Shoalzie wrote:MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote:Shoalzie wrote:Cute idea but I don't want to see third and fourth place teams in the conferences competing for the national title. The 8/9 and 7/10 matchups would be fun to watch though.
Nonsense.
A playoff should not feature conference champion auto-bids unless the conferences themselves were re-structured and fixed in such a way to produce "legitimate" champions on a yearly basis...aside from the Pac 10 and Big East.
A playoff should be designed to pit the
best possible teams against one another. Nothing else should matter. If three or four of the nation's best teams are from one conference ('sup Meat Grinder), then so be it. Also, are we including any "mid major" conference champions? God, I hope not. A lower tier team will be deserving of a playoff berth if it produces a season like Hawaii, or last year's Boise team. There's no need for a 3 or 4 loss Directional Tech University to be in there. The fact that a CMU would be included into an 8 or 16 team playoff because they won the fucking MAC is just silly. Straight up silly.
I wouldn't mind seeing a playoff under
any scenario, really, but I'd rather see one designed by selecting teams from a poll. In fact, I wouldn't mind seeing a playoff designed by selecting teams from a formulaic poll, such as the BCS.
In general, the BCS poll reflects accurately. This would keep the fun of debate and controversy alive, while having a playoff. Best of both worlds.
I'm not saying the MAC and Conference USA should be included...I would just go with 8 teams instead of 16. Thus, a third and fourth place team in a major conference won't be able to compete for the national title.
Disagree. If you're going with an 8-team playoff, all of the bids need to be at-large. Period, end of discussion.
This year, none of the six BCS conference champions finished lower than ninth in the final BCS rankings. Based on recent history, however, that's the exception rather than the rule.
Let's assume that instead of the BCS, since the inception of the BCS, there was an 8-team playoff. Let's assume further that there were no provisions for an automatic qualification for an at-large playoff bid, and that the two highest-ranked teams that did not win a BCS conference were selected for at-large bids. Here's what you would've seen:
2007 In: West Virginia (#9). Out: Kansas (#8). Far and away the most equitable outcome, as you'll see later.
2006 In: Oklahoma (#10), Wake Forest (#14). Out: Wisconsin (#7), Auburn (#9), Notre Dame (#11), Arkansas (#12), West Virginia (#13).
2005 In: West Virginia (#11), Florida State (#22). Out: Notre Dame (#6), Miami (#8), Auburn (#9), Virginia Tech (#10).
2004 In: Michigan (#13), Pittsburgh (#21). Out: Utah (#6), Georgia (#7), Boise State (#9), Louisville (#10), LSU (#11), Iowa (#12).
2003 In: Miami (#9), Kansas State (#10). Out: Texas (#6), Tennessee (#8). (Note: before '07, this season would have yielded the most equitable results.)
2002 In: Florida State (#14). Out: Kansas State (#8), Notre Dame (#9), Texas (#10), Michigan (#11), Penn State (#12), Colorado (#13).
2001 In: Maryland (#10), LSU (#13). Out: Tennessee (#6), Texas (#7), Stanford (#9), Oklahoma (#11), Washington State (#12).
2000 In: Purdue (unranked, BCS ranked only Top 15 teams at that time). Out: Nebraska (#8), Kansas State (#9), Oregon (#10), Notre Dame (#11), Texas (#12), Georgia Tech (#13), TCU (#14), Clemson (#15).
1999 In: Stanford (unranked, see above.) Out: Michigan (#8), Michigan State (#9), Florida (#10), Penn State (#11), Marshall (#12), Minnesota (#13), Texas A&M (#14), Texas (#15).
1998 In: Wisconsin (#9), Syracuse (#15). Out: Arizona (#7), Florida (#8), Tulane (#10), Nebraska (#11), Virginia (#12), Arkansas (#13), Georgia Tech (#14).
Giving automatic bids to the six BCS conference champions in an 8-team playoff will result in a lot of undeserving teams qualifying for the playoff, and a lot of deserving teams being left out, if history is any guide. If you want any automatic bids, you need either a 12- or 16-team field.