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College Football "Playoffs"


GP1

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/sports.yahoo.com/amphtml/college-football-playoff-officially-recommends-expanding-to-12-teams-192316854.html

 

Iowa State, Northwestern, BYU and Indiana were ranked 9-12 in the AP final Top 20 for 2020. Want to make college football less meaningful?  Force Americans to watch Indiana get destroyed by Alabama. 

 

More of something that is bad for something is not the answer. This is a joke. 

Edited by GP1
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We had one sport left that didn’t expand the playoffs beyond the top teams, and it just cashed in.
 

The rich get richer, the mediocre get paid, and the  mid-majors fall further behind.

Edited by Spin
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2 hours ago, Spin said:

We had one sport left that didn’t expand the playoffs beyond the top teams, and it just cashed in.
 

The rich get richer, the mediocre get paid, and the  mid-majors fall further behind.

It isn't a playoff. There are no playoffs in college sports. They are invitational tournaments. 

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What in the world are we even talking about. No playoffs in college sports?? The ambiguity of these comments are over my head. Plus all I see is a bunch of complaining and no solutions.

 

Before there was no G5 chance. Now there is. Its limited, but its better than what it was. Unfortunately, I think the AAC and Boise St will dominate that slot most years which isn't good for us, but it wasn't too long ago NIU and WMU made BCS games as the top ranked G5 programs.

Edited by LZIp
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I'll reserve my judgement until this happens and I see a few rankings by the committee.  We're used to seeing G5 teams go undefeated for 10+ games only to finally pop into the rankings in the 20s at the end of the season.  My guess is that it will be even harder for MAC/Sun Belt type teams to crack these rankings and have a shot at the playoff.  

 

In a vacuum, it's a better situation for the MAC.  In all other iterations of CFP rankings, all of G5 and the bottom 1/3 of P5 were eliminated before the season kicked off.  On paper, everyone would have a shot.  In theory.

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3 hours ago, RowdyZip said:

I'll reserve my judgement until this happens and I see a few rankings by the committee.  We're used to seeing G5 teams go undefeated for 10+ games only to finally pop into the rankings in the 20s at the end of the season.  My guess is that it will be even harder for MAC/Sun Belt type teams to crack these rankings and have a shot at the playoff.  

 

In a vacuum, it's a better situation for the MAC.  In all other iterations of CFP rankings, all of G5 and the bottom 1/3 of P5 were eliminated before the season kicked off.  On paper, everyone would have a shot.  In theory.

There's at least one guaranteed G5 team every year

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My concern is they still have the same people ranking the teams. Not too hard to see manipulation every year for the "favored teams". I see a G5 champ getting the 12 slot every year. I saw a simulation (on ESPN, you need ESPN+ to read it) of how it would have come out in the past seven years. It looked good for G5 in a number of years (WMU even made it during their big year) but I have no faith that is the way it will end up when they would rank them for a 12 team playoff (when it was only four they could have ranked a G5 team as high as 5 for a nice pat on the head and it would have been essentially meaningless). So while I was enthused about the announcement initially because it gave a G5 team at least a chance after digging into a little more I'm a little less enthused. But if the Zips someday make slot #12, I'm there. 🙂

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On 6/14/2021 at 11:41 AM, MDZip said:

My concern is they still have the same people ranking the teams. 

There is nothing wrong with the way teams are currently ranked and sorted out for the "playoffs". In reality, one doesn't have to watch too many college football games to see that there are only about 2-3 teams with any shot at winning a national championship. Heck, anyone who watched the coin toss for the national championship games and saw the disparity in size between OSU and Alabama knew that game was over before it started. Anyone else who gets in will just be receiving punishment in the form of extra practices and an unwinnable game for having a good season...some prize. The evidence is right in front of us. Half of conference championship games are not very competitive so expanding that into a "playoff" is not going to create much more quality football regardless of how big they make the "playoff".

 

The biggest concern should be the above becoming the norm. It has in the lower divisions as the same teams appear in the "playoffs" every year so normalizing what happens above is what probably will happen. The top 2-3 teams become great programs because the best of the best players want to play for a national championship. The recruiting advantage these teams hold over the rest of college football will become greater, not lessened by an expanded "playoff". Recruiting is the lifeblood of college athletics. With great plays, you win. Without them, you are in an almost insurmountable position. 

 

What does this mean for G5 schools?  MORE of the same pile of poop they have to eat already because their athletic directors, conference administrators and university administrators are too narrow sighted, and probably too stupid, to think of another way to improve their horrible position in the world of college football. G5 schools are constantly fighting a losing battle against the P5 schools. In "The Art of War", Sun Tzu has three famous statements about fighting (Keep in mind that his greatest goal was to not fight unnecessarily or preferably at all):

"The one who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot fight, will be victorious."  We cannot win the fight against P5 schools and this "playoff" is only going to make our position weaker.

"The one who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be endangered in a hundred engagements." I'm afraid G5 schools don't really understand themselves and are in a constant state of endangerment/self-destruction because of it.

"Subjugating the enemy’s army without fighting is the true pinnacle of excellence." G5 schools do not actually have to fight the P5 schools to be successful and reach some level of excellence. There are plenty of college football conferences that play below the FBS level that have reached a level of excellence in their own way without firing a shot against P5 schools. It can be done.

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I think that there are many years where the gap between the #5 ranked team and the best mid-major isn't so large.  If this is set up without rebracketing so the 5/12 winner plays #4, I'm very interested to root for a mid-major to get a win or two.  The champion will probably end up being one of the same few schools it always is, but the first round of games sounds very intriguing to me.  I think overall this adds more good games to the playoffs, and the boring 1v8/9 games will be less of a major focus.  In addition, the national semi-finals probably won't contain one overhyped team who got too much media love and one team who is bored and out of shape.  

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23 hours ago, Aaron said:

I think that there are many years where the gap between the #5 ranked team and the best mid-major isn't so large. 

Respectfully, there are almost no years in which this is the case. The following teams finished #5 in the final AP rankings going back to 2014 (leaving 2020 out for obvious reasons):

2019 - Oregon

2018 - Notre Dame

2017 - Ohio State

2016 - Oklahoma

2015 - Oklahoma

2014 - Florida State

 

It would be fair to say that some years the gap between a mid level Big Ten, ACC, SEC, Big 12 or PAC12 (maybe) is not so large, but in the "playoff" scenario, we are not talking about a mid level P5 school. We are talking about a P5 team that probably at least made it's conference championship game. There is also a 50/50 chance that team was beaten badly in their conference championship and is going to look to take out some frustrations on a lesser team. G5 schools getting destroyed in games like this becomes exactly the kind of "exposure" G5 schools have gotten out of Tuesday and Wednesday night games, only a lot more people will be watching. It is in fact terrible for the G5 schools.

 

So I ask the question to everyone. How is it good for G5 schools when their best team gets destroyed annually in the college football "playoff"? Exactly how does a Colorado State/UAB/Akron/Ball State/FIU benefit from this? Please don't respond if your only answer is money. Chasing after money has put us in a horrible position where we believe more of the same bad thinking in the pursuit of money will somehow result indifferent outcomes.

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GP1, I was looking at it from NY6/BCS bowl rankings to see the following potential matchups that could have taken place:

 

2014 - Baylor (lost to Mich St) vs Boise State (beat Arizona)

2015 - Iowa (lost to Stanford) vs Houston (beat FSU)

2016 - Penn State (lost to USC) vs WMU (lost to Wisc)

2017 - Ohio State (beat USC) vs UCF (beat Auburn)

2018 - Georgia (lost to Texas) vs UCF (lost to LSU)

2019 - Georgia (beat Baylor) vs Memphis (lost to Penn St)

 

The #5 seeds (listed first) lost four out of six of these, and the G5 team was 50/50 against decent programs.  It might be bad, but it might not be as bad as you're thinking.  The worst G5 blowout was 2019 Memphis, which lost by 14 pts.  The other two G5 losses were by 8 pts.  

 

Maybe with something to play for beyond the bowl game, the outcomes would change, but I'm not as pessimistic that it would always be a blowout. 

 

That being said, I would be behind a separate playoff for G5 teams because I really enjoy football playoffs.

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5 hours ago, Aaron said:

 

Maybe with something to play for beyond the bowl game, the outcomes would change, but I'm not as pessimistic that it would always be a blowout. 

 

That being said, I would be behind a separate playoff for G5 teams because I really enjoy football playoffs.

A meaningful game would result in worse outcomes for the G5 team. 

 

I'd love a G5 division and real playoff. It would be meaningful progress in a way most people don't see as progress. 

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