CFP expansion discussion

[Machinator 32097]

 

[Hurtlocker 2208]

I'm warming to 12 with the first two rounds on campus and CCGs giving a high weighting, way higher than today.

[BurntOrange&White 39659]

Any system with byes can get fucked.

[Hurtlocker 2208]

17 minutes ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Any system with byes can get fucked.

Its all fucked man, just embrace the fuckiness

[GTX Horn 1707]

58 minutes ago, Hurtlocker said:

I'm warming to 12 with the first two rounds on campus and CCGs giving a high weighting, way higher than today.

The possibility of having some playoff games played at college campuses is one of the biggest Pros in my book. The atmosphere of big games on a college campus is what helps make college football so great.

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

It will expand to 16 teams in less than a decade. 

[CooterBrown 17911]

No OOC games.

All conferences are 10 teams and play a 9 game conference schedule.

A seeded 64-team tournament.

The 2 championship game teams end up playing 15 games. Everyone else plays less.

[Longboard Horn 40143]

Add 2 more bowl games to the NY6. Winners of those 8 bowls go into the 8 team playoff. 

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

37 minutes ago, Longboard Horn said:

Add 2 more bowl games to the NY6. Winners of those 8 bowls go into the 8 team playoff. 

The bowl system is about to die.

[Hurtlocker 2208]

2 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

The bowl system is about to die.

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

4 hours ago, Hurtlocker said:

<stupid gif>

I couldn’t disagree more, in both the sentiment and the manner in which it was expressed. 

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

On 4/24/2021 at 2:32 AM, ImissWallyPryor said:

Nope. 

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

On 4/27/2021 at 9:09 AM, WhatTheBuck said:

It’s eventually going to grow to 16 teams. Just go ahead and do it and stop kidding yourselves. 

Wake up and face reality. 

[TXSooner518 2432]

12 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

No OOC games.

All conferences are 10 teams and play a 9 game conference schedule.

A seeded 64-team tournament.

The 2 championship game teams end up playing 15 games. Everyone else plays less.

I legit don't understand this mentality. You want Texas' schedule to be the exact same 9 teams for the next 50 years? How fucking BORING. Those games also mean less than nothing since Texas is obv in the tournament every year. Also how do you seed teams when they all play in isolated pods with no crossover games?

Any playoff system should include:

1) Potential for at-large bids. If conference champions and only conference champs get in, OOC games become meaningless.

2) Incentive to get top seeds. This can be byes, home games, or some combination of both. A playoff of 8+ teams with all games at neutral sites totally diminishes the achievements of the very top teams.

3) If auto-bids, conferences need better ways to determine champions. I prefer pod scheduling and/or elimination of title games. It's going to be stupid and annoying when 11-1 Team A plays 11-1 Team B in the conf title game and wins, and now 11-1 Team C, who Team B beat to earn the title game bid, gets the at-large bid over Team B. I don't want a super rigid rule that only teams in the conf title game can go, b/c maybe Team C beat Team A, then if B wins title game, C should go over A, not A just b/c they were in the title game. I doubt title games are going anywhere, so pod scheduling can mitigate at least some of this.

[Hurtlocker 2208]

3 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I couldn’t disagree more, in both the sentiment and the manner in which it was expressed. 

Agree to disagree!

My take on the current bowl system:

Pros: Lots of football at the end of the season to watch

Cons: Literally everything about how the current bowl system is set up.

Here's the viewership breakdown from last year:

Nineteen bowls made up a total of a quarter of the total post season viewership.   That's crap.   Yes, its great there are games on, but how it is set up is stupid.   You're never going to make them as valuable as the other four, but the death grip the P5 conferences have on bowl selection is not doing anyone any favors.   Lets say you had 10-15 extra bowls outside the playoff structure, having them play in rated games, e.g. 13v14, 15v16, etc would increase viewership more than the 6th best team of the B1G playing the 7th best team of the SEC or whatever nonsense lays it out.    It would also let better teams have higher access, e.g. UCF, BYU, Houston, hell Buffalo last year, Boise, etc.   Now instead of playing the Idaho Potato bowl, they can move up to play someone good and generate a better game over all.

Also, the gif was solid.   You're a hater.

[TXSooner518 2432]

They definitely need to either kill the conference tie-ins for bowls or rotate them more often. So often bowl matchups feel so stale because the same teams end up in same bowls in same matchups (or similar, etc).  Plus give the fans more variety in looking at making bowl trips. 

[Hurtlocker 2208]

Percent of league who would have participated in playoff if started at 12:

AAC - 36.4%

ACC - 28.6%

B1G - 50%

B12 - 50%

G4 - 6%

Indy -  14.3%

P12 - 58.3%

SEC - 57.1%

[hpslugga 4044]

21 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Any system with byes can get fucked.

Meh, most of the playoffs in college football have them. In fact, D3 is the only one that regularly doesn't. I tend to prefer the 8/16 proposals myself, but I wouldn't necessarily tell a 12 to "get fucked." I would argue that it seems bound to present screwy situations between the 4th and 5th teams from not having any concrete methodology to separate them, but that's still a whole lot better than this bullshit ass "let's have a committee of people involved with universities in the P5 choose 4 among 130!"

[TXSooner518 2432]

Right, I think the bye hate is overblown. I actually really like the 10-team model above. Only change I would make is to have the 7-10 and 8-9 play-in games as a neutral site doubleheader. Then you have 8/9 winner at 1, 7/10 winner at 2, 6 at 3, 5 at 4.  That way, instead of the cut line for byes being among the top 2 or 4, you're really giving the bottom 4 a play-in opportunity.  If 7 hosts 10 and 8 hosts 9, seems unfair that those teams get the revenue/benefits of a home playoff game but 5 and 6 don't. 

Same basic model as the B12 hoops tourney. 

Also can have some good marketing around "Top Ten" or whatever. I would go auto-bids for P5 champs and top G5 champ, 4 at-large. Could have a clause where if the second highest G5 champ is within X spots of the top one, they both get bids, to keep it from being a thing where #11 Houston goes to playoffs and #12 Marshall goes to the Aunt Fran's Dildo Emporium Bowl in Poughkeepsie.  

[BurntOrange&White 39659]

3 minutes ago, TXSooner518 said:

Right, I think the bye hate is overblown. I actually really like the 10-team model above. Only change I would make is to have the 7-10 and 8-9 play-in games as a neutral site doubleheader. Then you have 8/9 winner at 1, 7/10 winner at 2, 6 at 3, 5 at 4.  That way, instead of the cut line for byes being among the top 2 or 4, you're really giving the bottom 4 a play-in opportunity.  If 7 hosts 10 and 8 hosts 9, seems unfair that those teams get the revenue/benefits of a home playoff game but 5 and 6 don't. 

Same basic model as the B12 hoops tourney. 

Also can have some good marketing around "Top Ten" or whatever. I would go auto-bids for P5 champs and top G5 champ, 4 at-large. Could have a clause where if the second highest G5 champ is within X spots of the top one, they both get bids, to keep it from being a thing where #11 Houston goes to playoffs and #12 Marshall goes to the Aunt Fran's Dildo Emporium Bowl in Poughkeepsie.  

It's really not especially considering the impact pre-season polls have on rankings throughout the year.

 

I'd be okay if they did away with coaches and AP poll as a whole and just did playoff rankings during the season.

[Zeus 5950]

1 hour ago, Hurtlocker said:

Percent of league who would have participated in playoff if started at 12:

AAC - 36.4%

ACC - 28.6%

B1G - 50%

B12 - 50%

G4 - 6%

Indy -  14.3%

P12 - 58.3%

SEC - 57.1%

Just looking at this with the past 7 years it looks pretty weak beyond 8.

[David Dennison 18658]

College football taking Super League and running with it.

[Red Five 40665]

2 hours ago, Hurtlocker said:

Percent of league who would have participated in playoff if started at 12:

AAC - 36.4%

ACC - 28.6%

B1G - 50%

B12 - 50%

G4 - 6%

Indy -  14.3%

P12 - 58.3%

SEC - 57.1%

Alright, what am I missing. We are listed by conference as having made a hypothetical 12 team playoff, but in the first graphic we are nowhere to be seen, which sort of makes me want to kill myself. 

[clapclapclap 9000]

22 hours ago, BurntOrange&White said:

Any system with byes can get fucked.

Homophobe or horny?

[Zeus 5950]

47 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

Meh, most of the playoffs in college football have them. In fact, D3 is the only one that regularly doesn't. I tend to prefer the 8/16 proposals myself, but I wouldn't necessarily tell a 12 to "get fucked." I would argue that it seems bound to present screwy situations between the 4th and 5th teams from not having any concrete methodology to separate them, but that's still a whole lot better than this bullshit ass "let's have a committee of people involved with universities in the P5 choose 4 among 130!"

That whole committee think is a joke, they just want to avoid having to put in a team that isn't going to make as much $$$ because a computer or voter said so. This way they can keep it relatively secret, pretend it's totally legit by calling all the people in the committee "high integrity" and choose whoever they want in the playoff to give them the most buck for the bang.

Hey CDC is in there so if Texas is worth a fuck we are gettin' in!

Quote

Overview

A dedicated group of high-integrity football experts, with experience as coaches, student-athletes, college administrators and journalists, along with sitting athletics directors, comprise the selection committee. Members of the selection committee are Mitch Barnhart, Gary Barta (chair), Paola Boivin, Tom Burman, Charlie Cobb, Boo Corrigan, Chris Del Conte, Rick George, Ray Odierno, Will Shields, R.C. Slocum, Joe Taylor and John Urschel.

 

[WhatTheBuck 28712]

Expanding the playoff is only going to result in shitty blowout football games that a bunch of you want to sit on your couch and watch at home. If you’re a draft prospect on the 12th seed team, why wouldn’t you just opt out?

More postseason games means more chances for career-ending injuries that are guaranteed to happen. It’s only a matter of time. 

[JFKFC 4878]

Still the best system:

- 6 team playoff. The power 5 conf champs & the highest ranked non-power 5 team.

- 2 highest ranked teams get a bye, 3 plays 6 & 4 plays 5 on campus

[C-Man 27055]

Expanding the playoff is only going to result in shitty blowout football games that a bunch of you want to sit on your couch and watch at home. If you’re a draft prospect on the 12th seed team, why wouldn’t you just opt out?
More postseason games means more chances for career-ending injuries that are guaranteed to happen. It’s only a matter of time. 

Says a fan of a team that clearly benefits from a “locked” 4-team system. Clemson and the SEC are two others.

[C-Man 27055]

23 hours ago, Machinator said:

 

Not having auto berths for Power 5 conference champs is fucking absurd if you ask me. That's the only way to quantifiably say a team has done "more" than a conference opponent. That should be the end-all, be-all. You win your conference and you're in no questions. Then it's not a beauty contest determined by style points or other flotsam/jetsam. Only the NCAA could expand the playoffs and still fuck things up. The model I've been screaming about forever is eight teams -- five P5 conference champs, the best G5 team and two at-large berths. You want to go to 12 or 16? Great. But ALL fucking P5 conference champs are in NO MATTER WHAT!

[BurntOrange&White 39659]

On 5/3/2021 at 11:03 AM, BurntOrange&White said:

Potential matchups using my setup with the rule of no more than 2 teams per conference:

 

2014

1 Bama vs 8 Boise St

2 Oregon vs 7 Miss St

3 Florida St vs 6 TCU

4 Ohio St vs 5 Baylor

2015

1 Clemson vs 8 Houston

2 Bama vs 7 Florida St

3 Mich St vs 6 Stanford

4 Oklahoma vs 5 Iowa

2016

1 Bama vs 8 USC

2 Clemson vs 7 Western Michigan

3 Ohio St vs 6 Oklahoma

4 Washington vs 5 Penn State

2017 

1 Clemson vs 8 UCF

2 Oklahoma vs 7 USC

3 Georgia vs 6 Wisconsin

4 Bama vs 5 Ohio State

2018 

1 Bama vs 8 Washington

2 Clemson vs 7 UCF

3 Notre Dame vs 6 Ohio St

4 Oklahoma vs 5 Georgia

2019

1 LSU vs 8 Memphis

2 Ohio St vs 7 Baylor

3 Clemson vs 6 Oregon

4 Oklahoma vs 6 Georgia

2020 

1 Bama vs 8 USC

2 Clemson vs 7 Cincinnati

3 Ohio St vs 6 Oklahoma

4 Notre Dame vs 5 Texas A&M

 

2 minutes ago, C-Man said:

Not having auto berths for Power 5 conference champs is fucking absurd if you ask me. That's the only way to quantifiably say a team has done "more" than a conference opponent. That should be the end-all, be-all. You win your conference and you're in no questions. Then it's not a beauty contest determined by style points or other flotsam/jetsam. Only the NCAA could expand the playoffs and still fuck things up. The model I've been screaming about forever is eight teams -- five P5 conference champs, the best G5 team and two at-large berths. You want to go to 12 or 16? Great. But ALL fucking P5 conference champs are in NO MATTER WHAT!

Yup, I laid it all out above how it would look over the years. 

[C-Man 27055]

48 minutes ago, Zeus said:

Just looking at this with the past 7 years it looks pretty weak beyond 8.

There's some thought that having the same 4-5 teams in the CFP every year is unnaturally driving the best players to those schools -- I'm looking at Bama, Clemson and Ohio State. Open things up to more teams, get an upset or two and then players start branching out again. Not sure how much truth there is to that but the system we use now keeps giving us some combo of Bama-Clemson-Ohio State and the mystery fourth team each year.

[Zeus 5950]

7 minutes ago, C-Man said:

There's some thought that having the same 4-5 teams in the CFP every year is unnaturally driving the best players to those schools -- I'm looking at Bama, Clemson and Ohio State. Open things up to more teams, get an upset or two and then players start branching out again. Not sure how much truth there is to that but the system we use now keeps giving us some combo of Bama-Clemson-Ohio State and the mystery fourth team each year.

Very true

Plus so many players sitting out of bowls because once they created a playoff everything else feels meaningless.

[Bevo14 8274]

53 minutes ago, C-Man said:

There's some thought that having the same 4-5 teams in the CFP every year is unnaturally driving the best players to those schools -- I'm looking at Bama, Clemson and Ohio State. Open things up to more teams, get an upset or two and then players start branching out again. Not sure how much truth there is to that but the system we use now keeps giving us some combo of Bama-Clemson-Ohio State and the mystery fourth team each year.

I think there is truth to it. I was a proponent of 6 or 8 for a while but I like 16 now. Might even motivate some schools to invest in their football programs more since they'll feel like they have a chance. It would be good for the game I think.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Bevo14

[LTbear 4161]

Just now, Bevo14 said:

I think there is truth to it. I was a proponent of 6 or 8 for a while but I like 16 now.

I don't like 16. Conference title games are meaningless with 16. And I can't think of a time a team lower than around #8 or so had any legitimate argument. 

8 is perfect, but I also perfectly understand why the powers that be won't go for it. 

[HRSchenker 2259]

The playoff is ruining the regular season as well as the bowls. Any expansion of the current system only ruins it more. At this point I'd rather go back to the BCS system. Sure it fucks the smaller, low tier programs like Boise State and Texas A&M but it's a better option than what we have now which is a booooring as fuck playoff system. 

[LTbear 4161]

6 minutes ago, HRSchenker said:

The playoff is ruining the regular season as well as the bowls. Any expansion of the current system only ruins it more. At this point I'd rather go back to the BCS system. Sure it fucks the smaller, low tier programs like Boise State and Texas A&M but it's a better option than what we have now which is a booooring as fuck playoff system. 

I disagree somewhat. An 8 team playoff with autobids for the P5 champs strengthens the regular season because 1) it places much more emphasis on the conference title games again, bringing that regionality back to the sport, and 2) it incentivizes better OOC scheduling because good OOC matchups make shitloads of money, don't hurt your odds of getting the champ autobid, AND can greatly help your argument for an at large spot if you don't end up winning your conference.

[clapclapclap 9000]

1 hour ago, LTbear said:

I don't like 16. Conference title games are meaningless with 16.  

Huh?  Seedings and home field advantage matter a heck of a lot.  The leaks have said that the first round of any expanded format is likely to be played on campus, so at 16 there are probably going to be 2 rounds with home field advantages.  A good chance it is first round on campus, New Years-ish bowls, semi's on campus, neutral site title game.  Give the P5 conf champs (and any G5 conf champs ranked above any of them) the top seeds.  Plenty to play for if you want that home game in the semi's, which almost always will be a tough opponent. 

[David Dennison 18658]

You should be disqualified from the playoff if you schedule an FCS school.

[Thiefery 4969]

I caught Pete Thamel on the Mark Packard show (SiriusXM).  He sounded very confident that it will be 12 in total and that they will be shopping TV deals "very soon".  6 AQ and 6 At-Large spots.  He was saying 8 would not work and would only benefit the SEC, but I couldn't hear his reasoning since my daughter called me.

[Hurtlocker 2208]

1 hour ago, Thiefery said:

I caught Pete Thamel on the Mark Packard show (SiriusXM).  He sounded very confident that it will be 12 in total and that they will be shopping TV deals "very soon".  6 AQ and 6 At-Large spots.  He was saying 8 would not work and would only benefit the SEC, but I couldn't hear his reasoning since my daughter called me.

Not sure they can shop a deal, they have 5 years left on this one.   That gives ESPN the ability to ante up and keep it for longer, fucking the other networks.   They already own the rest of the bowls, I think if I were the mouse I'd force the conferences to give up their auto bowls so I could micromanage every match up for TV and just pay out everyone evenly to shut them up.

[Hurtlocker 2208]

4 hours ago, Red Five said:

Alright, what am I missing. We are listed by conference as having made a hypothetical 12 team playoff, but in the first graphic we are nowhere to be seen, which sort of makes me want to kill myself. 

Yellow is "making the playoff", they're just showing all the teams in each conference.   Those highlighted are from the year by year break down.

[hpslugga 4044]

 

20 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

The playoff is ruining the regular season as well as the bowls. Any expansion of the current system only ruins it more. At this point I'd rather go back to the BCS system. Sure it fucks the smaller, low tier programs like Boise State and Texas A&M but it's a better option than what we have now which is a booooring as fuck playoff system. 

 

 

[atomheartbevo 89447]

26 minutes ago, Hurtlocker said:

Not sure they can shop a deal, they have 5 years left on this one.   That gives ESPN the ability to ante up and keep it for longer, fucking the other networks.   They already own the rest of the bowls, I think if I were the mouse I'd force the conferences to give up their auto bowls so I could micromanage every match up for TV and just pay out everyone evenly to shut them up.

Disney/ESPN will do everything they can to get streaming customers to Disney+/Hulu/whatever, and this is an opportunity they won't miss.

So there is a chance we will get better streaming options, less shitty bowls, and more playoff games.  I don't think CBS/Paramount can do much, and I'm doubtful about NBC/Peacock as well.  

Of course, Amazon and Netflix are the wild cards, particularly Amazon, who just dropped over $8 billion on MGM, and who just locked up an exclusive 10-year streaming deal with the NFL for Thursday Night Football, starting in 2023, with all kinds of fancy graphics and stats that viewers can access during the games.

[C-Man 27055]

6 hours ago, Thiefery said:

I caught Pete Thamel on the Mark Packard show (SiriusXM).  He sounded very confident that it will be 12 in total and that they will be shopping TV deals "very soon".  6 AQ and 6 At-Large spots.  He was saying 8 would not work and would only benefit the SEC, but I couldn't hear his reasoning since my daughter called me.

Probably because it's a virtual certainty the SEC would get three teams in every year -- both CCG teams and an at-large.

[C-Man 27055]

7 hours ago, HRSchenker said:

The playoff is ruining the regular season as well as the bowls. Any expansion of the current system only ruins it more. At this point I'd rather go back to the BCS system. Sure it fucks the smaller, low tier programs like Boise State and Texas A&M but it's a better option than what we have now which is a booooring as fuck playoff system. 

[Hurtlocker 2208]

4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Disney/ESPN will do everything they can to get streaming customers to Disney+/Hulu/whatever, and this is an opportunity they won't miss.

So there is a chance we will get better streaming options, less shitty bowls, and more playoff games.  I don't think CBS/Paramount can do much, and I'm doubtful about NBC/Peacock as well.  

Of course, Amazon and Netflix are the wild cards, particularly Amazon, who just dropped over $8 billion on MGM, and who just locked up an exclusive 10-year streaming deal with the NFL for Thursday Night Football, starting in 2023, with all kinds of fancy graphics and stats that viewers can access during the games.

Agreed, Amazon and Apple are both kind of the wild cards at the moment.   They could buy Disney with change found in the employee lounge sofa.

[Thiefery 4969]

5 hours ago, Hurtlocker said:

Not sure they can shop a deal, they have 5 years left on this one.   That gives ESPN the ability to ante up and keep it for longer, fucking the other networks.   They already own the rest of the bowls, I think if I were the mouse I'd force the conferences to give up their auto bowls so I could micromanage every match up for TV and just pay out everyone evenly to shut them up.

With an unanimous vote in favor of expanding the playoff, they can begin sooner than when the current contract runs out.  Which also means it can begin shopping networks in order to show the newly added games.

[LTbear 4161]

16 hours ago, clapclapclap said:

Huh?  Seedings and home field advantage matter a heck of a lot.  The leaks have said that the first round of any expanded format is likely to be played on campus, so at 16 there are probably going to be 2 rounds with home field advantages.  A good chance it is first round on campus, New Years-ish bowls, semi's on campus, neutral site title game.  Give the P5 conf champs (and any G5 conf champs ranked above any of them) the top seeds.  Plenty to play for if you want that home game in the semi's, which almost always will be a tough opponent. 

That's fair - if indeed some rounds are held on campus, then playing for the right to host is something. My initial comment was directed at the fact that undoubtedly a field of 8 with 6 autos makes conference championship games much more consequential, nonetheless, as they would usually be "win or you're out" games.

[BigHornedLurker 1893]

18 hours ago, C-Man said:

Not having auto berths for Power 5 conference champs is fucking absurd if you ask me. That's the only way to quantifiably say a team has done "more" than a conference opponent. That should be the end-all, be-all. You win your conference and you're in no questions. Then it's not a beauty contest determined by style points or other flotsam/jetsam. Only the NCAA could expand the playoffs and still fuck things up. The model I've been screaming about forever is eight teams -- five P5 conference champs, the best G5 team and two at-large berths. You want to go to 12 or 16? Great. But ALL fucking P5 conference champs are in NO MATTER WHAT!

some people just like to overcomplicate things, seems pretty simple to me as well . can always extend it more later as well if there is demand 

[Hurtlocker 2208]

9 hours ago, Thiefery said:

With an unanimous vote in favor of expanding the playoff, they can begin sooner than when the current contract runs out.  Which also means it can begin shopping networks in order to show the newly added games.

That would be interesting and obviously I don't know for sure, but I remember it being announced there is no look in on this current contract.   So even if they voted to have 12, they'd need the media partner to accept it.  Voting to have 12 doesn't break the current agreement.    And the current agreement has more than just playoff, it also includes the Sugar, Rose, etc, so not sure how they'd field 12 outside the current agreement, e.g. offer new games.

We're all just spitballing at this point without a contract on our hands, but this is a cool wrinkle to the entire process.

Edited June 10, 2021 by Hurtlocker
spellz bad