Post-season Play-offs

[openSkies]

Split-ified© and Move-ified ©

[colorado_loves_football]

In reading all of your responses, I can maybe try to combine the arguments (pro and con) into one pile as follows:
1) Adopt a playoff and lose the bowls (not necessarily)
2) A playoff requires a team play an excessive number of games
3) There isn't a fair way to select a playoff 'field' of teams
4) Nobody wants to go to more than one post-season bowl game
5) There ought to be a concensus national champion
6) Regular season ought to stay the 'heart' of NCAA football
7) Bowl tradition is essential to I-A football
Mid-majors don't deserve a spot in the BCS
9) Ranking is best way to select teams for the BCS
10) Concensus should be decided on the field not in a poll

There are probably more arguments than these but these are what stick out in my mind.
I'm going to tackle every one, and let you decide if I'm being fair (or not)
1) Why does a playoff have to exclude the bowls? The BCS is a 4-bowl pairing of teams, and could serve as a 'quarterfinal' pairing of teams.
The other bowls could remain in place, unaffected, as they are now.
2) If a team gains 'automatic' access to the BCS, that means 4 teams play in exactly one bowl each, 2 play in 2, and 2 play in 3. So if 3 is an excessive number then this premise is correct.
3) Fair in my mind means picking teams through conference affiliation.
A conference championship game would do this, irrespective of ranking.
4) Well, the only teams participating in multiple 'post-season' games would be those selected by the BCS, in quarterfinal, semi-final, and championship pairings. I'ts my opinion, they would be the highest draws.
5) A playoff gives the public a 'concensus' national champion.
6) Conference championships are determined by regular season results.
7) Bowls remain at the heart of the BCS, as they always have been.
I believe they have to show they belong, before they are admitted.
9) Ranking, is too subjective but could be used to select 'at large' teams
10) A BCS playoff wouldn't rely on ranking after the teams are fielded.

Basically, what the BCS has, in it's hands is a playoff without a playoff.
I don't think it has anything at all to do with tradition, they are benig selfish. Next year, especially, they have no excuse, as along with the 4 bowls, they are 'adding' a championship game, without a playoff.
It's an excuse rather than a solution for selecting a legitimate national champion.

[Spence]

Why should a team get a spot in a playoff format if they aren't one of the 10 best teams in the country?

[Eric]

Good point, Spence!

I think it is reasonable for college basketball because you have 65 teams in a tournament. If you're not in the top, say, 50 teams from bigger conferences, there really isn't any point in you being there. For the smaller schools, they are decent to begin with most of the time (Bucknell, Wisconsin-Millwaukee) and they won their conference, but they'll treat the tournament like the Final Four. They'll have something to play for, as a team like Georgetown (who was in the NIT) really wouldn't. My question is why should there be a playoff game with the Liberty Bowl? I mean, the usual format of a playoff is the best plays the worst, the second best plays the second worst, and so on. You're basically being put in a more difficult situation for not being as good, and the #1 seed is being rewarded with an easier road to the finals because of how good your season was. So don't put a Mountain West or a C-USA team in the second round unless they pull off a big upset and really deserve to be there.

[Spence]

Thanks Eric, I just think that if you want play-offs then do it the right way. Throw the conference championships out the window. Play-off the top so many teams and be done with it. Either you are for real play-offs or you are not. That is about as even as you can make the playing field. If a conference has 3 teams in the top 10 then they get in. If one has 5, then 5 get in.

If you want to see the level of parity in CFB now go away, that is the sure way to get it done.

[..fanatic]

Bowls and play-offs don't mix. Too much travel for fans, too short period of notice for hotels and planes, too much money to expect people to spend.

Do you go to games?
Do you buy season tickets, parking passes, contribute to your teams athletics fund-raising club?
Do you still have money left for two or three or four more games?

My answers to the above are
"yes",
"yes, when I've contributed enough that they actually sell them to me" and
"no freaking way, get your hands out of my pockets"!

[Yeofoot]

Ok, from a totally sellfish standpoint, for god's sake, keep the bowl system. Between Christmas and New Year's, do you know how many families get together? It's an American tradition, the men sit and watch football, the women gossip in the kitchen. Every day that I had off from work, there was a game on. But, to cater to the once ever few years controversy of Who's the National Champ, really, we're going to change all of that? The playoff system would totally change what makes the college football champion. Texas had a month to prepare for a PAC-10 offense, USC had a month to prepare for a BIG-12 offense. If there is a playoff, you don't get to put your absolute best foot forward for that one game. Yes, they hype of the Rose Bowl, killed me, it was torture, but wow was it worth it. Who on this board would rather spend time "talking" with their family over the holidays, and who would rather keep the system in place, where the only talking you do is, which games are worth fighting for to watch uninterrupted?

[colorado_loves_football]

Why should a team get a spot in a playoff format if they aren't one of the 10 best teams in the country?

With respect to how a hypothetical playoff would be conducted, I only need to refer to last year's pairings to disprove your argument (both Boise St. and Louisville were ranked top-10).
That being said, you may have a legitimate gripe, should say a team like Akron be selected over a team like OSU. But really that's not what I'm proposing at all.
Conference championship games, could be one fair way to select a field of teams, but surely not the only way. But they would (and ought to) hold an advantage over teams that weren't victorious. A 'hypothetical' Big Ten championship would have paired OSU and Penn St. How can you argue that both teams deserve a place in the BCS? You have to refer to rank to justify it.
Similarly, by rank both Oregon and USC go, but I believe that's redundant. A conference championship fairly selects teams irrespective of where they play. But if your fear is that a team traditionally outside the BCS might not be competitive enough, I suppose that's a valid point.
Still, there are (at present) some 55 teams not represented at all in the BCS, far too many!
So, if rank were the only criteria utilized by the BCS, that's a fair way to select a field of teams? Guess what?
That would have elminated 1/4 of this years teams!
W.Virginia wouldn't have been selected (weren't top-10 prior to Sugar Bowl) FSU doesn't go, either, they were ranked #22!
And ranking surely is subjective, regardless of which poll is utilized.
Sure, it's possible I suppose, to have a 'concensus' of which teams maybe are top-10. But that wouldn't be a fair representation, as most teams in the top 10 (if not all) would be in a BCS conference.
So, I stand by my argument that a conference championship game, would resolve the issue, simply and fairly.
In the interest of competitive play, a stipulation could be placed on teams selected (9 wins, say) but that would have prevented FSU from going this year, so it might not be the best idea, either.
So, I say, if a team wins their conference, they go. Sun-Belt excluded.
That leaves an 'at large' bid for a deserving team.

[mountainman]

You're a good man, rolltide.

And the world needs all the good men it can muster.

[Yeofoot]

Just keep the ideas flowing that involve me watching football all day on New Year's (I know once every 7 years or so that isn't in the cards)

[Spence]

I just think if your going to have a playoff you should take the top so many teams in the country and play them off. Regardless of what conference they play in. The rest of the teams can stay home and watch. I'm not for a play-off, but if you are going to do it, I think that would be the only fair way.

[Yeofoot]

I could care less about all the other sports anyway, can't we just have a huge playoff that lasts all year? Triple Elimination. Every team in the country can have a shot.

[Spence]

They would probably have to start paying them if they went to that system.

[colorado_loves_football]

Dear Spence,
I don't disagree with you, but unless there is a better way to select a team, the only 'fair' way would be through conference affiliation.
I suppose there are probably limitless ways teams could be selected in a 'championship' grouping, which is what I consider the BCS to be.
But consider for a moment, the advantages of making it based solely through conference affiliation, irrespective of rank.
A team would know in advance what they need to do to become BCS eligible, or in other words, win their conference.
I'll admit it leaves perhaps too much room for mediocrity, so there would most likely need to be a provision so that a team be 'qualified', other than simply being a conference champion.
But I still believe that competition would help to make it a fairer process.
The Liberty Bowl already has a proud tradition, so making it the 'fifth' bowl would (in my opinion) guarantee that a 'champion' be included.
Similarly, the Holiday Bowl traditionally has yielded a quality team, but that's not assurance in itself.
Some kind of insurance would be necessary, to 'guarantee' the BCS of a deserving team, irrespective of the qualifying criteria implemented.
Maybe a combination of ranking and/or 'championship' status would apply. Notre Dame has an exemption, so there maybe ought to be similar standards toward any team seeking BCS admission.
That would perhaps have eliminated FSU. In other words, we concur, I believe that the 'final 8' need to be outstanding in every sense of the word.

[Yeofoot]

that would mean that no one is getting paid already. C'mon, VY isn't going to the pros for the money, he's getting a pay cut. He already drives a Cadillac Escalade, as he left the conference he waved to everyone from his limo. God Bless America!