Does "March Madness" prove a playoff is needed?

The Seer · Post by **The Seer** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 12:55 pm

"Experts" determine seeding in the tournament. All the #1 seeds are long gone. Champions are determined on the court, instead of "experts" telling us who is the best. What a concept.

Cicero · Post by **Cicero** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 4:49 pm

Honestly, a plus 1 game is all that is needed.

SoCalTrjn · Post by **SoCalTrjn** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 7:10 pm

a plus 1 game will never work and is a lame idea, youre going to give teams a month to prepare for the semi final and then play the championship game with just a weeks preperation?
a playoff wont work with over 100 teams in division 1. Cut D1 down to 64 teams, have the NCAA generate the schedules instead of the schools AD's and have everyone play an equal amount of home and road games. Then have a real playoff, 16 teams and 2 weeks between each round.

All March Madness proves is that I really miss football cause this ballerina shit is unwatchable

Left Seater · Post by **Left Seater** » Sun Apr 02, 2006 9:46 pm

16 team playoff with only 64 Division 1 teams? Are you freaking crazy! The last thing college football needs is to be more like the NBA where damn near everyone makes the playoffs. Under your plan 1/4th of the teams make the playoffs. Sorry give me the old bowl system before you give me that plan.

Further, changing the size of Division 1 will in effect kill athletics at many smaller current Division 1 schools. Take RICE for example. Without the cash they get from playing Texas, OU, FSU, etc, the athletic department that is already losing money loses even more.

Plus, how do you decide the 64 teams?

I'll take the current system, thanks.

The Seer · Post by **The Seer** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 12:03 am

SoCalTrjn wrote:
All March Madness proves is that I really miss football cause this ballerina shit is unwatchable

Translation:

The condoms suck at hoops, therefore, I will not watch. And if you don't like it, I'm taking my ball home..... :cry:

Shawn Marion · Post by **Shawn Marion** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:02 am

This 20 day period of games is fun, but all it tells me is that college basketball comes down to 20 days. I will take the 14 week college football regular season over "march madness" any day.

dave · Post by **dave** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:29 am

I'll agree with points made on both sides of this argument. To me, games have the tension of playoffs all throughout the season. It would be great to see a few playoff games, though.

King Crimson · Post by **King Crimson** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 7:22 am

Shawn Marion wrote:This 20 day period of games is fun, but all it tells me is that college basketball comes down to 20 days. I will take the 14 week college football regular season over "march madness" any day.

well, that's not exactly true. if you are playing 30 games instead of 11 or 12, each game doesn't mean as "much"....but that doesn't mean the regular season is meaningless.

the point is moot for people who don't watch CBB all season and dutifully fill out their brackets and only watch the tournament. as far as determining a champion....i'd love to see a playoff of some kind in CFB--though i doubt it could ever be more than 8 teams. but i don't see it happening anytime soon.

MgoBlue-LightSpecial · Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:13 pm

I'm curious to know what Shoalzie thinks about this issue.

Shoalzie · Post by **Shoalzie** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:28 pm

Whatever do you mean?

There's plenty of ammo for the pro-playoff lobby already...I don't know how anyone can watch the Big Dance and not think 'what if football had this?'. Granted, we're talking about different sports but the fundamental idea of playing it out on the field of play is the best way to determine a champion. Giving 8 or 16 teams a chance to slug it out doesn't cheapen the regular season any less than letting 65 teams play off in college hoops. There's not much else I can say because unfortunately the good ol' boys running college football won't have any of it.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 4:59 pm

I'm with Left Seater on this one. 8-16 teams is too many.

If there was a CFB playoff, I would like to see it as an extension of the regular season, preferably with four teams. The "semifinal" games start one week after the conference championships. #1 and #2 get home field advantage. Then you wait a month, keep the bowls as is, winners play in the big one.

You can't not like that idea, can you?

Terry in Crapchester · Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:21 pm

L45B wrote:I'm with Left Seater on this one. 8-16 teams is too many.

If there was a CFB playoff, I would like to see it as an extension of the regular season, preferably with four teams. The "semifinal" games start one week after the conference championships. #1 and #2 get home field advantage. Then you wait a month, keep the bowls as is, winners play in the big one.

You can't not like that idea, can you?

Okay, I'll bite.

The biggest problem with your idea is the timing. Having the Top 4 teams square off in a semifinal matchup before the bowl games invites a big old "what if" question: what if one (or both) of the winners of those games loses in its bowl game?

You then run the risk of the bowls throwing a big old monkey wrench into your playoff system. Either that, or the bowls become meaningless, although they still continue to exist.

To me, the only viable playoff systems would be: (a) an 8- or 16-team field which either incorporates or replaces (for the most part, anyway) the current bowl system; or (b) Plus One. I personally favor the former -- a 16-team field which uses the most prestigious bowl games, with the remaining bowl games becoming sort of college football's answer to the NIT.

Shoalzie · Post by **Shoalzie** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 5:57 pm

My whole thing with going with a 16 team playoff is so every conference is involved. I'm not saying that there should be 2 or 3 teams per conference in the playoff. They need to get every league involved. As I've said many times before, there are more than just 6 conferences in Division-IA football so there should be more than 6 conferences involved in the championship hunt. Whether they win it all is irrelevant but to keep the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, etc. out in the cold by default is wrong. You think college basketball could get away with doing that? I don't think we'll see a George Mason-like run from a smaller conference team but you'll never know until they get a shot. This caste system in major college athletics needs to stop and I still think the bowl system needs to be abolished.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:43 pm

Terry in Crapchester wrote:The biggest problem with your idea is the timing. Having the Top 4 teams square off in a semifinal matchup before the bowl games invites a big old "what if" question: what if one (or both) of the winners of those games loses in its bowl game?

I'm not following. One of the winners of the semifinal game is going to lose the next game-- it's the championship game. Unless you mean the losers of the semifinal games. In that case, it is an unavoidable situation in any playoff system. People ask "what if" in a 2-team playoff. Billy Packer whines "what about" in CBB when Utah State loses in the first round. Inevitable.

I personally favor the former -- a 16-team field which uses the most prestigious bowl games, with the remaining bowl games becoming sort of college football's answer to the NIT.

But again, that number of teams (16+) diminishes the whole point of an early season Texas-Ohio State. For the same reason that, after two weeks, the entire '05-06 CBB season (& conference tourneys) means absolutely jack squat. Unless, you only include conference winners (as Shoalzie suggests) and zero at-large bids.

At least you didn't suggest the good old Alamo-Bowl-Winner-Versus-Independence-Bowl-Winner-Meets-In-The-Cotton-Bowl Idea. I still can't fathom how that would solve anything.

Terry in Crapchester · Mon Apr 03, 2006 6:56 pm

L45B wrote:
Terry in Crapchester wrote:The biggest problem with your idea is the timing. Having the Top 4 teams square off in a semifinal matchup before the bowl games invites a big old "what if" question: what if one (or both) of the winners of those games loses in its bowl game?
I'm not following. One of the winners of the semifinal game is going to lose the next game-- it's the championship game. Unless you mean the losers of the semifinal games. In that case, it is an unavoidable situation in any playoff system. People ask "what if" in a 2-team playoff. Billy Packer whines "what about" in CBB when Utah State loses in the first round. Inevitable.

Perhaps I misunderstood your point. I thought your proposal was a playoff system completely independent of the bowl games. If that were the case, you have a real possibility of two teams being designated to play for the national championship after the bowl games, only to face the very real possibility of one or both of these teams losing their bowl game run-up to the national championship game. That proposal would never work.

I personally favor the former -- a 16-team field which uses the most prestigious bowl games, with the remaining bowl games becoming sort of college football's answer to the NIT.
But again, that number of teams (16+) diminishes the whole point of an early season Texas-Ohio State.

I don't think so. Even if you had a 16-team field (which is the largest being discussed, at least on this board), you still have a much smaller percentage of teams playing for the championship in college football than in any other major sport.

For the same reason that, after two weeks, the entire '05-06 CBB season (& conference tourneys) means absolutely jack squat. Unless, you only include conference winners (as Shoalzie suggests) and zero at-large bids.

Disagree that the college basketball season is meaningless, at least for major conference teams and a few of the mid-majors. Only 65 out of 330+ teams get into the NCAA tournament -- that's less than 20%. In college football, 16 out of 119 teams in the playoff would be about 13%.

As for allowing only automatic bids, that would never work in college football. A system like that would automatically exclude ND. College football's fan base would never accept it on that basis alone.

At least you didn't suggest the good old Alamo-Bowl-Winner-Versus-Independence-Bowl-Winner-Meets-In-The-Cotton-Bowl Idea. I still can't fathom how that would solve anything.

That would be part of a playoff. I think any playoff system would have to either incorporate the bowl system (or some of it, anyway) or replace it entirely. It probably would be easier to incorporate the bowl system, jmho.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 8:16 pm

Terry in Crapchester wrote:Perhaps I misunderstood your point. I thought your proposal was a playoff system completely independent of the bowl games. If that were the case, you have a real possibility of two teams being designated to play for the national championship after the bowl games, only to face the very real possibility of one or both of these teams losing their bowl game run-up to the national championship game. That proposal would never work.

My proposal is to extend the regular season by 1 game, for the 4 best teams. Then play out the regular bowls, without winners of bowl games playing each other in more bowl games, which by the way, negates the whole point of a bowl game.

For example, 2005 would have played out like so... One week after the Dr. Pepper lovefest (aka Conference Championship Weekend), Ohio State goes to the Coliseum to play USC, Penn State goes to Austin. USC & Texas win, play each other in the Rose Bowl, Penn State goes to the Orange Bowl, Ohio State goes to the Fiesta Bowl...

SoCalTrjn · Post by **SoCalTrjn** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:25 am

having only 4 or even 8 teams in the playoff will do nothing but encourage teams to make softer schedules. Nobody will play a tough OOC team in September when it can mean theyre left out of the money in January
Cut the major division down to 64 teams, and 8 conferences, those 64 teams can only play other teams within that top 64 and will play an equal amount of road and home games. At the end of the season the top 2 from each conference go in to opposite sides of the playoffs, that way if the top 2 teams are from the same region, they can still play eachother for the title. The bottom team from each conference drops to the lower division and the top 8 from that division move up. Also any team that has any NCAA sanctions against them will also drop down to the lower division until they can play their way back to the upper division.

Simply taking the 4 to 8 teams with the highest rankings at the end of the year will do nothing but continue to allow the haves schedule teams like Wofford, Citadel, Buffalo and Louisiana Monroe

Terry in Crapchester · Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:27 pm

L45B wrote:
Terry in Crapchester wrote:Perhaps I misunderstood your point. I thought your proposal was a playoff system completely independent of the bowl games. If that were the case, you have a real possibility of two teams being designated to play for the national championship after the bowl games, only to face the very real possibility of one or both of these teams losing their bowl game run-up to the national championship game. That proposal would never work.
My proposal is to extend the regular season by 1 game, for the 4 best teams.

Here's another problem with that that I didn't pick up on yesterday. Conference championship games are played the first weekend in December. By the second weekend of December, most schools are in finals, or at most, only a few days away from finals.

University presidents have hit upon academics as their reason for opposing a football playoff. It's a crock and we all know it, but since that argument is in play, any playoff proposal would have to have no effect on academics. Can't say that about yours.

Then play out the regular bowls, without winners of bowl games playing each other in more bowl games, which by the way, negates the whole point of a bowl game.

It's a break from tradition, but so what? So is a playoff.

It would be difficult, if not impossible, to abolish the bowl games based on tradition, so my solution would be to incorporate them within a playoff. That also reduces the number of bowl teams from 56 to 42, so the remaining bowl games should benefit from more competitive matchups. It also eliminates one of the problems with the status quo, that is, that the status quo rewards mediocrity but punishes good but not exceptional teams.

Laugh at my proposal if you must, but my proposal requires no major revisions to the regular season, no major conference realignment, and also does not adversely affect academics, while still making the national championship available to a reasonable number of teams. I haven't seen another one yet that does that.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:24 pm

^^But if you're suggesting a 16-team playoff, that equals four rounds of games. What do you do, move all the bowl games forward three weeks? If not, you're definitely running into an academics conflict.

Terry in Crapchester · Tue Apr 04, 2006 5:09 pm

As I've said before, I would start the playoff on December 31, and play each week thereafter. I see the playoff roughly mirroring the NFL playoff, with the championship game played the week between the NFL conference championship games and the Super Bowl.

Most of the playoff would run when most schools are on Christmas Break, and by the time classes resumed for most schools, you'd be down to about 4 teams left. So very few schools have any interference at all with classes, and there's no interference with final exams.

L45B · Post by **L45B** » Tue Apr 04, 2006 6:30 pm

Your proposal is basically two regular seasons. Teams play September through November/early December, take almost a month off from football, then start another month of playoffs. By the second week of January, who would give a shit about what happened in September? Those early games would be meaningless. I don't know, JMHO. I guess finals and Christmas really fuck things up no matter which way you try to fix it.

Terry in Crapchester · Tue Apr 04, 2006 6:56 pm

My proposal is only a "second regular season" if one considers the NCAA tournament a second regular season. It's basically a scaled-down version of March madness.

Yes, academics will force a bit of a disconnect between the regular season and a postseason playoff in college football, but it's already that way with the bowl system. We effectively have a playoff already, but the big problem is that it's limited to two teams.

Shawn Marion · Post by **Shawn Marion** » Fri Apr 07, 2006 12:12 am

King Crimson wrote:
Shawn Marion wrote:This 20 day period of games is fun, but all it tells me is that college basketball comes down to 20 days. I will take the 14 week college football regular season over "march madness" any day.
well, that's not exactly true. if you are playing 30 games instead of 11 or 12, each game doesn't mean as "much"....but that doesn't mean the regular season is meaningless.

the point is moot for people who don't watch CBB all season and dutifully fill out their brackets and only watch the tournament. as far as determining a champion....i'd love to see a playoff of some kind in CFB--though i doubt it could ever be more than 8 teams. but i don't see it happening anytime soon.

They don't mean nearly as much. The games basically matter as just being one of the 24ish wins that it takes to get to the tournament.

UNC and Duke are 2 of the best basketball schools out there, when they play it means relatively little in the grand scheme of things. They will play at least twice and could play as many as 5 times over the course of the year. Who wins those games doesn't matter unless they meet in the tournament.

College football as it is right now is go undefeated or go home. That's the way it should be. As far as I'm concerned, teams that lose games shouldn't really be considered for the national title game anyway.