The Non Existent Playoff Parity

[LouderVol]

Soap box moment after watching that fiasco of a national title game.

The playoffs were sold as bringing parity to the sport, about being inclusive so that the number 3 and 4, and soon to be 5-12, dont feel left out because they might be good too. Unfortunately, the stats say that not all 1-4 are any where close to equal, I cant imagine how bad it gets with 5-12.

In the 9 years, 27 total games, there have been 8 games decided by one score or less. Less than a third of the games have been close. 29%

On the other hand 13 games were decided by at least 20 points, what I would call blow outs. 48%

This was the first year without a semifinal game decided by at least 18 points. The first, with 8 other tries. And then we are rewarded with a 58 point beat down.

Of the nine years of playoffs the overall margin of victory has been in the single digits once, 2018. Three have averaged more than 20 points. Again the average margin of victory is THAT lop sided. The overall margin of victory from ALL playoff games is 19 pts. Just outside my blowout metric.

Going back to my blow out metric of 20 points 4 of the championship games were blowouts. Only three have been decided by single digits.
In the nine previous BCS championship games there were 3 blowouts, and 3 single digit games. The BCS had more parity. You know where else the BCS had more parity?

In the 9 playoffs we have seen 7 different teams make the Championship game.
The nine previous BCS games? 11 different teams. It's not even close.

Parity in the playoffs or from the playoffs is a lie.

Expanding the playoffs wont fix anything.

All that is coming is more blowouts. All you are doing is allowing the typical cast of characters to get into the playoffs with more and more losses. Decreasing the value of the regular season.

I dont think playoffs are helping the game. If you want more college football just expand the regular season. Heck even require that expansion to include a P5 OOC opponent so that we get more cross over games to really know who should be in a 4 team playoff.

 

[LouderVol]

So furthering the conversation about parity.

As I mentioned 11 unique teams made it in the BCS championship games. Playoffs opened it up to four teams per chance vs 2. So you would think the playoffs would include at least 22 unqiue teams right? Maybe more as it finally let's I the little guys right? Gives them a shot.

Well that's wrong. 21 unique teams have made it to the playoffs.

The rate of parity, aka seeing unique teams, is LESS in the OVERALL playoffs than it was in the BCS. Increasing the number of slots decreased the variety of teams.

I feel like 9 seasons is a large enough sample size. But even if we expand it out to 10 vs 10 seasons, we add a 12th unique team to the BCS, meaning we would need 3 unique teams, who have never made the playoffs before, to make it to the 2024 playoffs o EQUAL the variety we saw in the BCS. We won't see that. My guess is 1 unique team. So the rate of "parity" will go down again compared to what we saw in the BCS.

 

[Ned Ray McWorkher]

Legislative parity is very likely not possible.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

Soap box moment after watching that fiasco of a national title game.

The playoffs were sold as bringing parity to the sport, about being inclusive so that the number 3 and 4, and soon to be 5-12, dont feel left out because they might be good too. Unfortunately, the stats say that not all 1-4 are any where close to equal, I cant imagine how bad it gets with 5-12.

In the 9 years, 27 total games, there have been 8 games decided by one score or less. Less than a third of the games have been close. 29%

On the other hand 13 games were decided by at least 20 points, what I would call blow outs. 48%

This was the first year without a semifinal game decided by at least 18 points. The first, with 8 other tries. And then we are rewarded with a 58 point beat down.

Of the nine years of playoffs the overall margin of victory has been in the single digits once, 2018. Three have averaged more than 20 points. Again the average margin of victory is THAT lop sided. The overall margin of victory from ALL playoff games is 19 pts. Just outside my blowout metric.

Going back to my blow out metric of 20 points 4 of the championship games were blowouts. Only three have been decided by single digits.
In the nine previous BCS championship games there were 3 blowouts, and 3 single digit games. The BCS had more parity. You know where else the BCS had more parity?

In the 9 playoffs we have seen 7 different teams make the Championship game.
The nine previous BCS games? 11 different teams. It's not even close.

Parity in the playoffs or from the playoffs is a lie.

Expanding the playoffs wont fix anything.

All that is coming is more blowouts. All you are doing is allowing the typical cast of characters to get into the playoffs with more and more losses. Decreasing the value of the regular season.

I dont think playoffs are helping the game. If you want more college football just expand the regular season. Heck even require that expansion to include a P5 OOC opponent so that we get more cross over games to really know who should be in a 4 team playoff.

I posted this last night. 5 out of the 16 BCS title games were 1 score games. That’s less 33% of the time .

 

[atilla]

Yes, but that semi-final game which we all knew would be the actual national championship was a classic for the ages and all came down to the kicker overstriding on that final field goal attempt.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

So I guess we should go back to 2004 where undefeated Auburn was left out of the title game in favor of Oklahoma and USC? That was a stellar BCS title game. I think it was like 55-19.

 

[hog88]

So I guess we should go back to 2004 where undefeated Auburn was left out of the title game in favor of Oklahoma and USC? That was a stellar BCS title game. I think it was like 55-19.

No but more emphasis needs to be placed on the regular season now that we have the playoffs. Enough of these G5 and FCS cupcake games filling OOC schedules, P5 should only play P5 during the regular season and all conferences should go to 9 game conference schedules.

 

[miket4god]

No but more emphasis needs to be placed on the regular season now that we have the playoffs. Enough of these G5 and FCS cupcake games filling OOC schedules, P5 should only play P5 during the regular season and all conferences should go to 9 game conference schedules.

Then you will take away football from almost every FCS team there is, because they all count on the money game vs. the power 5 teams.
Would not be able to fund football at many FCS teams without it.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

No but more emphasis needs to be placed on the regular season now that we have the playoffs. Enough of these G5 and FCS cupcake games filling OOC schedules, P5 should only play P5 during the regular season and all conferences should go to 9 game conference schedules.

I’m completely fine w/ that. There needs to be uniformity. I think there needs to be a College football czar and basketball czar for that matter. Everyone should play equal # of conference opponents and a minimum of 1 P5 teams non con game. I don’t know about taking away some of the FCS games or G5 games bc these games basically pay for their athletic department. I don’t like these games, but I get them. I would really like to have something similar to what basketball does with the SEC/Big 12 challenge or the ACC/B1G challenge. Just spread those games out over 2 weekends. I think it would be great football and create more matchups that would get teams out of their normal scheduling comfort zones.

 

[hog88]

Then you will take away football from almost every FCS team there is, because they all count on the money game vs. the power 5 teams.
Would not be able to fund football at many FCS teams without it.

I hate it but something needs to be done to increase SOS for a lot of these P5 schools. Maybe just make it an eligibility requirement for the playoffs.

 

[Otis1105]

It has allowed for teams like TCU cincy and mich st to actually make the playoffs and they never would have in the bcs era. Also, the data points are a little misleading, football is much different from 2014- present that it was especially early in the BCS. Saban learned how to hoard talent. As did urban Meyer. They taught Kirby and Day. Early BCS talent was more spread out. The current version of college football isn’t comparable. Just the way football is now, what the playoff has done is really just identify the best team. Because adding that extra game further separates the best team or two. Also, last years title was really a 1 score game, a pick six with like 5 seconds left doesn’t change that the game itself was a slugfest. It will remain the same. NIL will introduce maybe 4 more teams (Tenn, Mia, Texas and A&M) to the playoff rotation. But it’s the NFL factory schools and coaches that will still win most the titles. The kids that want to be developed and get a big payday on draft day in my opinion will most always beat kids that want a college pay day and may think they can get drafted anywhere. Just a mindset I’ll be tracking internally. Saw a little of it at A&M this year. It will take a special coach to keep these locker rooms hungry and happy.

 

[miket4god]

I hate it but something needs to be done to increase SOS for a lot of these P5 schools. Maybe just make it an eligibility requirement for the playoffs.

I agree and certainly don't know the answer.

 

[hog88]

IMO without some rule on OOC scheduling why in the world would any of the major programs schedule other P5 teams for OOC games and risk missing the playoffs?

 

[LouderVol]

I posted this last night. 5 out of the 16 BCS title games were 1 score games. That’s less 33% of the time .

That's still more than the playoffs.

31% of BCS Championship games.
29% of all playoff games.

 

[GVF]

I hate it but something needs to be done to increase SOS for a lot of these P5 schools. Maybe just make it an eligibility requirement for the playoffs.

Most teams only do one FCS school. UT tries to always make that a Tennessee team, which is usually TTU, UTM, or APSU to give the locals some budget money. The others are FBS schools. UT gravitates toward the MAC to help with their expenses regionally. And then typically one P% team. I am on board with all P5 schedules going to 9 conference. Keep one FCS, one G5, and one P5. OR 8 conf, one FCS, one G5, two P5. A third option that appears to be the direction the SEC scheduling is headed is the new ACC model coming up next year I think. It's a pretty decent model.

 

[LouderVol]

So I guess we should go back to 2004 where undefeated Auburn was left out of the title game in favor of Oklahoma and USC? That was a stellar BCS title game. I think it was like 55-19.

Maybe we should go back to Michigan state being one of the top 4 teams. More blow outs in the playoffs than the BCS. That's why I brought up the stats and compared the systems instead of specific games. There will always be outliers. This is about the whole sport not specific outcomes.

Everyone is missing the real problem, and trying to jump to a solution. The solution isnt an expanded playoff. We need better data, more regular season games against better opponents so that we know if the top 4 are actually the top 4.

As we constantly say, take X team, make em play an SEC schedule and see what happens. That, or something similar is a better fix.

Instead the playoffs are saying, ok you beat up on a weak conference now go play a real team so that we can have a blowout.

 

[Dadof2Vols]

So furthering the conversation about parity.

As I mentioned 11 unique teams made it in the BCS championship games. Playoffs opened it up to four teams per chance vs 2. So you would think the playoffs would include at least 22 unqiue teams right? Maybe more as it finally let's I the little guys right? Gives them a shot.

Well that's wrong. 21 unique teams have made it to the playoffs.

The rate of parity, aka seeing unique teams, is LESS in the OVERALL playoffs than it was in the BCS. Increasing the number of slots decreased the variety of teams.

I feel like 9 seasons is a large enough sample size. But even if we expand it out to 10 vs 10 seasons, we add a 12th unique team to the BCS, meaning we would need 3 unique teams, who have never made the playoffs before, to make it to the 2024 playoffs o EQUAL the variety we saw in the BCS. We won't see that. My guess is 1 unique team. So the rate of "parity" will go down again compared to what we saw in the BCS.

How are you defining Parity not sure by the posts here. Is it the point spread of championship game, the number of different teams in the CFP-4 or is it the number of different champions?

The largest problem is parity in the seeding due to bias of those determining who gets into the CFP. That is why we now have CFP-4 to fix some of the bias in the BCS. But the biases continued hence we had the TCU terrible championship game and the awful AP poll. The committee created the terrible game last night by 1) putting TCU in the CFP-4 and 2) by not making the UGA vs TCU game the semifinal instead of the NC. They didn’t want the two Big 10 teams meeting again in the Semifinal so they rigged the brackets because they thought Michigan would beat TCU and UGA would have had to beat both Big 10 teams to win NC. “When you start being dishonest it catches up to you", please note that CFP committee. It was evident they didn’t follow their own rules in this year’s CFP discussions (Head to Head for example).

If you are talking about parity based on point spread, see biases in seeding and teams getting in for why we have that discrepancy.

If you are saying parity in the number of unique teams getting into CFP-4 that will not happen anytime soon as there is just so many teams that legitimately have the programs to continue to win. But it does go in cycles and will change as Satan retires.

If you are talking about teams winning NC, we have had 5 unique winners out of the 9 years of the CFP-4. That is 55.5% unique winners since CFP. Since most of the same handful of teams have been making the CFP-4, that is too be expected but maybe NIL will help some of that. Note in the last few years of BCS, Alabama won 3 in a 4 year stretch.

The CFP-12 it will absolutely fix something.

It will correct some of the media & CFP conference president bias fix being in to keep teams out by ignoring Strength of Record/Schedule and using record/conference champion excuse.

12 teams might have ended up with a semifinal including UGA, Alabama, UT and tOSU. There would have been no way for the media and conference CFP members to stop the cream rising other than manipulating the brackets(as they do in basketball to help ratings) to cause earlier matchups. BUT TCU would not have made it to semi.

The CFP12 should make for a more competitive championship game even if there is still bias on who gets in and the matchups.

The Biggest jokes in the format will be who gets the bye(s), the brackets and the referees.

 

[Firebirdparts]

Soap box moment after watching that fiasco of a national title game.

The playoffs were sold as bringing parity to the sport, about being inclusive so that the number 3 and 4, and soon to be 5-12, dont feel left out because they might be good too. Unfortunately, the stats say that not all 1-4 are any where close to equal, I cant imagine how bad it gets with 5-12.

We'll just have to live with it. I've been shocked at the idea of "this game sucks, a 12 game playoff will be so much better." Whatever comes, we'll watch it on TV, right? We'll watch it on TV.

4 teams was always going to be too many, and 12 is also plenty. We're going from too many to too many.

 

[Otis1105]

Maybe we should go back to Michigan state being one of the top 4 teams. More blow outs in the playoffs than the BCS. That's why I brought up the stats and compared the systems instead of specific games. There will always be outliers. This is about the whole sport not specific outcomes.

Everyone is missing the real problem, and trying to jump to a solution. The solution isnt an expanded playoff. We need better data, more regular season games against better opponents so that we know if the top 4 are actually the top 4.

As we constantly say, take X team, make em play an SEC schedule and see what happens. That, or something similar is a better fix.

Instead the playoffs are saying, ok you beat up on a weak conference now go play a real team so that we can have a blowout.

But you can’t take X team and make them play an SEC schedule… or you can… because we are doing it with Texas and OU… but that makes them an SEC team. Giving Ohio st. Or Michigan more games against the crappy big 10 west doesn’t prove anything. There are bad P5 teams. Beating them proves nothing. The playoff separates teams. I can’t think of a team that won it that didn’t deserve it. And isn’t that the point? To get a true champion?

 

[95 Vol Alum]

That's still more than the playoffs.

31% of BCS Championship games.
29% of all playoff games.

The 4 team playoff concentrated the talent to 4-6 schools who routinely are viewed as having the best shot which, in turn, reduced the parity some. A 12 team at least loosens that up a bit.

Even in the BCS era, I don’t think there was a team outside of the top 12 that deserved to win the championship. But I didn’t look.

 

[RDU VOL#14]

That's still more than the playoffs.

31% of BCS Championship games.
29% of all playoff games.

I think we can agree that it’s pretty much the same. That Bama vs UGA game last year was a classic where the score didn’t really show that Bama had the ball w/ a chance to tie in the final minute.

Maybe we should go back to Michigan state being one of the top 4 teams. More blow outs in the playoffs than the BCS. That's why I brought up the stats and compared the systems instead of specific games. There will always be outliers. This is about the whole sport not specific outcomes.

Everyone is missing the real problem, and trying to jump to a solution. The solution isnt an expanded playoff. We need better data, more regular season games against better opponents so that we know if the top 4 are actually the top 4.

As we constantly say, take X team, make em play an SEC schedule and see what happens. That, or something similar is a better fix.

Instead the playoffs are saying, ok you beat up on a weak conference now go play a real team so that we can have a blowout.

I’m with you. I think we all want a great postseason product that concludes the best regular season in sports. The Bowl alliance wasn’t the answer, the BCS was good for a little while, but Bama and LSU replaying made sure that the CFP was expedited. The initial marketing emphasis that ESPN put on the CFP with the “Who’s In”? really had the unintended consequence of devaluing the Bowl system and the final 4 weeks of the regular season. That’s evident with the opt outs we’ve seen over the years.
I’m not the inclusion guy when it comes to CFP expansion. IDGAS about Tulane or Boise or whoever. Just like you, I want the best teams. I think it would’ve been absurd for Clemson to get a bye for this years CFP, which is what would’ve happened in the future setup. I posted above that Im all for a major overhaul of the regular season. I want uniformity among the power 5. Scheduling, officiating, conference titles, recruiting (yeah right) . I think everyone should be under the same rules. I think with the expanded CFP and on campus games being part of the CFP it helps keep the regular season relevant. I think if we lose to USCjr the way we did and our resume is still worthy of top 12, we made our bed and we should have to go to Eugene or Ann Arbor or Madison in December . I think it also moves the games up and gives teams less prep time, less recovery time and I do think those situations will have a very large impact on games. Much more so than playing 4 weeks later in Tampa or Dallas. I don’t think it will be an overnight fix with an expanded CFP, but I do think long term it will be better for the sport . I do think teams are starting to schedule that way as well.

 

[peaygolf]

Honest question.........

Of the 65ish P5 teams...........How many have a legitimate shot to ever win a National Championship?

 

[hog88]

Honest question.........

Of the 65ish P5 teams...........How many have a legitimate shot to ever win a National Championship?

Maybe 6 in a normal year, 4 or 5 of those being from the SEC.

 

[peaygolf]

Maybe 6 in a normal year, 4 or 5 of those being from the SEC.

I'm saying EVER......not in a given year.

 

[hog88]

I'm saying EVER......not in a given year.

As it stands now, 10-12 maybe