That’s not true though. The winners would have automatic berths and the losers would still have a chance at one of three openings (assuming each Power 5 conference champ was automatically in). So the conference championship games would be play in games.
Alabama got in for 2 reasons…(1) Ohio State got blown out at Iowa and (2) Alabama is Alabama. I don’t think any other team gets the consideration Bama gets this year.
Eh, that’s still politics. SEC teams are better. Alabama is Alabama. It’s crap, and I’m nowhere near an Ohio State fan. I would’ve put Auburn in if not Ohio State. They BEAT Alabama, went 1-1 with Georgia, and they only lost by eight to Clemson.
They can solve this easily with an eight team playoff. The ninth team certainly isn’t going to have the claim that a fifth team does today. There’s a bigger disparity once you get past the top six or so and with eight you definitely have the four best teams in the nation all with a shot to make it to the Championship.
Four is too few. Sixteen is too many. Eight is just right.
Reports are that Willie Taggart is flying out to Florida to meet with FSU today and that Oregon is expecting him to accept the job. If this happens Oregon’s recruiting class is going to get gutted. I would expect them to promote Jim Leavett to head coach. He is a really good defensive coach but I’m not sure how good a recruiter/head coach he will be.
But if we had eight, what would everyone argue about in December? :)
I’d be fine with eight, myself. Or even six, with the top two getting a first-round bye. But NCAA and bowl politics being what they are, nothing is likely to change until a huge pile of money is involved. Bringing the playoff to life in the first place made all kinds of cash for everyone involved. (Sans players, of course, amateurism!) Adding more teams won’t, at least not without some effort and a lot of wrangling over which bowls get it.
Ohio State did last year.
The problem this year is that there really weren’t 4 worthy teams. I do think that the committee chose the best team for the 4th slot, but in reality, this was a year in which only 3 teams did enough to earn their way in, and 4 other teams really needed a bit more meat to their resumes (Alabama, Ohio State, USC and UCF).
Fair enough, but I think the NCAA REALLY needs to make a statement about powder-puff scheduling. Leaving Bama out would have done that.
Still waiting for the NCAA to reduce the Power 5 to a Power 4 with 16 teams each, then just send the Conference Champion of each to the playoffs. Then they can have a “Division 1A” playoff and Championship structure with all the remaining Division 1 teams utilizing several more bowl games for maximum effect. To be honest, I’d rather watch 8 or 16 deserving “1A” teams duke it out on the way to a championship game than a bunch of 6 win teams playing in toilet bowl games like we have now.
The NCAA does not that power - in fact, they are pretty powerless in general. The entire bowl system and CFP system is designed to not give the NCAA a cut of the revenue, which NCAA accepts in return for continuing to run the NCAA Basketball tourney.
The 9th and 10th teams of course. Theres 68 teams in the NCAA basketball tournament and people still argue about who gets left out. If there is a cut line, there’s always going to be bitching. Myself, for football I think 8 is the sweet spot. It helps remove perceived conference bias, gets all of the power 5 champs in play and opens the field for the next 3 most worthy teams, which would solved the dilemma we face every season. Sure there will still be complaints but I also believe that the competitive drop off would become extremely evident past the top 8, something I don’t believe is anywhere near as much an issue as it is with only 4 teams. Due to differences in scheduling and conference parity, the basic w/l record, while still a factor, should not be the determining factor. That’s why I feel that the next teams are not as unworthy as some believe. Even OSU with its clunker against Iowa, seemed more worthy, based on their body of work, especially if you look at that Iowa game as an “any given sunday” kind of aberration and not a defining game. And this is coming from a MSU/U of M fan who despises OSU. I really hope they consider they 8 team playoffs. I really do not see how it diminishes the value of conference championships, seeing as winning a conference championship did nothing for two of the power 5’s as it is and I don’t see how it invalidates the regular season either, seeing how a team with a weak regular season schedule surpassed teams that had much marquis wins overall, in the current playoffs. For all of these reason, I believe that an 8 team playoff is the real sweet spot for NCAA football and the trade offs that people claim would happen are either minor or basically already in play.
I am a fan of the 8 team playoff. I think you give automatic berths to the 5 conference winners and then have three wild card spots. As for the argument that it would hurt out of conference scheduling, well, unless you won your conference your out of conference schedule may be what would get you in.
This years playoffs would feature …
Clemson
Oklahoma
Georgia
Ohio State
USC
Alabama
??
??
I agree that 8 is the sweetspot - I also think both the Big Ten and SEC heads are too power hungry to go with it. I’m 90% sure that the Big 12 is going to blow up the next round of TV negotiations and we’ll see brand consolidation between the other conferences with maybe a mini-expansion to 6 teams coupled with that.
I’m good with 8 too however I would make the automatic bids be the 5 conference winners and the highest ranked non power 5 conference team (UCF in this case). Then 2 at larges from P5 conferences.
I think UCF would get one slot, and the other would be between Auburn Miami, Penn St and Wisconsin.
Yea, I was thinking Auburn or Wisconsin. I am not sure where UCF ended up in the polls.
A million times this. Some of these schedules are embarrassing. Alabama schedules a good OOC game at the beginning of the year so they have time to prep, and then they throw in an fcs team or a bye week before every major in conference game, essentially giving them 3 bye weeks.
Anyone who plays Mercer in November needs to be called out. I also find it funny that ESPN gave Washington shit for scheduling cupcakes and ignore it when the SEC does it.
Washington and Bama even shared a cupcake this year. Washington got all the shit.
hey, we went 9-4 this year and made a bowl game. We also played both of them pretty well, although there was no way we were going to win.
Go Fresno State.
If you notice, Alabama only schedules good OOC games at “neutral” sites (all in SEC country)where they will have an effective home field advantage. I’m pretty sure that under Saban they haven’t scheduled a single home and home series with a quality opponent (I remember them playing Penn state, but that was when Paterno was there and I think it was scheduled before Saban took control of the schedule).
And if you think that, plus the 8 game SEC schedule (implying only 4 true road games at max every year)doesn’t make a difference, consider that Ohio state’s 9th conference game could be considered as the Iowa road game. Make that a MAC game at the horseshoe and who’s in?
Willie Taggart to FSU appears to be official now.