Shoalzie wrote:Van wrote:I also think ten or more teams is too many. The tenth or thirteenth or sixteenth team doesn't deserve a crack at being #1. Obviously they aren't #1 or else they wouldn't be that low on the totem pole.
Do you feel the same way about having 65 teams in a college basketball tournament?
To a degree, absolutely, due to how meaningless such a format renders the regular season.
Under such a system the best teams don't always win and I'm less interested in flukey Cinderalla stories than in really having the best teams meet for a well deserved title.
College football only plays twelve or so games per season. Each game ought to carry more weight than it does in the much longer regular seasons of other sports. I don't need to see the 3 loss football equivalent of Villanova playing for a national title. It wouldn't mean anything to me.
With 16, it's still a smaller percentage of the teams included in the postseason than in any of the major pro sport and college basketball.
With sixteen we'll have teams like Florida and Wisconsin playing for a chance at a national title.
No. They lost that chance when they lost a couple/few games.
The national title contending teams in CF are NEVER that numerous. There's never more than three or four teams by season's end that we all look at and say, "Yep, they're a definite. They belong."
I think 16 is the perfect number where you can somehow find a way to include the smaller conferences and you don't punish a team for losing one or two games which should lead to more liberal scheduling.
Punish teams for losing games
and for not scheduling better, don't reward teams all out of proportion for playing nobody OOC while running the table in the WAC, the current Big East or Conference USA.
Run the table (including real OOC scheduling) in a major conference and your achievement far surpasses that of a Utah or a Bosie State so no, screw the mid majors. They aren't at the level of competition that should reward them with a chance at a national title. To earn such a right they're going to have schedule like hell OOC and they're going to have to win those games.
Meanwhile, hell yeah, punish major conference teams in the human polls for never scheduling anybody OOC.
Bottom line though, again, when has there ever been any serious debate beyond the top four teams? When has, say, #7 ever really deserved a shot over the top four teams?
Never. It's not a problem. By season's end we all know who the top three teams are and that fourth slot can be debated until the cows come home but in any other year they wouldn't have gottan a shot anyway so if you don't want to risk losing out make sure you're good enough to be a definite top three team by season's end.
You're supposed to be shooting for a
national championship here, not an invite into the Maui Classic. Earn it all year long or lose out at season's end.
No problem.
As for plus-one...what do you do about last season? Three teams finished the season undefeated...that idea gets shot to hell.
The last two seasons are tailer made for Plus One.
In 2003 USC plays LSU and there's no questions left afterwards.
Last year USC plays Auburn, same deal.
Ideal. One fucking extra game and every debate is moot. There was never any doubt as to who those top three teams were in either season and again, who cares about that fourth slot? Whoever gets in, fine, but they still would've had to've gone through both Auburn and USC.
The real winner there would've ended up being clear as day and nobody could've said anything else.
Granted, Utah was one of the teams but are they not a D-I football team? They deserve to be involved just as much as USC and Auburn. Unless you want to make the BCS conferences their own level, than include everybody in Division I. It would be like having the basketball tournament only including the 10 best conferences and the rest play in the NIT.
If Uah gets the nod for that fourth slot, so be it. Who cares? Would the team they beat out have been any more deserving of the chance to get jacked by USC or Auburn?
That fourth slot team is obviously fortunate just to've received the nod. They obviously weren't one of the two or three truly debatable national title contenders and those are the only teams who ever would've gotten (or deserved) a chance in any previous year, under any previous system.
In Utah's specific case the arguments would've had to've been weighed between their W-L record and their S.O.S. Maybe Va Tech still deserved to play Auburn?
People say debate and controversy is good for CF. So, cool, there's your deabte and controversy: Who gets that last slot?
Thing is, I don't want the season's
end to be marked by debate and controversy. Debate all you want about that fourth slot and let the talk shows and the websites and the papers have their fun with it but in the end we all still wanted to see USC play Auburn last year and LSU the year before and nobody in their right mind would've quibbled with those final game pairings and a true, undisputed national champion being declared upon the completion of those final games.
Controversy, initially, but we still get finality. The true best teams in
everyone's eyes will still ultimately play each other to get a chance at the title and then one team will
win the title.
Perfect.
I'm quite sure I know what your parents told you the first time you used that line on them.
