CFP considering expanding playoffs to 12 teams
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Follow the math. Any team ranked 5-12 has the possibility of playing 3 of the teams ranked 1-4 in order to win the national championship. In other words, if team ABC is ranked #5 and beats #12 in its opening game, it will play team team #4 the next week while the three remaining teams ranked 6-12 will play teams 1-3. If 1,2 and 3 win, then #5 plays #1 next. If. #5 wins again, it plays the winner of #2 vs #3. By this time, the open date of not playing a conf champ game is irrelevant. Of course, upsets can happen. But the advantage of being ranked 1-4 with an open bye is huge. No team ranked 1-4 will ever play 3 teams ranked 1-4. In the current proposal, ND is the only power 5 program that will never have that advantage.
You are discounting the possibility that a 1-4 seed might have had to play a top 4 team in the CCG. In that scenario, 3 of their 4 post-season games could also be against top 4 teams.
The seedings are done after the CCG. The top 4 seedings will only be teams that won their conf champ game, and they always get a bye.
Yeah, it will be a pretty untenable position for ND. I don't see how they'll be able to remain independent. Not having access to automatic bids was already going to be tough. But being locked out completely of a potential 1st-round bye they way it's set up when no other P5 program will be subject to that limitation, and all they have to do to make it go away is join a conference? And the ACC is begging us to join? How do you explain that to recruits, how do you explain that to anybody?
I don't think you can, and the pat answer that ND treasures their independence or some such verbiage isn't going to cut it. So I think this is the watershed moment or whatnot that so many fans have been dreading. I'll be sad to see it go, but the playoff sounds absolutely awesome. So we'll see what happens.
I know. CCGs are postseason games. That's why I said 3 of their 4 postseason games could be against top 4 teams just like the scenario you offered. It's also why I said in an earlier post that teams 1-4 don't really get a 1st round bye. They have to play in and win a CCG to get their seed. That's why I think it makes more sense to think of the CCGs as the 1st part of round 1 of the playoffs and the 5-12 seed games as the 2nd part of round 1.
Also, you are confusing "seed" with rankings. Last year, the 4th highest-ranked conference champion was OU who was the 6th ranked team in the country. OU would have been the 4th seed but still seeded ahead of 4th ranked ND. We would have had the #5 seed. Sounds awful until you realize, even after we lost to Clemson in the ACC CG, we still would have hosted a home playoff game against #12 ranked Coastal Carolina. After winning that game we would have faced #4 seed but 6th ranked OU in a bowl game of their choosing - but choosing the bowl venue doesn't mean home-field advantage because both teams will get the same number of tickets.
That's just the real example of what would have happened last season. Some seasons the 4th seed could be ranked even lower.
There are also other scenarios you are discounting. Let's say #1 ranked Bama loses a close CCG to #2 ranked UGA and falls to #2 in the rankings and out of the top 4 seeds. They play their first playoff game at home, win that, then face some poor 8th ranked 4-seed in a quarterfinal game. Who thinks they got the short end of the stick in that scenario?
There are a lot of other plausible scenarios that aren't all bad for ND.
The scenario is describe assumes that there are upsets. Fair enough. Upsets happen. And that pathway is true for all teams ranked 5-12, including teams from the Group of 5. I just don’t know why ND wants to be in that group. The value of a bye when the playoffs begins is far more valuable than an earlier bye during CCG week-end. But ok. If that is an acceptable cost of independence, then so be it. If this passes, the next real drama will be which power 5 conference the committee ranks #5 without a first week bye. Having 4 power conferences will be so much more cleaner.
12 teams is such a complete sell out to the TV networks.
Nothing but a moronic cash grab.
There are only a few years where you have more than 6 teams that could be considered legitimate contenders.
I have never seen a year with more than 8.
Yet we now will have supposedly 12.
More participation trophy garbage.
Further diminishes the regular season.
Nothing but a moronic cash grab.
There are only a few years where you have more than 6 teams that could be considered legitimate contenders.
I have never seen a year with more than 8.
Yet we now will have supposedly 12.
More participation trophy garbage.
Further diminishes the regular season.
Go back and look how ordinary the lower ranked teams were. No way should most of them be allowed to play in the playoffs
No. Attendance is dropping and November college football game ratings were falling. And there was pressure to give an automatic bid to the group of 5. With 5 power conferences, and pressure to give automatic bids to make the sport a national sport again, they had to go to 12. If you read the articles, the SEC was not in favor of any expansion, and refused to go to 8 if there were 5 AC bids to the P5 one to the G5. I think ND would oppose that as well as it would have left the Irish with access to a max of two at large bids. So it got pushed to 12. It accomplishes getting AQ's to each P5 school and the G5, and defines how conf champ games work in the playoff system. If you follow the separate conference P5 TV contracts, most if which get renewed before the current playoff system is supposed to end in 2027, this is no surprise. This was done to save the regular season by enforcing the value of conference games. The 2020 regular season ND-Clemson game had the highest ratings of any regular season. You may throw water on the idea that this happened because it was a conference game, but I assure you that the conference leaders took notice. A lot of notice. And it was factor in this current proposal.
They still would have been left out if this format had been in place last year. There's only so much finagling they can do before it becomes too ridiculous.
Well, quite frankly all P5 leagues should get automatic bids, that's a given. But for now at least, the masses had to be appeased, and the cult of the sacrosanct regular season required its burnt offerings, and so for now you have to be top 12 if you want to be part of this tournament.
I figure that barbaric sentiment will fade fairly quickly once the playoff is up and running, and all the P5 leagues will get one automatic bid - even if you're not in the top 12. The real problem is this is a D-1A championship, and they're never going to give auto bids to all the G5 leagues, even though they have every claim to full representation as dues-paying members of the D-1A classification. But the way they have it set up now the G5 leagues scored with theoretically no limit to how many teams they could get in, so the Boise St.s of the world are still doing pretty good. And they have it so that the level of first-among-equals favoritism shown to the P5 leagues isn't completely blatant.
And as far future tweaks go, they very well might tweak it so that ND can indeed get a first-round bye. Which doesn't seem completely improbable.
I figure that barbaric sentiment will fade fairly quickly once the playoff is up and running, and all the P5 leagues will get one automatic bid - even if you're not in the top 12. The real problem is this is a D-1A championship, and they're never going to give auto bids to all the G5 leagues, even though they have every claim to full representation as dues-paying members of the D-1A classification. But the way they have it set up now the G5 leagues scored with theoretically no limit to how many teams they could get in, so the Boise St.s of the world are still doing pretty good. And they have it so that the level of first-among-equals favoritism shown to the P5 leagues isn't completely blatant.
And as far future tweaks go, they very well might tweak it so that ND can indeed get a first-round bye. Which doesn't seem completely improbable.
Not to my way of thinking. Just because a team wins a CCG does not necessarily mean that team is worthy of playing for a national championship.
You truly spew some of the most idiotic crap seen on this board which is saying something.
Attendance is falling because the regular season has been devalued by the television driven playoff. Nothing is important about that game against Coastal Carolina when even a miracle loss has no effect on one's path to the post-season. This idea merely expands the cheapness.
That being said, 'Savvy' Jack is being tested. If he cannot tell the P5 that Notre Dame will not be treated like a G5 step-child then we will not be participating. And while their first instinct will be to day okay bye Disney/ESPN will not be so callous to pay millions and go without their top ratings draw.
Exactly. The more playoffs expand, the more the regular season is diminished.
I don't know what universe you people live in where you think the regular season is going to be diminished, it's obviously going to explode into relevance all season long for just about every program with a pulse. And then will be decided with a truly awesome 4-round playoff before finally settling on a champion. It's going to be epic.
Only if you belong to that unwholesome, bizarre death-cult of the undefeated season would you be all morose, and the regular season becomes 'meaningless'. This is a truly glorious day for CFB. Hopefully they move it up to 2022. Why wait?
Only if you belong to that unwholesome, bizarre death-cult of the undefeated season would you be all morose, and the regular season becomes 'meaningless'. This is a truly glorious day for CFB. Hopefully they move it up to 2022. Why wait?
Of course it's going to be diminished. You lose one game--no big deal. You can still play for the national championship. You lose two games? You are still alive. It used to be that if you lost one game during the regular season, your chances of winning a national championship were very much reduced. That is no longer the case. It's really not that hard to figure out.
Its called the real world and clearly you don't live in it. Or you are intellectually incapable of recognizing it.
Either way your posts are worthless.
Who gives a phuck? ND should’ve been in the Orange Bowl last season. We need a major bowl win in the worst way and the committee screwed ND on purpose just like they screwed the baseball team.
Except you aren't looking at the obvious other side of what you describe. Yes, under the current system one loss might be a huge hurdle for some teams, and 2 and 3 losses are almost always devastating. And when that happens, what do those teams have to play for? Not much. A team's season can become irrelevant as soon as they hit 1 or 2 losses under the current system. Under the proposed system that changes significantly, so there will be more relevant games during the regular season, and rankings will still matter as much as they ever did so early-season games will still matter too.
The 12-team proposal that the subcommittee came up with is nowhere near the best system that they could have come up with but I understand why they did it and, overall, I believe this helps ND's commitment to remaining independent in the long run and is still a net positive overall. I think once we play and win our first home playoff game most ND fans will come to agree.
There are losing teams in any organization. CFB has had them for 130 years. Teams that are out of the national title race play for their bowl or failing that to beat their end of year rival. This new dumb idea further erodes both of those things.
Yes but the player of today is opting out in many cases on bowl games that beyond a school wanting to win to get to a 10 win season or some other non critical reason .
Look at UGA-Cincy , Oklahoma-Fla and UNC-Texas A&M last year-----UGA , Fla and UNC ended up playing with 5-6 starters not making the trip. You want that ?
Expanding the Playoffs was inevitable----like it or dislike it the fact is it was bound to happen when the current TV Deal expired.
Look at UGA-Cincy , Oklahoma-Fla and UNC-Texas A&M last year-----UGA , Fla and UNC ended up playing with 5-6 starters not making the trip. You want that ?
Expanding the Playoffs was inevitable----like it or dislike it the fact is it was bound to happen when the current TV Deal expired.
Exactly. The notion that, if you can't play for a national championship, you have nothing to play for, is absolute nonsense.
After last year, Notre Dame needs to join the ACC, They can't keep dipping their toe in the water and trying to reap benefits of being a partial conference member. They would have to adjust some future schedules but they would obviously want to keep the big name programs they have home/home with.
Agreed. I was asking one of the Booster leaders at FSU a question about how the annual TV schedules are made and also about the issues the ACC had with its odd non geographical divisions. He was very clear. The biggest voice at the table is ESPN. And so it is with this proposal. ESPN has a huge voice and nothing can happen until 2027 unless ESPN gets compensated for giving up the last 4 years of its contract if this new playoff scheme starts with the 2023 season. But ESPN sees an issue with ratings and they know - and we know - that the post season of college football has been significantly damaged by the current playoff system. This current proposal was controlled by ESPN, the B10 and the SEC to address concerns of the other power 5 conferences and the Group of 5.
Ratings are down. Fans are clamoring for a more “interesting” November. Cable cutting is real. I don’t understand why people believe that a “loss” diminishes the season when in fact the new process allows more opportunities for schools to recover from a loss earlier in the year. Hope is the currency that keeps fans engaged. There are too many national programs (and entire conferences) that are out of the conversation by mid October and there is no way in the current system to reel them back in. Opt outs by NFL caliber college players will increase if something is not done.
What was unexpected (at least to me) was the conclusion made by the committee that studied this was to double down on the concept of conference champion. But then again, the vast majority of football games that are played are conference games. You either blow the conferences up and go to a more NFL type regional model or you work with what you have. But if you study how TV conference contracts are negotiated (something ND has not had to worry about), the conference games that are played every year are the major factor in determining the contractual revenue. It’s a known scheduled game when the contract is being negotiated. Ad hoc OOC games (such as Clemson-UGA and Bama-Miami this September) get little added revenue in the contract as it is generally unknown what those future games will be when the contract is negotiated. (That is why in the past ten years, so many early interesting OOC games - like Clemson-UGA- are played in a neutral site. It was the only way that the schools could monetize the value of that game with ticket sales.) The conference TV contract is not given a “boost” for scheduling that one off game.
The B10 and the SEC are clearly all in on the “conference” paradigm and the conference champ game has been resurrected as a material factor in determining how the playoffs will work.
In conclusion, this is all about changing the playoffs for the benefit of the regular season. It is not a better way of finding out who is #1. I have been studying conference realignments and how these TV contracts work for over 15 years. In the past 5 years, the B10 and the SEC have created a material revenue differential between them and the remaining 3 power conferences. It’s unhealthy for the sport. I won’t bore you how those two conferences did it (they actually chose different pathways to do it) but it is what it is. The playoffs had to be changed in order to make the power 5 annual conference games more meaningful to conferences not named B10 or SEC, or else this sport will become hopelessly regionalized.
The problem from the network perspective is that it's not about what the individual team has to play for. It's what will draw the most viewers.
For example, if you have 7-2 Pitt vs. 7-2 Virginia Tech in November, that game draws more viewers if those teams are competing for a playoff spot, as opposed to a trip to the Gator Bowl.
That's the deal with the devil you make when you sign billion-dollar TV contracts.
It's not trash to the fans of those schools - or more importantly - to the fans of other programs in that conference that may now be impacted by the result of that game. Once again, you must focus on the fact that access to the CCG is only dependent on conference games. Each of the five conferences may have November games like that. It's going to get crazy. Fans (short for fanatics) like to go crazy in November.
If college football purists are offended by a two or three loss team being in the playoffs, then so be it. But they will be drowned out by the increased interest by other fans in November and December. Like I said this proposal is not about the playoffs; it's about the regular season.
It's bad for fans of college football.
For fans that think cfb has the best regular season and lives and dies by every game.
This completely diminishes that.
For individual schools in the mix, it is good. For the sport as a whole, this is trash
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