Path to the CFP?

[GATTACA!]

If they go to a 8 or 12 team I would be hoping they get rid of the conference championship games except if they are needed to determine a winner.

They won’t because money.

 

[phork]

They won’t because money.

That is exactly why. I would be OK with autobids if each conference did a mini-tourney. In conference games only. 10 games, all teams play 2 more games except the top 4 playoff for a conference championship. Seeded by CFP rankings.

 

[GATTACA!]

That is exactly why. I would be OK with autobids if each conference did a mini-tourney. In conference games only. 10 games, all teams play 2 more games except the top 4 playoff for a conference championship. Seeded by CFP rankings.

There’s no need for auto bids. The only time a team that wins their conference wouldn’t make an 8-12 team playoff is if it’s a weird 7-5 team from a weak division that happens to pull off a miracle. In that scenario they don’t deserve to make the playoff anyways.

 

[Bishop2b5]

I'm just not in favor of anything beyond 8, and I'm not really fond of even that. The point of a playoff is to determine the best team in the country. It's not a participation trophy, a reward for being the best in your conference, an opportunity to give everybody a chance to say they're a playoff team, nor to crown a mediocre team who got hot or lucky at the right time. It's about determining the best team in CFB, period. If you expand to 12 or 16, you're just tossing in a few teams that have no realistic claim on that at all. If you're 10th or 14th or 16th seed at the end of the regular season, you are not the best team in the country regardless of what you do in the playoffs. You might be able to claim you're the luckiest team or the one that got hot at the right moment, but you're simply NOT the best team. It takes away much of what makes the regular season so important and replaces it with "just get in" like the NCAA BB tournament.

I've heard the argument that wild card teams in the NFL win the Super Bowl sometimes and prove they're the best. The problem there is that there's such parity in the NFL that the difference between the #1 team and the #8 or #12 team is rather small. It's like the difference between the best car in the Indy 500 and the 20th best - the 20th best is still about 98-99% as fast. In CFB, that's not the case. The difference between the #1 team and the #16 team is HUGE. This whole "more teams deserve a shot" participation trophy stuff is baloney. If you haven't shown you're one of the top few teams across the course of the regular season, you don't belong in the playoffs.

 

[dublinirish]

I'm just not in favor of anything beyond 8, and I'm not really fond of even that. The point of a playoff is to determine the best team in the country. It's not a participation trophy, a reward for being the best in your conference, an opportunity to give everybody a chance to say they're a playoff team, nor to crown a mediocre team who got hot or lucky at the right time. It's about determining the best team in CFB, period. If you expand to 12 or 16, you're just tossing in a few teams that have no realistic claim on that at all. If you're 10th or 14th or 16th seed at the end of the regular season, you are not the best team in the country regardless of what you do in the playoffs. You might be able to claim you're the luckiest team or the one that got hot at the right moment, but you're simply NOT the best team. It takes away much of what makes the regular season so important and replaces it with "just get in" like the NCAA BB tournament.

I've heard the argument that wild card teams in the NFL win the Super Bowl sometimes and prove they're the best. The problem there is that there's such parity in the NFL that the difference between the #1 team and the #8 or #12 team is rather small. It's like the difference between the best car in the Indy 500 and the 20th best - the 20th best is still about 98-99% as fast. In CFB, that's not the case. The difference between the #1 team and the #16 team is HUGE. This whole "more teams deserve a shot" participation trophy stuff is baloney. If you haven't shown you're one of the top few teams across the course of the regular season, you don't belong in the playoffs.

Disagree, the real point of it is viewership/money making. It's basically an invitational now.

 

[Rogue219]

Disagree, the real point of it is viewership/money making. It's basically an invitational now.

Correct. And the further south you are, the better chance you have of getting invited. Better stay east of the Mississippi in general otherwise. West of the Rockies? Good luck sucking on kale and surfboards.

 

[GATTACA!]

Correct. And the further south you are, the better chance you have of getting invited. Better stay east of the Mississippi in general otherwise. West of the Rockies? Good luck sucking on kale and surfboards.

Ironically the only solution to this is to get a bunch of these cross conference matchups and have teams outside the SEC actually win them. If the SEC gets 4 teams into a 12 team playoff and goes 0-4 I doubt they will get as big of a benefit of doubt the following season.

Thing is though I’d wager they would go 3-1 or 4-0 because they actually just are better right now. Texas A&M would destroy Michigan or Wake Forest.

 

[TorontoGold]

I'm just not in favor of anything beyond 8, and I'm not really fond of even that. The point of a playoff is to determine the best team in the country. It's not a participation trophy, a reward for being the best in your conference, an opportunity to give everybody a chance to say they're a playoff team, nor to crown a mediocre team who got hot or lucky at the right time. It's about determining the best team in CFB, period. If you expand to 12 or 16, you're just tossing in a few teams that have no realistic claim on that at all. If you're 10th or 14th or 16th seed at the end of the regular season, you are not the best team in the country regardless of what you do in the playoffs. You might be able to claim you're the luckiest team or the one that got hot at the right moment, but you're simply NOT the best team. It takes away much of what makes the regular season so important and replaces it with "just get in" like the NCAA BB tournament.

I've heard the argument that wild card teams in the NFL win the Super Bowl sometimes and prove they're the best. The problem there is that there's such parity in the NFL that the difference between the #1 team and the #8 or #12 team is rather small. It's like the difference between the best car in the Indy 500 and the 20th best - the 20th best is still about 98-99% as fast. In CFB, that's not the case. The difference between the #1 team and the #16 team is HUGE. This whole "more teams deserve a shot" participation trophy stuff is baloney. If you haven't shown you're one of the top few teams across the course of the regular season, you don't belong in the playoffs.

I'm not sure many athletes look at playing in a big tournament as "success", everyone wants to win and nobody plays just to "get in".

The parity argument is true though, the difference is so crazy between the top teams. Also if SEC/ACC go to 9 conference games to match the B10/PAC12, could you imagine running an SEC West schedule and then having to play 3 playoff games? No shot bucko. Obviously they have to work in a bye system to limit injury risks etc.

 

[BeauBenken]

Ironically the only solution to this is to get a bunch of these cross conference matchups and have teams outside the SEC actually win them. If the SEC gets 4 teams into a 12 team playoff and goes 0-4 I doubt they will get as big of a benefit of doubt the following season.

Thing is though I’d wager they would go 3-1 or 4-0 because they actually just are better right now. Texas A&M would destroy Michigan or Wake Forest.

Except in years past when they do play teams outside their conference in the postseason and lose it's blamed on the team not really caring about the game because it isn't the playoffs.

 

[Wild Bill]

Ironically the only solution to this is to get a bunch of these cross conference matchups and have teams outside the SEC actually win them. If the SEC gets 4 teams into a 12 team playoff and goes 0-4 I doubt they will get as big of a benefit of doubt the following season.

Thing is though I'd wager they would go 3-1 or 4-0 because they actually just are better right now. Texas A&M would destroy Michigan or Wake Forest.

I think this is just the perception based largely on how dominant bama plus the 2nd best team in the SEC have been the last decade. Take a look at A&M againt power 5 non SEC schools:

2015: beat Arizona State and lost to Louisville
2016: beat UCLA and lost to Kansas State
2017: lost to UCLA and Lost to Wake Forest
2018: lost to Clemson and beat NC State
2019: lost to Clemson and beat Okie State
2020: Beat UNC
2021: Beat Colorado (10-7)

They squeaked past Okie State and Colorado to get to .500 so I doubt they, or any other team outside of bama/Georgia (or whoever the 2nd SEC team is in any given year, would destroy a good team from another conference. I think that's especially true if playoff games are played in home stadiums and they have to come north in November.

 

[phork]

I would also like teams to be penalized for playing non FBS teams. In this day and age Alabama shouldn't be playing FCS teams. That should be regarded as a bye week and not count to your win total.

 

[Rogue219]

Ironically the only solution to this is to get a bunch of these cross conference matchups and have teams outside the SEC actually win them. If the SEC gets 4 teams into a 12 team playoff and goes 0-4 I doubt they will get as big of a benefit of doubt the following season.

Thing is though I’d wager they would go 3-1 or 4-0 because they actually just are better right now. Texas A&M would destroy Michigan or Wake Forest.

Northwestern has won four bowl games in a row and two of those were against Auburn and Kentucky. Auburn lost a bowl game to Minnesota the year before they lost to Northwestern. There are other examples if we look at recent bowl matchups between SEC teams and the pack. Mind you, these games are being played in nice weather in the southeast region.

How is this SEC dominance defined? To me if they are losing warm weather games on "neutral" sites and never play road games outside their region, I have a hard time assuming they're going to just blow everyone out of the water simply because this myth has been perpetuated for the last decade plus.

 

[Rogue219]

I would also like teams to be penalized for playing non FBS teams. In this day and age Alabama shouldn't be playing FCS teams. That should be regarded as a bye week and not count to your win total.

Yeah. In NOVEMBER too.

Auburn at least went up to Penn State in September. Bama, Florida, whoever should head up to East Lansing in November for a real game and we'll see how it goes.

 

[ndfi78]

I'm just not in favor of anything beyond 8, and I'm not really fond of even that. The point of a playoff is to determine the best team in the country. It's not a participation trophy, a reward for being the best in your conference, an opportunity to give everybody a chance to say they're a playoff team, nor to crown a mediocre team who got hot or lucky at the right time. It's about determining the best team in CFB, period. If you expand to 12 or 16, you're just tossing in a few teams that have no realistic claim on that at all. If you're 10th or 14th or 16th seed at the end of the regular season, you are not the best team in the country regardless of what you do in the playoffs. You might be able to claim you're the luckiest team or the one that got hot at the right moment, but you're simply NOT the best team. It takes away much of what makes the regular season so important and replaces it with "just get in" like the NCAA BB tournament.

I've heard the argument that wild card teams in the NFL win the Super Bowl sometimes and prove they're the best. The problem there is that there's such parity in the NFL that the difference between the #1 team and the #8 or #12 team is rather small. It's like the difference between the best car in the Indy 500 and the 20th best - the 20th best is still about 98-99% as fast. In CFB, that's not the case. The difference between the #1 team and the #16 team is HUGE. This whole "more teams deserve a shot" participation trophy stuff is baloney. If you haven't shown you're one of the top few teams across the course of the regular season, you don't belong in the playoffs.

The problem with your statement is there isn't enough cross conference play to really determine the best teams each year. There is too much eye test involved. It's not like the NFL where there is enough cross pollination that you can fairly accurately say these are the best teams.

 

[tko]

Whatever it takes to win this week and then we keep chopping wood.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Just win baby. We wont make the playoff but we could finish ranked top 5.

 

[T-Boone]

The problem with your statement is there isn't enough cross conference play to really determine the best teams each year. There is too much eye test involved. It's not like the NFL where there is enough cross pollination that you can fairly accurately say these are the best teams.

Maybe ND should try to talk more teams into being independent.

 

[BeatSC]

Based on our latest SOS we continue to get screwed week over week. Stanford lays down and dies for Utah. VT scores 3 against BC and Toledo the biggest black eye on our schedule loses another one! We need another Wisconsin win more than ever! In fact we need the to at least make it to the B10 championship game. Winning that game would be icing on our cake. Also need some heart from my Fav the Trojans. I doubt we will get it though. Style points today please.

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

It's not going to happen

 

[BeatSC]

It's not going to happen

Ye have little faith and no doubt are routing for an NY6 instead of the CFP. Startling today we are stile point mode. Average margin of victory 25 and over 40 points every game. We will pass the eye test.

 

[Dizzyphil]

To add to some of you all's points on the 'Eye Test' and other factors..... the one factor that is going to be the biggest decision maker is the almighty $$$$. The committee in conjunction with the Bowl Sponsor's Money is what matters - I mean, with all due respect to you fellas, let's get where the 'real' decisions are being made.

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

If Bama ends up with two losses and ND ends up with one loss I would bet on Bama being ranked ahead of ND in the final rankings. There is so much going wrong with our SOS it is nearly 0% we make the playoffs

 

[Dizzyphil]

If Bama ends up with two losses and ND ends up with one loss I would bet on Bama being ranked ahead of ND in the final rankings. There is so much going wrong with our SOS it is nearly 0% we make the playoffs

That loss is probably going to be in the SEC Championship game. AND - if the loss is within 7 points.... Bama drops to 4th and in three weeks, they play each other again. If the other way around, GA and Bama play in the NC game.

 

[BeatSC]

If Bama ends up with two losses and ND ends up with one loss I would bet on Bama being ranked ahead of ND in the final rankings. There is so much going wrong with our SOS it is nearly 0% we make the playoffs

No way 2 loss Bama gets in ahead of one loss ND. So Bama with two losses gets better ratings than an ND 11-1 team? Have we ever been left out with one loss? Who did we lose to? Undefeated team when as a team we were still figuring things out? This assumes we run the table convincingly and enough of these BS contested wins from here on out. If we continue to get better and peak we should be in. Worst case Bama has one loss and GA has one loss then we need Everyone to lose. Would be nice if Ohio State loses today.

 

[Dizzyphil]

No way 2 loss Bama gets in ahead of one loss ND. So Bama with two losses gets better ratings than an ND 11-1 team? Have we ever been left out with one loss? Who did we lose to? Undefeated team when as a team we were still figuring things out? This assumes we run the table convincingly and enough of these BS contested wins from here on out. If we continue to get better and peak we should be in. Worst case Bama has one loss and GA has one loss then we need Everyone to lose. Would be nice if Ohio State loses today.

Brother - I don't disagree with you at all. But the committee is the one making the decisions... The Irish would have to leap-frog a few teams which I think is going to be harder than dropping Bama further than 4th - especially if they play GA in a good/great game.

 

[Cackalacky2.0]

Our best scenario is we win out and stay in the top 10.

 

[ND88]

Only way Alabama is out of the CFP is with three losses. They control this shit. ND will be max 5-6th place if they win out. SOS is ugly, since we all know Cinci sucks and there’s no excuse we didn’t beat them.

 

[InKellyWeTrust]

Only way Alabama is out of the CFP is with three losses. They control this shit. ND will be max 5-6th place if they win out. SOS is ugly, since we all know Cinci sucks and there’s no excuse we didn’t beat them.

Agree. 6th is probably the highest we could climb outside of multiple crazy upsets

 

[Irish2155]

No way 2 loss Bama gets in ahead of one loss ND. So Bama with two losses gets better ratings than an ND 11-1 team? Have we ever been left out with one loss? Who did we lose to? Undefeated team when as a team we were still figuring things out? This assumes we run the table convincingly and enough of these BS contested wins from here on out. If we continue to get better and peak we should be in. Worst case Bama has one loss and GA has one loss then we need Everyone to lose. Would be nice if Ohio State loses today.

I agree, except we minus a big win. Wish MSU was on our schedule this year.

 

[Irish2155]

Agree. 6th is probably the highest we could climb outside of multiple crazy upsets

IU beats Michigan tonight we’ll be 7 on Tuesday with still lot of football to be played.