Rooting for chaos (again)

[Shoalzie]

Nothing against any of the teams involved but I'm rooting for another BCS debacle to occur this year just to keep the bandwagon going for a playoff system. You could have as many as 5 BCS conference teams finish unbeaten...

ACC: Virginia Tech or Florida State...teams likely to meet in the ACC Title Game both with unbeaten records. Virginia Tech still has to face Miami. Florida State closes at Florida.

Big XII: Texas or Texas Tech...Tech visits Austin in two weeks, should decide the winner of the South Division and will be favored in the Big XII Title Game.

Big Ten: Penn State...wins the Big Ten outright by running the table.

Pac-10: USC or UCLA...teams meet in the last game of the season with the conference title and a BCS birth on the line if they both remain unbeaten.

SEC: Georgia or Alabama...potential matchup in the SEC Title Game, Alabama is tied with Auburn in conference record and will play on November 19 at Jordan-Hare. Georgia still has Florida, Auburn and Georgia Tech on the slate.

Anyone who still defends this stupid BCS system, explain to me why it still works if my chaos theory remains in tact? Even with a plus one game, you could still have one unbeaten team left out in the cold just like last year. This has to be taken out of the hands of the pollsters and the computers and play it on the field. I know I'm a broken record but I hate the BCS and I hate the bowl system. Who's with me?

[T REX]

Everyone outside of the bowls and school prezs is with you.

[Left Seater]

I am for a playoff only if there are four teams involved. Any more than four teams and I will fight against it. I'd like to see the bowls kept intact and the 4 "playoff" teams play outside of the bowl system.

[Shoalzie]

Even if you go with that system, you have only 8 bowls being relavent if you take 4 winning teams from there and the other 20-30 games are pointless. The whole deal with the bowls is that the great majority of them have no national revelance. I kind of like the idea of using the bowls as a play-in system to create a playoff but the whole idea of scheduling become an issue. If you play the bowls at their regularly schedule times in mid-December and around New Year's. You're still doing the playoff afterwards for two or three weeks in January. If you eliminate the bowls and do an 8 or 16-team playoff right after the regular season ends (the end of November), you could have this all wrapped up before New Year's Day. The school presidents give the bull shit excuse of kids missing extra classes with a playoff. If you do the playoff during December, that usually covers most of winter break.

[FLW Buckeye]

Anyone who still defends this stupid BCS system, explain to me why it still works if my chaos theory remains in tact? Even with a plus one game, you could still have one unbeaten team left out in the cold just like last year. This has to be taken out of the hands of the pollsters and the computers and play it on the field. I know I'm a broken record but I hate the BCS and I hate the bowl system. Who's with me?

I would love to see the BCS system off itself. I think a playoff system involving eight teams that involves three weeks of playing itself out would fit the bill.
I see one drawback. Schools that have the potential to make a playoff would probably schedule even weaker OOC competition than what most schools are currently playing. However, this isn't a showstopper.

[Left Seater]

The bowls will never be eliminated. Given the system we have only about half of the teams in D-1A have a shot at playing for a title. For the rest of the teams, RICE fore example, we are playing for a bowl game. That is our goal.

Further, why do we need 8 or 16 teams in a playoff? If you include 8 teams you are going to have 2 loss teams playing for the title, and with 16 teams you are going to have 3 loss teams in the mix. The college football regular season is the playoff. Over the last 6 seasons there are no more than 4 teams needed to determine the champ in a playoff system.

Finally, there are plenty of us who enjoy watching the New Orleans bowl with the champ of the Sun Belt.

[Mr T]

Who I see being undefeated at the end of the year:

ACC: Virginia Tech or Florida State

Big XII: Texas

Pac-10: USC

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

I am for a playoff only if there are four teams involved. Any more than four teams and I will fight against it. I'd like to see the bowls kept intact and the 4 "playoff" teams play outside of the bowl system.

Prior to the BCS I would've agreed with you, but since the meaning and tradition of the major bowls has gone down the toilet, there isn't anything to keep "intact". But in order to keep the "big game mentality" of the Rose, Fiesta, Orange and Sugar "intact", use 3 of those sites for the 3 playoff games, and rotate sites for the NC game. Maybe make the 4th bowl game a game between the #5 and #6 teams. Those bowls will have the most meaning if the best teams are playing in them. I'd hate to see those bowls relegated to "consolation games".

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

By the way, USC fan has got to love this BCS stuff...just think, with a playoff they'd actually have to play two good teams BACK-TO-BACK! Oh, the horrah!

[Jimmy Medalions]

[Vito Corleone]

By the way, USC fan has got to love this BCS stuff...just think, with a playoff they'd actually have to play two good teams BACK-TO-BACK! Oh, the horrah!

Irony of Big 10 fan telling this to Pac 10 fan when neither conference has a championship game.

The first step to a playoff is a legit conference champion.

[quacker backer]

By the way, USC fan has got to love this BCS stuff...just think, with a playoff they'd actually have to play two good teams BACK-TO-BACK! Oh, the horrah!

Irony of Big 10 fan telling this to Pac 10 fan when neither conference has a championship game.

The first step to a playoff is a legit conference champion.

oh and I see that a conference championship game is the only way to get a legitimate conference champion
:roll: x1000
what a dumbass

[M2]

By the way, USC fan has got to love this BCS stuff...just think, with a playoff they'd actually have to play two good teams BACK-TO-BACK! Oh, the horrah!

Irony of Big 10 fan telling this to Pac 10 fan when neither conference has a championship game.

The first step to a playoff is a legit conference champion.

oh and I see that a conference championship game is the only way to get a legitimate conference champion
:roll: x1000
what a dumbass

I've spent quite a bit of time in the midwest and the south...





...they really think that's the only way you can come up with a conference champion.

Bizarre as it may seem...



m2

[SoCalTrjn]

By the way, USC fan has got to love this BCS stuff...just think, with a playoff they'd actually have to play two good teams BACK-TO-BACK! Oh, the horrah!

Irony of Big 10 fan telling this to Pac 10 fan when neither conference has a championship game.

The first step to a playoff is a legit conference champion.

a schedule where everyone in the conference plays everyone else will net you a legit champion. The other conferences should trim the fat down to 10 teams and play 9 conf games.

[Vito Corleone]

Your map is probably about 25 years old. The boundry for what is considered Dixie have changed dramatically. MexiAmerica is now covering most of the southwest and west. But hey props to you for putting that community college education to work.

[Left Seater]

Got to agree with Vito on this. Crowning a champ when some teams don't play each other doesn't work for me. Wasn't it the year OSU won the national title that they didn't play Iowa and were co-Big 11 champs? I am not at all saying Iowa would have won, but that game should have been played.

[MuchoBulls]

Further, why do we need 8 or 16 teams in a playoff? If you include 8 teams you are going to have 2 loss teams playing for the title, and with 16 teams you are going to have 3 loss teams in the mix. The college football regular season is the playoff. Over the last 6 seasons there are no more than 4 teams needed to determine the champ in a playoff system.

While I see where you're going with this, I have to make the arguement for an 8 team playoff and we can use this season as our example.

There is plenty of football left to be played, but let's say that there are 5 unbeaten teams at the end of the season. Leaving whomever the 5th team is out of the playoff is no better than the BCS system. The 3 remaining teams that would fill out an 8 team playoff should have 1 loss. Taking this current season into account here could be you 8 team playoff:

USC - PAC 10 Champion
Texas - Big 12 Champion
Penn State - Big 10 Champion
Georgia/Alabama - SEC Champion
FSU/Virginia Tech - ACC Champion
ACC Title game loser
SEC Title game loser
Pick between potential 1 loss candidates, which there could be many. The playoff matchups could be:

USC vs. Texas Tech (hypothetical 1 loss team)
Texas vs. SEC Title Game loser
ACC Title game winner vs. Penn State
SEC Title game winner vs. ACC Title game loser

While I agree with you that the regular season is the playoff I think 4 teams leave more room for debate than 8 would.

[PSUFAN]

I wish all conferences had a title game. I believe that the Big 10 doesn't play one, because the powers that be in the conference regard the OSU/UM game as the de facto title game, and do not want to take attention away from that matchup. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that is what I believe.

I would like to see a Big 10 title game, and I would like to see Big 10 teams able to schedule games for the final week of the regular season, in which you see a lot of compelling matchups with teams from other conferences.

[peter dragon]

PSU, you are prolly more right than you think. that and the B10(11) isnt one of these fly by night conferenced like the B12 and the ACC, both newly formed and "young"

Stiring the pot

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Save your bag of cliches for someone else. Besides, I wasn't complaining I was making fun, so your pic doesn't really make sesnse.

[Danimal]

I am for a playoff only if there are four teams involved. Any more than four teams and I will fight against it. I'd like to see the bowls kept intact and the 4 "playoff" teams play outside of the bowl system.

I agree about the 4team play-off. It would keep the bowl system intact and would kill-off those whine about too many teams playing too many extra games.

[Jimmy Medalions]

I wasn't complaining I was making fun, so your pic doesn't really make sesnse.

A suggestion: in the future, don't forget the [funny] [/funny] ubb code as your recent attempts at humor, albeit few, don't exactly translate.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

I'm real shocked a USC fan doesn't find a shot against his team to be humorous.

[Jimmy Medalions]

Cheer up mgo. Nobody likes a whiner.

[Vito Corleone]

I am for a playoff only if there are four teams involved. Any more than four teams and I will fight against it. I'd like to see the bowls kept intact and the 4 "playoff" teams play outside of the bowl system.

My opinion is 4 is too few and 8 is too many. I think we should split it down the middle and have 6 teams with the top 2 getting a bi-week.

[Left Seater]

Mucho, I can see where you are going, but there won't be that many undefeated teams at the end of the season.

When in the last few years have we needed more than 4 teams to decide the champ?

[Terry in Crapchester]

I wish all conferences had a title game. I believe that the Big 10 doesn't play one, because the powers that be in the conference regard the OSU/UM game as the de facto title game, and do not want to take attention away from that matchup. Perhaps I'm wrong, but that is what I believe.

I would like to see a Big 10 title game, and I would like to see Big 10 teams able to schedule games for the final week of the regular season, in which you see a lot of compelling matchups with teams from other conferences.

You can't have a conference championship game unless you have a minimum of 12 teams in the conference. Imho, that is what's keeping the Big Ten from a conference championship game.

The wedge here, of course, is ND. In a nutshell, ND doesn't want to join the Big Ten, and the Big Ten doesn't want to add a twelfth team, leaving ND on the table, if there's any possibility that ND might join at some point in the future.

Because this was all being discussed in significant depth a few years back, I've done a lot of thinking about this topic. I've concluded that ND will never join the Big Ten, based on the following reasons:

• Too much negative history between ND and the Big Ten;
• ND will not relinquish its TV contract;
• ND likes to have at least one road game a year in the northeast, because that's where the largest portion of its fan base lives. Joining the Big Ten would prevent that, or at least make it next to impossible;
• If ND were to join the Big Ten, there would be a battle royale between ND on the one hand, and tOSU and Michigan on the other hand, re: divisional alignment (see above).

The only possible way I could see that changing is if ND's program goes into total freefall. I don't see that happening, and I certainly hope it doesn't.

Strictly mho: If the Big Ten wants to add a 12th team, it should strongly consider a top-tier MAC team. Northern Illinois would be perfect in that regard, as it would fit in with either the North/South divisional alignment preferred by the powers that be, or the more geographically logical East/West alignment.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Lefty, if you go with a four-team post-bowl playoff, then the rationale for matching up #1 and #2 in the BCS goes away. In fact, if that stayed in the face of such a setup, it would be a blessing to finish #3.

A post-bowl playoff would necessarily mean the demise of the BCS. You could go back to the old system, but of course, in the old system, the Fiesta Bowl had no conference tie-in, the ACC and Big East both had no bowl tie-in, and the Cotton Bowl has lost its previous bowl tie-in due to the demise of the SWC.

[MuchoBulls]

Mucho, I can see where you are going, but there won't be that many undefeated teams at the end of the season.

When in the last few years have we needed more than 4 teams to decide the champ?

I agree that there won't be that many undefeated at the end of the season, but it's nice to wish for it.

This could be a season where you may need more than 4 teams to decide the Champion, but in years past there hasn't really been many years where you needed more than 4.

What happens if you have 5 unbeatens and then 2 lose their Conference Championship game?

[Terry in Crapchester]

Mucho, I can see where you are going, but there won't be that many undefeated teams at the end of the season.

When in the last few years have we needed more than 4 teams to decide the champ?

I agree that there won't be that many undefeated at the end of the season, but it's nice to wish for it.

This could be a season where you may need more than 4 teams to decide the Champion, but in years past there hasn't really been many years where you needed more than 4.

What happens if you have 5 unbeatens and then 2 lose their Conference Championship game?

The problem with four is this: usually, there are fewer than four unbeatens. But when you add the one-loss teams to the unbeatens, you usually get more than 4. So where is the cutoff?

Not that record should be the sole criteria.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Terry, no one is saying a four team playoff is a flawless system. Most people will concede to its imperfections, but we're also realists, and know anything greater than a 4 team playoff won't happen.

Also, most of the time, when there are more than four 1 loss teams outside of the top 4 heading into the final weekend of college football, those are teams that are generally not thrown into the pot of controversy. When you have a year that has many 1 loss teams outside of the top 4, they're usually mid major teams that have made a nice run like a Boise St, a Marshall, a TCU, etc. Last year was kind of an exception with Texas being outside of the top 4 heading into the final week. In a playoff system, it would have been hard to leave that Texas team out of contention.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Terry, no one is saying a four team playoff is a flawless system. Most people will concede to its imperfections, but we're also realists, and know anything greater than a 4 team playoff won't happen.

Also, most of the time, when there are more than four 1 loss teams outside of the top 4 heading into the final weekend of college football, those are teams that are generally not thrown into the pot of controversy. When you have a year that has many 1 loss teams outside of the top 4, they're usually mid major teams that have made a nice run like a Boise St, a Marshall, a TCU, etc. Last year was kind of an exception with Texas being outside of the top 4 heading into the final week. In a playoff system, it would have been hard to leave that Texas team out of contention.

Actually, last year posed a perfect example of the problems with four teams. You had USC, Oklahoma and Auburn going for sure. Then you had three candidates for the fourth spot (Cal, Texas and an unbeaten Utah team), but only one could get the spot.

I'm beginning to think 8 teams would be ideal, but if you want to give automatic bids to each of the conferences involved in the BCS, you have to consider going to 16, or at least 12, teams.

[Mr T]

The problem with four is this: usually, there are fewer than four unbeatens. But when you add the one-loss teams to the unbeatens, you usually get more than 4. So where is the cutoff?

This is how I would see the 4 team playoff:
If you didnt go undefeated you have no one to blame but yourself.

Bitch all you want that your one loss team is better than that one loss team but truth is you fucked up your season when you lost.

Go undefeated. You get in the the playoff. If there is more than 4 undefeateds, than the playoff is expanded.

[Terry in Crapchester]

The problem with four is this: usually, there are fewer than four unbeatens. But when you add the one-loss teams to the unbeatens, you usually get more than 4. So where is the cutoff?

This is how I would see the 4 team playoff:
If you didnt go undefeated you have no one to blame but yourself.

Bitch all you want that your one loss team is better than that one loss team but truth is you fucked up your season when you lost.

Go undefeated. You get in the the playoff. If there is more than 4 undefeateds, than the playoff is expanded.

By that standard, you would have had Utah in the playoffs last year at the expense of Texas and Cal, both of whom had one loss against a tougher schedule. Not entirely sure that's fair.

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

The problem with four is this: usually, there are fewer than four unbeatens. But when you add the one-loss teams to the unbeatens, you usually get more than 4. So where is the cutoff?

This is how I would see the 4 team playoff:
If you didnt go undefeated you have no one to blame but yourself.

Bitch all you want that your one loss team is better than that one loss team but truth is you fucked up your season when you lost.

Go undefeated. You get in the the playoff. If there is more than 4 undefeateds, than the playoff is expanded.

Don't like it. If you put ALL the emphasis simply on being undefeated, that would all but eliminate ANY interesting out of conference games, except for the ones that are longstanding traditions and aren't going away. Legit teams would have even less motivation to play anyone of substance out of conference, and who could blame them? If being undefeated was a prerequisite, I'd have Central Michigan, La-Monroe and Temple on my schedule.

[MuchoBulls]

The problem with four is this: usually, there are fewer than four unbeatens. But when you add the one-loss teams to the unbeatens, you usually get more than 4. So where is the cutoff?

Not that record should be the sole criteria.

I agree on record not being the sole criteria.

The cutoff would be 8 teams. At most, you may have a team or 2 who have 2 losses in there. The most likely instance will be 1-3 teams who are undefeated, 3-4 1 loss teams and 1-2 2 loss teams.

[Mr T]

Don't like it. If you put ALL the emphasis simply on being undefeated, that would all but eliminate ANY interesting out of conference games, except for the ones that are longstanding traditions and aren't going away. Legit teams would have even less motivation to play anyone of substance out of conference, and who could blame them? If being undefeated was a prerequisite, I'd have Central Michigan, La-Monroe and Temple on my schedule.

Being undefeated already is a prerequisite and people already schedule easy ooc's.

But if you fly in on a creampuff sked, you are going to fly back beaten by a better team in the playoff.

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

The most convincing argument I've heard against a playoff is that it would take away much of the importance of rivalry games (and the regular season in general). For example, let's say Michigan was 10-0 and a lock to make the playoffs, while OSU had a down year and is sitting at 4-6. There's no way Lloyd Carr is going to leave his best players in the game beyond the 1st half. So you'd essentially have a lot of those great late-season rivalry games turn into a meaningless scrimmage, like the last week of the NFL season when a team already has a playoff berth locked up. Part of what makes CFB so unique is that every game really does matter.

I'm in favor of a 16 or 8 team playoff myself, but I thought it was an interesting point. To avoid that scenario, I'd suggest just moving the big rivalry games up in the schedule.

[Mr T]

By that standard, you would have had Utah in the playoffs last year at the expense of Texas and Cal, both of whom had one loss against a tougher schedule. Not entirely sure that's fair.

Cal was a definite contender last year with a tough sked....

:roll:

Did you just out your m2 troll?

Who is to say Utah didnt deserve a shot? Fuck give the little guy a break. I know your team has never been the little guy so you have no idea what I am talking about but 85 Villanova didnt deserve to be there either.

[Left Seater]

The bottom line for me is that I don't want any playoff that includes a team with two losses. A team that loses 2 out of 11 games has no business playing for a title.

I also don't think that going undefeated is a requirement to be included in a 4 team playoff. However, it would be a requirement for a mid major team.

If we use last season as an example there were three teams that one could argue for the final spot to play USC in the opening round. I would leave Cal out because they already lost to USC during the season. I would also leave Texas out as they lost to another of the playoff teams, OU, during the season.

Again, the regular season is part of the playoff. Cal and Texas lost to other playoff teams during the season and therefore their shot.

And please, stop all any and all references to the basketball playoff system. The playoff works in college basketball because for 99% of the teams the regular season is nothing more than seeding for their conference tourney. Every team that makes their conf tourney has a shot at the title. College football will never come close to that and as such we shouldn't talk about it with college football. Villanova did deserve to be there.

Now, having said all of that I could get behind a system in which the 4 highest conference champs are included in the playoff. The only way this system works is if each conference has a true champ. I definately think you should have to be your conference champ in order to be National Champ.