2025 College Football Playoffs

[Huntr]

I wrote this before the rankings came out. I know the drill. It’s about money. I knew we were getting fucked. Doesn’t mean I can’t bitch about 2 shitty teams (Tulane and JM) getting in.

You should direct your ire toward the real welfare team, Bama and the shit ass conferences.

Hell, if you think the CFP is or should be about the best teams, you should consider anyone in the current field below 3 or 4 as a welfare team because ND would smoke basically all of them.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Yeah. Came here to say this. Idk how it’s even debatable.

Blowouts happen but Tulane and JMU were 17 and 20 pt underdogs today. They were expected to be blown out.

Sure there’s a chance that a fringe top-12 P4 team gets blown out by #5/#6, but on expectation, it will be a much closer matchup.

At the start of today, the G5 schools had the same likelihood of winning the championship as ND did this morning. But if any of ND/BYU/Texas/Vandy/USC/etc had been put in… they could actually get hot and win it.

And that’s the narrative we can all expect to hear as ESPN & other CFP friendly media will spew in the next week: “It’s not like G5 teams are the only ones to get blown out in a CFP game”

As you noted, they’re not wrong but the point is that the P4 teams who ended up getting blown out weren’t 3-score underdogs going into the game. JMU & Tulane never had a chance & everyone knew it.

 

[burmafrd1944]

You should direct your ire toward the real welfare team, Bama and the shit ass conferences.

Hell, if you think the CFP is or should be about the best teams, you should consider anyone in the current field below 3 or 4 as a welfare team because ND would smoke basically all of them.

what we want is the best teams
you are the one that is defending this garbage

 

[NDRock]

what we want is the best teams
you are the one that is defending this garbage

And doing a poor job of it. I assume he’s just trolling at this point.

 

[burmafrd1944]

And doing a poor job of it. I assume he’s just trolling at this point.

nah, he is stupid enough to think he is making a point

 

[ColinKSU]

I can’t do anything but laugh that Oregon’s second stringers are going to cost me like $500.

 

[GATTACA!]

Two G5s getting in this season is an anomaly that is unlikely to happen again even without changes to the way teams are selected. The ACC is dumb, but they aren't dumb enough to run back this methodology for picking their CCG participants. They will switch to something that makes the ACC champion a lock for one of the auto bids.

I don't mind a G5 having 1/16 spots once we inevitability expand to the proper number. Playing the single G5 team is a nice reward for whoever earned the #1 seed.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

This is Hunter Yurachek’s most recent tweet. Holy shit, look at the comments. Not saying I approve of all of them but damn. He’s the SEC’s cuck

 

[Dale]

Teams with a SOS outside the Top 25 are now 1 - 6 in the CFP 12 team era. Miami is the lone win.

 

[IRISHDODGER]

I was wondering what Tosh had been up to

 

[IrishBryan77]

NCAA called Oregon at halftime....

"Yeah look Oregon we messed up BAD, since Tulane got smoked so bad can you spot JMU a bunch of points so we don't look worse than we already do? We will throw you a little "side" money"

 

[IRISHDODGER]

Ty Simpson still being talked about as a possible first rounder if he chooses to come out according to the beta males (Pete Schrager & Mike Greenberg) at ESPN on their show “Get Up”. Watching the segment, Schrager clearly had no clue about college football & had to read off his cue cards to present his top 5 players to watch.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Devils advocate here....I'd much rather watch a lopsided boring game with two teams I don't care about
....than have to sit through Texas/Vandy vs Oregon/Ole Miss. Those games sound like too much fun for a Sat night to kick off the holiday season.

Legitimately think JMU played Oregon closer than Ole Miss would have.

 

[IrishinSyria]

Two G5s getting in this season is an anomaly that is unlikely to happen again even without changes to the way teams are selected. The ACC is dumb, but they aren't dumb enough to run back this methodology for picking their CCG participants. They will switch to something that makes the ACC champion a lock for one of the auto bids.

I don't mind a G5 having 1/16 spots once we inevitability expand to the proper number. Playing the single G5 team is a nice reward for whoever earned the #1 seed.

What’s the ACC’s incentive to change their dogshit system? It blew up in their face this year and didn’t matter to them because their best team got in. If there’s an implied P4 autobid than you might as well keep a rule designed to sneak an extra team inz

 

[IrishinSyria]

What's the functional difference to the tv viewer, tho? The color of the uniforms and mascots?

I'm saying the G5 teams are not the problem. The problem is huge conferences that don't do a good job of determining the best team in their own conference, WHICH WAS DONE PURPOSEFULLY by the conferences, creating confusion about what the playoff is supposed to be.

Those G5 teams are in the playoff because the CFP didn't want to be sued because they know they can't represent it as the 8/10/12 best teams because they don't even determine the 1 best in their own conference. It's why they want to guarantee 4 or 5 from the SEC and B1G - it's solely about getting more money.

And because of that, there will always be shit teams in the playoff. Adding a G5 or 2 doesn't change that.

Be mad at the actual bad guys, not these little schools.

I keep hearing the it’s because of the litigation risk and I’m sure there’s something to it but as someone who has done quite a bit of antitrust work the theory that 5 autobids somehow solves the legal problem makes zero sense to me.

It also doesn’t line up with the history of the playoffs. I thought there were 5 autobids because there were five major conferences when the playoffs were set up. When the Pac12 blew up the logic of having five autobids fell apart. Obviously, if the fifth autobid had disappeared with the PAC 12 ND fans would be in a much different place right now.

So it’s an unintended design flaw, and it should be talked about because it should be fixed moving forward. Like you don’t necessarily need to freeze out the G5 entirely but there’s no way a two loss G5 team should be getting in when multiple 2 loss P4 teams are out. Yes, you’ll still get some bad games in the first round, but you’ll have fewer games that were effectively decided before the teams got off the bus.

Obviously, the shitty autobid system isn’t what FUCKED is this year. It’s the system working how it’s supposed to. Alabama getting in over us was the decision makers deciding to ignore the way the system was supposed to work.

 

[GATTACA!]

What’s the ACC’s incentive to change their dogshit system? It blew up in their face this year and didn’t matter to them because their best team got in. If there’s an implied P4 autobid than you might as well keep a rule designed to sneak an extra team inz

Because things had to perfectly align for them to happen to get an at large team in. If Miami didn't have a H2H win against us in particular, or if one of 50 other results went a different way the ACC would have been left out entirely. What is their incentive to have a 5 loss team be their champion?

 

[BrianWalsh]

The results of the first round and, I am guessing, round two indicate to me that the playoffs should not be expanded further. Unless they change models.

I would like to see conferences dissolved. Eight, eight team regional divisions in Tier 1, same in Tier 2. Top two from each make playoff in their tiers. Seven games against your regional division members, two rotating against the teams who finished in your place the preceding the season from two of the other regionals, three you schedule. Eight teams who make playoffs from Tier 2 automatically replace the seventh and eighth place teams in the Tier 1 regions to which they map.

 

[GATTACA!]

The results of the first round and, I am guessing, round two indicate to me that the playoffs should not be expanded further. Unless they change models.

I would like to see conferences dissolved. Eight, eight team regional divisions in Tier 1, same in Tier 2. Top two from each make playoff in their tiers. Seven games against your regional division members, two rotating against the teams who finished in your place the preceding the season from two of the other regionals, three you schedule. Eight teams who make playoffs from Tier 2 automatically replace the seventh and eighth place teams in the Tier 1 regions to which they map.

I think it needs to expand to 14 or 16. Not because I think more teams are deserving, but because byes are just too powerful in football and I don't think 4 teams deserve to sit out round 1. I know how it worked out last season but I think that will end up being an exception.

 

[BrianWalsh]

I think it needs to expand to 14 or 16. Not because I think more teams are deserving, but because byes are just too powerful in football and I don't think 4 teams deserve to sit out round 1. I know how it worked out last season but I think that will end up being an exception.

If things are going to remain as is (conferences), expanding would require modifications. Conference championship games would have to be terminated. Otherwise you could legitimately have two guaranteed (B1G and SEC) and up to four (Big XII and ACC) complaining to no end about Notre Dame never having a 13th game the week before the playoffs. And I would agree. This season you would have probably had a 12th seed ND heading to 4th seed Texas Tech with ND coming off a week off, TT coming off a CCG against BYU the week before.

 

[GATTACA!]

If things are going to remain as is (conferences), expanding would require modifications. Conference championship games would have to be terminated. Otherwise you could legitimately have two guaranteed (B1G and SEC) and up to four (Big XII and ACC) complaining to no end about Notre Dame never having a 13th game the week before the playoffs. And I would agree. This season you would have probably had a 12th seed ND heading to 4th seed Texas Tech with ND coming off a week off, TT coming off a CCG against BYU the week before.

I think there probably will be a push to eliminate them. Look at the B1G this year. Without their CCG they would have had the top 2 seeds.

 

[stlnd01]

What’s the ACC’s incentive to change their dogshit system? It blew up in their face this year and didn’t matter to them because their best team got in. If there’s an implied P4 autobid than you might as well keep a rule designed to sneak an extra team inz

To Gattaca's point, it took a lot of good circumstance for their best team to get in. But given the way all the ESPN talking heads were talking even before the UVA-Duke game, I wouldn't have been shocked if Miami made it in regardless of that outcome, and they sneak in two teams.

Regardless, yeah, the only ACC team with a chance to win a first-round playoff game made the field, and won, so even more money for them. There's no particular reason to change things.

 

[IrishTusker]

To Gattaca's point, it took a lot of good circumstance for their best team to get in. But given the way all the ESPN talking heads were talking even before the UVA-Duke game, I wouldn't have been shocked if Miami made it in regardless of that outcome, and they sneak in two teams.

Regardless, yeah, the only ACC team with a chance to win a first-round playoff game made the field, and won, so even more money for them. There's no particular reason to change things.

Right, the point of the auto-bids is to get teams in that would not otherwise get in. And from what I have read, the SEC is content with simply putting in the top 12 teams. It's the Big 10 that wants auto-bids. I don't know if ND took a position on this when the whole thing was being developed, but ND will never get an auto-bid so long as it is independent; all the auto-bids can do is bump ND out in favor of a worse team. (And this has been repeated enough, but the MOU is meaningless because it depends on the committee ranking. It isn't like an auto-bid for winning a CCG.)

No auto-bids means the bizarre conference tiebreaker rules do not determine who gets in. ND should never have agreed to a system where the ACC's tiebreaker could knock ND out of the playoff. They can have whatever tiebreaker they want; it shouldn't matter at all.

 

[stlnd01]

Right, the point of the auto-bids is to get teams in that would not otherwise get in. And from what I have read, the SEC is content with simply putting in the top 12 teams. It's the Big 10 that wants auto-bids. I don't know if ND took a position on this when the whole thing was being developed, but ND will never get an auto-bid so long as it is independent; all the auto-bids can do is bump ND out in favor of a worse team. (And this has been repeated enough, but the MOU is meaningless because it depends on the committee ranking. It isn't like an auto-bid for winning a CCG.)

My understanding is that the Big Ten wants like FOUR auto-bids, which is preposterous - and yes would just add teams that can bump us out. Like this year... USC?
The actual Big Ten champion would pretty much always make the Top 12, so I'm not sure why a conference champ autobid means much to them. It's more like insurance for the ACC, Big 12 and G5s. But yes it makes these random and arcane conference standing tiebreakers very important.

 

[Dale]

None of the issues with the G5 representation is the G5s “fault”. As mentioned prior, this system was put in place not with the idea they would ever get a spot. It was the P5. Then realignment happened. So fault for the format? TV and Power conferences.

The second component is what they do once they get there. We are giving more access to the G5 than ever before when they are weaker teams. This is due to the portal/NIL. JMU, Boise and Tulane are power rated much lower relative to like a 2021 Cincinnati or 2017 UCF and I’m sure older teams. So fault for the performance? NIL/Portal which you can put at the feet of the NCAA and others in power.

IMO the fix is make some sort of qualifier. CFP ranking is the easiest but also dumbest. I think having a power conference win would help but then you get Northwestern’s of the world taking losses. Could borrow the”Quad 1 Win” type thing from CBB instead. The best is probably just a basic BCS rating threshold for any team to make the CFP.

 

[irishff1014]

1. ND didn't get left out for these G5 teams, ND got left out for Bama.
2. Blowouts happen all the friggin time in the playoffs. Always have. And some of those have come at ND's expense, sooo...

We still have equal blame in this. But I am not breaking that down again.

 

[IrishTusker]

1. ND didn't get left out for these G5 teams, ND got left out for Bama.
2. Blowouts happen all the friggin time in the playoffs. Always have. And some of those have come at ND's expense, sooo...

ND got left out for a bunch of reasons, but the G5 auto-bids are definitely one of them.

 

[MacIrish75]

It’s dumb letting humans with a subjective nature and ulterior motives decide anything of importance.

If using computers was cool in the 90s, it’s even cooler today.

Old BCS Formula + Playoff = Success

 

[irishff1014]

It’s dumb letting humans with a subjective nature and ulterior motives decide anything of importance.

If using computers was cool in the 90s, it’s even cooler today.

Old BCS Formula + Playoff = Success

I said the same thing. And I have seen people talking about this on some shows.

 

[NDRock]

None of the issues with the G5 representation is the G5s “fault”. As mentioned prior, this system was put in place not with the idea they would ever get a spot. It was the P5. Then realignment happened. So fault for the format? TV and Power conferences.

The second component is what they do once they get there. We are giving more access to the G5 than ever before when they are weaker teams. This is due to the portal/NIL. JMU, Boise and Tulane are power rated much lower relative to like a 2021 Cincinnati or 2017 UCF and I’m sure older teams. So fault for the performance? NIL/Portal which you can put at the feet of the NCAA and others in power.

IMO the fix is make some sort of qualifier. CFP ranking is the easiest but also dumbest. I think having a power conference win would help but then you get Northwestern’s of the world taking losses. Could borrow the”Quad 1 Win” type thing from CBB instead. The best is probably just a basic BCS rating threshold for any team to make the CFP.

Easiest fix.

 

[maxwell]