State were able to hold them under 40 points.

65-7 in a natty with no holdouts or major injuries is glitch in the matrix-type stuff

Michigan must have had a bad game in the 21 playoff as well. They trailed in that one 27-3 at the half and were only able to keep it to a respectable 34-11 because the opponent went in to clock killer mode. In the 19 playoff LSU lead Okie 49-14 at halftime. Sometimes thing snowball and a lesser team gets crushed. That doesn't make them Samford or Kent State.