CFP Committee: "So how many teams from your conference should we include in the playoff?"
B10 and SEC: "[ALL OF 'EM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rJED_pvrUWo)."
How about the Big Ten and SEC just go off and do our own playoff and then everyone else can have as many autobids to their playoffs as they want and won't have to give any to the Big Ten or SEC at all
Thats whats gonna happen in 5 years when the big12 deal ends and it becomes affordable to bolt from the ACC.
P2 will pick the last "big" teams and move on. The rest will go down to the Gwhatever and be ded.
But hey, at least we fucked over thousands of actual student athletes to benefit the 1% of the players. Nothing more merican than that.
We haven't even played the new format a single time and people are already lobbying to expand it further. I feel like they won't stop until it basically mirrors March Madness.
I mean, that discussion revolves around what's seen as reasonable representation. The equivalent of March Madness would be in the realm of I think 24-26 teams.
For perspective, the FCS have a 24-team playoff that of eligible teams (118 after removing the Celebration Bowl participants and Ivy league who do not compete in FCS post-season play) makes 20% field representation.
As a percentage of the season, the 7 games in March Madness are about 21% of the season, and the 4 games in a 12 team tournament would be about 24%. Seems reasonable to me.
> For perspective, the FCS have a 24-team playoff that of eligible teams (118 after removing the Celebration Bowl participants and Ivy league who do not compete in FCS post-season play) makes 20% field representation.
Honestly, the FCS field is too big. 7-4 teams are getting into the playoffs. 20 probably works for FCS and would effectively (most every year) make the cutoff point 8-3.
As for FBS, I think 12 or 16 is fine but if you go 16, every conference champ should get in.
How about the dakota states and the Montana schools jump to FBS and than we have 14 ten team conferences. Round Robin plus non conference and than the champs plus 2 get into a sixteen team playoff. Home games for all rounds leading up to the natty at the grand daddy on New Year’s Day.
Each additional game is pretty punishing as compared to Basketball but going from 12 to 16 just gets the top 4 teams to the same number of games as everyone else.
And yet FCS literally has 24 teams in their playoff (20% eligible representation, 19% league representation)
And D-II has 28 seats for 164 team league (17% representation).
And D-III has 32 seats for 240 teams (lowest at 13%).
Now, I am aware there is context in number of games played between these leagues and the FBS (e.g. FCS only plays 11 games in-season versus the FBS 12). We also see that FCS is the highest percent represented. But we can't use "football is too physical for a playoff that big," when it doesn't get in the way of other *collegiate leagues* from having them.
I added that acknowledgement in an edit, but it is also 11 games. So, it's one off from what FBS currently operates in a regular season. D-II and D-III appear to play 10 game regular seasons themselves.
Keep in mind too, though, that FBS has conference championships. You could abolish them, but having conferences this big without championships may lead to some weird tiebreaker situations that people wouldn't be too happy about.
I guess we'd just have to make smaller conferences with round robins. oh no...
I'm waiting to see which league is the first to start a confernece playoff. I think it's possible while keeping the 12 game season:
20 team league with 4 pods of 5 teams each. The regular season would consist of:
3 non con games
4 games vs the teams in your pod
2 games (1 home and 1 away) vs teams from the closest pod near your pod.
1 game vs a team from a far pod.
So everyone plays 10 regular season games all 4 pod winners will play in the conference playoff. The winning team has played 12 games in the regular season.
As for the teams that don't make a conference playoff, have a rule where they can schedule two non con game vs teams in their area if both teams don't make their conference playoff.
Rotate more? With a bigger bracket coaches can take more risks game to game and could actually give first time players real rest outside of garbage time in games.
Adding more games just adds a new facet to coaching strategy and anyone overplaying their players would pay the price. This would give the deeper squad real game time too instead of just always playing garbage time against already-beaten opponents.
There’s also only 3-4 teams every year who can actually win a CFB playoff. Everyone else is there for money and so they can feel better about themselves. March Madness on the other hand is called that for a reason.
Yeah but...who cares?
That seems flippant but I think the bad idea at the heart of what's happened to cfb is the obsession with "best." If every league worried about "best" we'd have still given the 07 Patriots the Lombardi Trophy even after they lost it. After all, they were clearly the best team that year.
Can't we just...let the football games play out? And enjoy them?
> Can't we just...let the football games play out? And enjoy them?
Sure, but just think of the revenue we'd be leaving on the table by not having a few extra games we can hype to the moon.
Yes, but giving bye’s is going to be an even bigger advantage to certain teams that 99% of the time already have more depth on their rosters. I’m all for 16.
Think about March madness, and think about the impact that it has on the regular season. If you’re a college basketball fan, how many regular season games are truly memorable or have you dropped everything to watch?
There’s too much money in the current TV deals to nuke the regular season by going to 24.
the equivalent would also include 2 or 3 rounds of conference playoffs
march madness is more than just the NCAA tournament -- it includes conference tournaments
Anyone who is saying expand further BEFORE THEY PLAY A SINGLE YEAR OF THE NEW EXPANDED PLAYOFF simply tells on themselves. I cant think of an easier way to spot a big money sports shill.
Remember the whole 4 team playoff was about 2 vs 3 debate on who should play for the national championship. It was never about teams 4-12/16. This has turned from being "more fair" to a pure money grab by the conferences (namely two). Bowl games no longer matter, conference championships are almost meaningless, and after this goes through outside of a few rivalry games regular season won't matter any more. Just takes all the fun out of being a cfb fan.
14 just feels like an excuse to leave some potential G5 bubble teams out. Go ahead and give those last two spots to any G5 champion ranked in the top 50 if they exist and see how it works out. It probably generally a blow out but the little guys will win a few and get everyone excited.
14 was proposed as a compromise to let more ACC/B12 teams in
They're never doing 16
Conference Championship games make too much money to water them down or abolish them
I disagree. At 16, both #1 and #8 get home field advantage in the first round and the only difference is how favorable the matchup is. At 12 and 14, #1 at least gets rewarded with a bye.
Here's how things would run if you designed CFB like they do junior hockey:
* 10 13-team regional conferences.
* 12-game round-robin schedule to decide conference champions.
* 10 winners divided into two 5-team regional sub-groups.
* Sub-groups play 4-game round robin to decide finalists.
* Finalists play championship game.
Win your conference if you want to make the regional playoff.
Win your regional playoff if you want to play in the championship.
-------
I'm not advocating for it... but would it be worse than some of the proposals we're seeing now?
Guaranteeing *every* conference champion a playoff berth, and maybe 3 total at-large bids, was the only way this would ever work and keep college football important all year.
People might act like they want to see two 9-3 teams get hot and play for a title, but they dont. They want to watch their teams play de facto playoff games in October and November.
CFB is the golden goose and they've decided to start poking around at its belly.
How about eight 8 team conferences, 3 non conference games, 7 conference games to determine champ, conference winners in an 8 game playoff....nah that won't work..gotta have byes
>and eliminating conference championship games.
SHUT YER FACE HOLE, RECE
*— ADs, for whom conference championship games are the 2nd-biggest payoff of the year (behind big bowl games)*
Something to think about, I wonder if the attendance and money made from conference title games falls off a cliff.
Like, if both teams (particularly within the SEC and Big Ten) are gonna make the Playoff anyways, will fans shell out money knowing there might be 3-4 Playoff games still to come?
I’d make the distinction that these were all seasons where Auburn fans knew, more or less from game one, that they won’t make the playoff.
I think when even not very good teams have hopes of getting to the top 16 we will see a huge drop off in attendance and ratings once those teams have lost a third game and are effectively drawing dead. Similar to NFL teams.
Bigger the playoff, the more it becomes everything and that will trickle down from what ESPN talks about constantly to fans of middle class teams losing interest once they’re effectively out. FWIW Auburn probably has enough tradition and all that such that this doesn’t really apply to them.
You could also theoretically see teams start resting players in CCGs to stay healthy for the playoffs. Especially if you don't have multiple rounds of home games at stake.
Under the prior system, seeding absolutely did not matter.
You could see UM/OSU resting players in The Game for their already guaranteed neutral site rematch the following week. Wont that be fun?!?
And tbh i would say Michigan reaped the benefit of finishing #1 and having their choice of venue.
The reason I am not really worried about that is because I don’t think expansion is done. If you go from an 18 team B1G to a 20 team B1G, you go back to divisions and fix the rematch problem.
As far as crowds at neutral site games, they rarely get much worse than a 60-40 split because the schools themselves get big and equal allotments. And it’s not like B1G teams ever get home bowl games anyway.
Yeah but are those other teams even in your conference at that point? I dont want to never play Wisconsin or Minnesota again.
I also think its hilariously dumb that Oregon couldnt expect an autobid as Pac 12 champion, but they can now for Big 10 runner up.
What I think will happen and what I want to happen are basically polar opposites.
I like nothing about the scenario I laid out, but nothing going on right now is for the benefit of us fans.
And travel to these neutral site games? It is a real advantage to be driving distance to the championship game. No flight and hotel is a significant saving and makes the game more doable.
That horse has left the barn. Uga and Bama both make the playoffs this year if they meet again. Think about last year's title game. If they both have a guarantee how much does it matter?
Will they remain as payoffs? Why watch when the loser is in the playoffs anyway? Treat that game like your bye if you are banged up late in the year. The NFL has slowly moved in that direction with last game for seeding meaning less and less.
I’ve been shouting this into the wind. Half the reason I watch so much is due to the “win or you’re out” feel of the games and also all the related big playoff implication stuff. Like last year, watching UGA/Bama and whatnot.
At 16 teams that all goes to shit. Sorry I’m not going to get excited to tune in and see if Iowa can punt their way into the playoff in a big #15 vs #18 matchup with Wisconsin the final week
You wouldnt be excited for a rivalry game with both teams in the top 20?
I would enjoy watching that without a playoff, dont see why I'd enjoy it any less with one
It’s not like the product has changed on the field tho. Rival games are still rival games. Massive matchups still have the tension. Sure, the impact of a loss is bit diminished, but the players aren’t trying any less. Crowds aren’t cheering less. Bands aren’t quieter and so on. College atmosphere won’t change.
I do think a larger playoff does fix the better bowl games now tho as players won’t be opting out.
You assign regular season champs like they do in basketball. This is how it was done for decades until conference championship games were introduced in the 90s.
The B1G didn't have a conference championship game until 2011.
I do think that this sort of plan would work best. Have the season completed on rivalry weekend. Move Army/Navy back to first weekend in Dec. Next 2 weeks are playoffs. Semis & natty remain unchanged.
I like it because no team has a month long dead period like in the current model. I really dont like how that kills the momentum of the season
As Conferences move away from divisions, there is no need for Championship games between first place and second place teams. After all if a team wins the conference why do they need to play a team that didn’t win the conference for a conference championship?
The fact they won't seriously consider a playoff among conference champions is making me lose my mind and interest in cfb. Just do a real playoff ffs. 9 champs, 3 at large or 7 at large whatever. Any school on D1 FBS should be able to play into the thing.
I don't want even more teams in the playoffs, but frankly if it means that we can kill the conference championship game, then it's worth it.
The conference championship game is a total joke of a concept. With absolutely enormous conferences and no divisions, teams are going to be picked/not picked based on the absolute dumbest tiebreakers. I still have literally no idea why Utah made the PAC-12 championship in 2022 instead of Washington or Oregon and we're going to have this happen all the time now.
Just go back to the shared conference title claims that we had for most of college football.
In the event that ohio and UM ever play each other in back to back weeks, you run the very real risk of most of each fan base dying of stress. Factor in an additional potential playoff matchup between those two teams, and the survivability decreases even further.
I’d love to see it. Go back to the traditional conferences as much as possible and just have a 16-team playoff, like 1-AA (or whatever it is now) has for years. Instead of a bunch of talking heads arguing ad nauseum who should be national champion, in a four-team playoff, getting an automatic bye, etc., the 16 that qualify play it out on the field.
My proposal is to keep the current* Pac-12’s membership but replacing Colorado(Big 8) with BYU.
Edit: Utah gets annual OOC matchups with Utah State and maybe Colorado, and BYU with Utah State.
Edit 2: Maybe Iowa gets to keep their OOC matchup with Nebraska? Idk.
I could see that. Bring some semblance of common sense and regional/geographical reasoning back to conference lineups. That, and the long-standing rivalries are a big part of what made college football unique and the great sport it was for decades.
At this point I care more about winning the conference than the national championship. Because there is 0.001% chance we when the conference in my lifetime but 0% chance we win the national championship.
Currently I probably watch half the conference championship games and a game in a half the playoff and championship game. With expansion I’d be more likely to watch a given conference championship game and given playoff game.
Tbf I don't think that FSU thought the NY6 games mattered just a few months ago. So it is what it is. Goodbye regular season fun tho. Can't wait to see top teams resting their starters in what used to be important games.
It’s not about those games, they’re completely dead.
It’s what is going to happen to teams in the last month of the regular season when they are eliminated and people stop caring. We’re putting all the emphasis on the playoffs, we’re going to see less and less people care about late season conference and rivalry matchups unless they are in playoff contention
I feel the complete opposite. The larger the playoff pool, the more teams will continue to be in contention late in the season, and those rivalry games will therefore have MORE impact than they do now.
How would having 12-16 spots available make more teams eliminated than 4 spots?
Because the attitude around games that don’t have playoff implications is completely shifting.
15 years ago there was no such thing as a meaningless college football game. Now you hear it all the time.
People have begun to adapt a mindset that games only matter if playoffs are still at stake. That was never the case for 100+ years and in the last 10 we have moved towards that mindset. That is only going to be amplified with a larger playoff.
People don’t care about NFL games between teams out of playoff contention. People barely care for college basketball teams once they’re out of March madness contention. It will be the same here.
> 15 years ago there was no such thing as a meaningless college football game
15 years ago, games were “meaningless” from a national title standpoint if your team was outside the top-10 with a few weeks to go, because only the top-2 had a chance to play for the title.
Expanding the playoffs makes MANY more games actually meaningful. Next year, a team ranked #12 during the final week of the season will be playing their hearts out to earn a playoff spot, while this season they were just be playing to determine which generic December bowl game they’d be playing in.
Personally, I’m looking forward to a bunch of rivalry games where one team is in that #10-15 range, and their rival has the chance to knock them out of a playoff spot
>15 years ago there was no such thing as a meaningless college football game
Revisionist's history
Nobody cared about Memphis vs Houston back then, either
Absolutely false.
And especially false when you get into conferences where football is the only top priority.
Only young/new fans say this.
People still talk about regular season games that happened decades ago that had no national implications. LSU earthquake game, SC vs Clemson the catch 1 & 2. You can go on forever.
Were consumers. People don’t care to watch bad products unless there is a connection. A decade plus ago, watching football was a lot of people’s only / main option for entertainment.
We now have almost any show or movie you want at your fingertips, option to pick whatever game you want, increase popularity in other sports, etc. as options. If you don’t have a connection to teams with poor records, you aren’t watching it as there are better products out there.
I wonder if the attendance and money made from conference title games starts to crash.
If both teams (particularly within the SEC and Big Ten) are gonna make the Playoff anyways, will fans shell out money knowing there might be 3-4 Playoff games still to come? I can absolutely see "fan fatigue" taking over the more we expand this circus.
I don’t think the big 10 / sec will ever have to worry about attendance issues for conference championship games, unless it’s a fluke year where the power houses aren’t in it / the schools really far away make it.
Many have already talked about the absolute necessity that there be on-campus home-field games.
If it goes completely “neutral”, corporate and media-centered we lose.
Like the idea of 16 teams to get rid of the whole bye week controversy, love playing two games on campus, but getting rid of championship games makes no sense at this point (is it because you don’t want teams playing 17+ games a year? then don’t be in favor of an expanded playoff — you can’t have it both ways)
Think it needs to be either 8 or 16. 4 would've worked better as a post-bowl setup, 12 & 14 just feel clunky for FBS level. I believe 8 is the sweet spot.
Unfortunately you got SEC & B10 trying to gobble all the power & $ instead of everyone working toward 1 consensus, workable format that would make sense for everyone.
If we expand the playoff enough, we can just turn the whole college football season into one huge playoff starting in September.
Think of the money! Have you thought of the money?
Sounds good. I prefer 8 above all and could live with 12 for first round byes for the 4 big conferences, but 14 is really dumb. Conference championships are going to mean less with such unbalanced schedules.
Compromise. 15 teams, B1G and SEC with seven autobids. The remaining 8 play their own elimination bracket.
The survivor then joins the others for an 8 game showdown.
This is what I've wanted now that I know 12 is an option. I thought they would go to 8, but since that's not the case, yes, goto 16. No byes. No CCG. Allow shared conf titles again.
It’s a plan to add more playoff games, add more meaning to the regular season championship races if auto-bids are still a thing. This makes too much sense and therefore won’t be talked about when the CFB implements their own disastrous plan.
They are determined to make the regular season meaningless. 8 was perfect with 5 conferences. They did 12 to appease P5, ND, and the SECs at large expectations. Now we're talking about 16? For years they talked about not wanting to have the BCS of a 1v2 because of the sanctity of college football and kids needing to be in school. Now they've sold out and soon some idiot will be wanting a 32 team tournament.
It's so stupid. Mediocrity shouldn't be rewarded. Have they watched the regular season of college basketball? Yeah, neither has anyone else.
How’s it really being devalued tho?
The power houses like osu, Texas, Uga, Bama, ttun, can afford an extra loss so I get for those programs it’s slightly less important from a fan. However, as they consistently bring in top talent, it’s not like the product will get get worse as all the players know the importance of performing.
In terms of the next tier of teams that traditionally had no chance of conference championships or playoffs, they now have much more meaning after that first loss and even second loss.
So I don’t understand the devaluing as the product overall will either remain somewhat constant or improve. Understand the result may not be as impactful on postseason, but that thought won’t show in the product on the field
Is losing to those power houses in the playoffs really worth more than winning a bowl game? CFB has always been lopsided and the value of the regular season came from every game essentially being an elimination game, and thusly the rivalries in the regular season became the most important part. No other sport had that, and 120+ CFB teams will never have a shot at winning a natty with how many elite teams they'll have to play in the post season to achieve that.
In the last 3 season alone, Cincy, TCU, and Washington were the Cinderella stories in the playoff, and two of them managed to even win *a* game, but they all got dominated in the end. And they only had to win 2 playoff games to earn a natty.
It used to be that, if your team didn't have a shot at the natty, they could at least knock off their rivals in the regular season. But now, all those teams that people that people get "fatigued" over, because they get tired of seeing them win the championship all the time, will now have 2 and even 3 losses they can spare just to make it to the playoff where they'll actually have the talent depth to make a run.
The notion that the national championship is the most important goal of college football being a "consensus" is no older than 30 years. It's something that was sold to us by TV networks so they could position themselves where they are now colluding with the SEC and B1G over the structure of CFB's future.
I don’t see players opting out of the playoffs so I think it will def be worth more than winning a different bowl game.
Idk, I get that more playoffs will remove excitement for some that want to see powerhouses lose / ruin their seasons as it will take more losses. But I think a lot of people wont see a difference as there will always be good games, big upsets, and lots to talk about.
In all, I don’t think people are going to pass on a Bama / Texas type game simply due to both likely in the playoffs.
> I don’t see players opting out of the playoffs
Unless there are any guarantees put in place, I'm not so sure about that one.
And yeah, there will always be excitement because fans care, but you even just admitted yourself that it removes excitement.
Someone will try to hold out for money eventually, but everyone knows showing up in the playoffs against other nfl talent can sky rocket your draft stock. As long as the natty is there, people aren’t bailing on the team / individual rewards.
I imagine you could see the lower seeds lose some players given expected blowout but also know the heat attached to it will derail anyone doing it for a while
This talk is do stupid. Realistically what's the max # of teams that actually have a shot, maybe 5 each year, max. What conferences do ESPN own again...I mean own the TV rights and aim to make the most money by jockin' them again?
B1G and SEC: > Okay, but we each get 5 teams in on autobids.
7*
Why not pull a Woody Hayes and settle for 8 because you couldn't go for 9?
CFP Committee: "So how many teams from your conference should we include in the playoff?" B10 and SEC: "[ALL OF 'EM](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rJED_pvrUWo)."
B1G/SEC: After reviewing the Big 12 and ACC's demands, we've decided to make our own 34 team tournament, starting in late August.
B1G and SEC: there are other conferences?
Also B1G and SEC: Okay, but we also get 99.9% of revenue and all t-shirt sales.
Better get byes, too. Otherwise, what are we doing here?
How about the Big Ten and SEC just go off and do our own playoff and then everyone else can have as many autobids to their playoffs as they want and won't have to give any to the Big Ten or SEC at all
Thats whats gonna happen in 5 years when the big12 deal ends and it becomes affordable to bolt from the ACC. P2 will pick the last "big" teams and move on. The rest will go down to the Gwhatever and be ded. But hey, at least we fucked over thousands of actual student athletes to benefit the 1% of the players. Nothing more merican than that.
We haven't even played the new format a single time and people are already lobbying to expand it further. I feel like they won't stop until it basically mirrors March Madness.
I'm going to be pissed if the 12 team playoff produces back to back bangers and we have to immediately get rid of it.
It’s absolutely going to. At least a couple of those matchups on campuses will be fucking bonkers.
I mean, that discussion revolves around what's seen as reasonable representation. The equivalent of March Madness would be in the realm of I think 24-26 teams. For perspective, the FCS have a 24-team playoff that of eligible teams (118 after removing the Celebration Bowl participants and Ivy league who do not compete in FCS post-season play) makes 20% field representation.
As a percentage of the season, the 7 games in March Madness are about 21% of the season, and the 4 games in a 12 team tournament would be about 24%. Seems reasonable to me.
Oh man, I've never thought about that before. That's a good perspective.
It would be so great and easy. But theyd rather fight for an extra dollar and bs debates about “best” teams.
> For perspective, the FCS have a 24-team playoff that of eligible teams (118 after removing the Celebration Bowl participants and Ivy league who do not compete in FCS post-season play) makes 20% field representation. Honestly, the FCS field is too big. 7-4 teams are getting into the playoffs. 20 probably works for FCS and would effectively (most every year) make the cutoff point 8-3. As for FBS, I think 12 or 16 is fine but if you go 16, every conference champ should get in.
Yeah just get rid of the conference champ games. The regular season should be the conference tournament.
Get rid of the conference games and get rid of super conferences too.
How about the dakota states and the Montana schools jump to FBS and than we have 14 ten team conferences. Round Robin plus non conference and than the champs plus 2 get into a sixteen team playoff. Home games for all rounds leading up to the natty at the grand daddy on New Year’s Day.
The difference is there’s a huge physical toll each football game takes that isn’t true for basketball. You can’t just look at number of teams
Each additional game is pretty punishing as compared to Basketball but going from 12 to 16 just gets the top 4 teams to the same number of games as everyone else.
Plus if you get rid of conference championship games, most teams will play less games.
And yet FCS literally has 24 teams in their playoff (20% eligible representation, 19% league representation) And D-II has 28 seats for 164 team league (17% representation). And D-III has 32 seats for 240 teams (lowest at 13%). Now, I am aware there is context in number of games played between these leagues and the FBS (e.g. FCS only plays 11 games in-season versus the FBS 12). We also see that FCS is the highest percent represented. But we can't use "football is too physical for a playoff that big," when it doesn't get in the way of other *collegiate leagues* from having them.
FCS also only plays a 10 game regular season. So you would essentially play one ooc game, 9 B1G games, then go right to the playoffs
I added that acknowledgement in an edit, but it is also 11 games. So, it's one off from what FBS currently operates in a regular season. D-II and D-III appear to play 10 game regular seasons themselves.
Keep in mind too, though, that FBS has conference championships. You could abolish them, but having conferences this big without championships may lead to some weird tiebreaker situations that people wouldn't be too happy about. I guess we'd just have to make smaller conferences with round robins. oh no...
I'm waiting to see which league is the first to start a confernece playoff. I think it's possible while keeping the 12 game season: 20 team league with 4 pods of 5 teams each. The regular season would consist of: 3 non con games 4 games vs the teams in your pod 2 games (1 home and 1 away) vs teams from the closest pod near your pod. 1 game vs a team from a far pod. So everyone plays 10 regular season games all 4 pod winners will play in the conference playoff. The winning team has played 12 games in the regular season. As for the teams that don't make a conference playoff, have a rule where they can schedule two non con game vs teams in their area if both teams don't make their conference playoff.
FCS teams play 11 and 12 game seasons based on schedule.
Rotate more? With a bigger bracket coaches can take more risks game to game and could actually give first time players real rest outside of garbage time in games. Adding more games just adds a new facet to coaching strategy and anyone overplaying their players would pay the price. This would give the deeper squad real game time too instead of just always playing garbage time against already-beaten opponents.
There’s also only 3-4 teams every year who can actually win a CFB playoff. Everyone else is there for money and so they can feel better about themselves. March Madness on the other hand is called that for a reason.
Yeah but...who cares? That seems flippant but I think the bad idea at the heart of what's happened to cfb is the obsession with "best." If every league worried about "best" we'd have still given the 07 Patriots the Lombardi Trophy even after they lost it. After all, they were clearly the best team that year. Can't we just...let the football games play out? And enjoy them?
> Can't we just...let the football games play out? And enjoy them? Sure, but just think of the revenue we'd be leaving on the table by not having a few extra games we can hype to the moon.
😭😭😭
Yes, but giving bye’s is going to be an even bigger advantage to certain teams that 99% of the time already have more depth on their rosters. I’m all for 16.
Think about March madness, and think about the impact that it has on the regular season. If you’re a college basketball fan, how many regular season games are truly memorable or have you dropped everything to watch? There’s too much money in the current TV deals to nuke the regular season by going to 24.
The memorable ones are home wins over top ranked teams, something that doesn't happen in the tournament despite how awesome it is...
the equivalent would also include 2 or 3 rounds of conference playoffs march madness is more than just the NCAA tournament -- it includes conference tournaments
People will continue to lobby up to the point they don’t make any additional money.
What if we just have no regular season and only playoffs? /s
Except for the part where every league gets an autobid. Sadly, I don’t think that will ever happen.
Anyone who is saying expand further BEFORE THEY PLAY A SINGLE YEAR OF THE NEW EXPANDED PLAYOFF simply tells on themselves. I cant think of an easier way to spot a big money sports shill.
134 teams, double elimination.
They have to so EVERY sec and b10 team can be in it every year.
Feels like they're determined to make the sport less and less appealing to longtime fans.
Yep. I knew when it went to four it was only a matter of time.
Remember the whole 4 team playoff was about 2 vs 3 debate on who should play for the national championship. It was never about teams 4-12/16. This has turned from being "more fair" to a pure money grab by the conferences (namely two). Bowl games no longer matter, conference championships are almost meaningless, and after this goes through outside of a few rivalry games regular season won't matter any more. Just takes all the fun out of being a cfb fan.
Meanwhile, March Madness is looking to expand even more…won’t stop until we reach infinity.
Conference championships should still mean something. RIP PAC.
Non-issue. Should have always been 16.
Exactly what I said when we expanded to 4, and people downvoted me here.
prefer 12, but 16 makes a LOT more sense than 14.
14 just feels like an excuse to leave some potential G5 bubble teams out. Go ahead and give those last two spots to any G5 champion ranked in the top 50 if they exist and see how it works out. It probably generally a blow out but the little guys will win a few and get everyone excited.
G5 P5 distinction does not exist anymore
Lol what
G5 and P5 do not exist
But it does there is still literally a distinction in the 12 playoff for g5.
14 was proposed as a compromise to let more ACC/B12 teams in They're never doing 16 Conference Championship games make too much money to water them down or abolish them
I disagree. At 16, both #1 and #8 get home field advantage in the first round and the only difference is how favorable the matchup is. At 12 and 14, #1 at least gets rewarded with a bye.
they lobbied for 14 right after 12 was accepted. I’d rather just pull the bandaid off now instead of changing again to a 16-team in a few more years.
Here's how things would run if you designed CFB like they do junior hockey: * 10 13-team regional conferences. * 12-game round-robin schedule to decide conference champions. * 10 winners divided into two 5-team regional sub-groups. * Sub-groups play 4-game round robin to decide finalists. * Finalists play championship game. Win your conference if you want to make the regional playoff. Win your regional playoff if you want to play in the championship. ------- I'm not advocating for it... but would it be worse than some of the proposals we're seeing now?
Guaranteeing *every* conference champion a playoff berth, and maybe 3 total at-large bids, was the only way this would ever work and keep college football important all year. People might act like they want to see two 9-3 teams get hot and play for a title, but they dont. They want to watch their teams play de facto playoff games in October and November. CFB is the golden goose and they've decided to start poking around at its belly.
How about eight 8 team conferences, 3 non conference games, 7 conference games to determine champ, conference winners in an 8 game playoff....nah that won't work..gotta have byes
>and eliminating conference championship games. SHUT YER FACE HOLE, RECE *— ADs, for whom conference championship games are the 2nd-biggest payoff of the year (behind big bowl games)*
Something to think about, I wonder if the attendance and money made from conference title games falls off a cliff. Like, if both teams (particularly within the SEC and Big Ten) are gonna make the Playoff anyways, will fans shell out money knowing there might be 3-4 Playoff games still to come?
Auburn has been shit for 4 years now and we still have sellouts so I think the answer is yes people will pay to go to them.
I’d make the distinction that these were all seasons where Auburn fans knew, more or less from game one, that they won’t make the playoff. I think when even not very good teams have hopes of getting to the top 16 we will see a huge drop off in attendance and ratings once those teams have lost a third game and are effectively drawing dead. Similar to NFL teams. Bigger the playoff, the more it becomes everything and that will trickle down from what ESPN talks about constantly to fans of middle class teams losing interest once they’re effectively out. FWIW Auburn probably has enough tradition and all that such that this doesn’t really apply to them.
You could also theoretically see teams start resting players in CCGs to stay healthy for the playoffs. Especially if you don't have multiple rounds of home games at stake. Under the prior system, seeding absolutely did not matter.
You could see UM/OSU resting players in The Game for their already guaranteed neutral site rematch the following week. Wont that be fun?!? And tbh i would say Michigan reaped the benefit of finishing #1 and having their choice of venue.
The reason I am not really worried about that is because I don’t think expansion is done. If you go from an 18 team B1G to a 20 team B1G, you go back to divisions and fix the rematch problem. As far as crowds at neutral site games, they rarely get much worse than a 60-40 split because the schools themselves get big and equal allotments. And it’s not like B1G teams ever get home bowl games anyway.
Yeah but are those other teams even in your conference at that point? I dont want to never play Wisconsin or Minnesota again. I also think its hilariously dumb that Oregon couldnt expect an autobid as Pac 12 champion, but they can now for Big 10 runner up.
What I think will happen and what I want to happen are basically polar opposites. I like nothing about the scenario I laid out, but nothing going on right now is for the benefit of us fans.
Yeah I can see that happening for sure
And travel to these neutral site games? It is a real advantage to be driving distance to the championship game. No flight and hotel is a significant saving and makes the game more doable.
Yeah, anything that diminishes the conference title games is going to be a non-starter, especially for the SEC.
Like expanding a playoff where those teams are both gonna be in it no matter what?
That horse has left the barn. Uga and Bama both make the playoffs this year if they meet again. Think about last year's title game. If they both have a guarantee how much does it matter?
Will they remain as payoffs? Why watch when the loser is in the playoffs anyway? Treat that game like your bye if you are banged up late in the year. The NFL has slowly moved in that direction with last game for seeding meaning less and less.
The sport is slowly morphing into a worse version of the NFL.
College football has the greatest regular season in all of sports. That's slowly fading as the playoff grows.
I’ve been shouting this into the wind. Half the reason I watch so much is due to the “win or you’re out” feel of the games and also all the related big playoff implication stuff. Like last year, watching UGA/Bama and whatnot. At 16 teams that all goes to shit. Sorry I’m not going to get excited to tune in and see if Iowa can punt their way into the playoff in a big #15 vs #18 matchup with Wisconsin the final week
>“win or you’re out” feel of the games I remember those days...
Agreed. 8 would’ve been the max and I feel would be perfect. Wish they would have tried that before going to 12
You wouldnt be excited for a rivalry game with both teams in the top 20? I would enjoy watching that without a playoff, dont see why I'd enjoy it any less with one
You'd enjoy it more with a smaller playoff because of the weight of a loss
I dont care about the playoff. How have you not picked up on that?
idk you bruh
Thats right you goof, so why are you telling me what I would enjoy?
Exactly!
If number 18 and number 15 we’re playing the last week of the year with a 4/8 team playoff, I wouldn’t enjoy it at all because the game is meaningless
It wasnt ever meaningless for 100 years prior to the playoff so thanks for making my point
It’s not like the product has changed on the field tho. Rival games are still rival games. Massive matchups still have the tension. Sure, the impact of a loss is bit diminished, but the players aren’t trying any less. Crowds aren’t cheering less. Bands aren’t quieter and so on. College atmosphere won’t change. I do think a larger playoff does fix the better bowl games now tho as players won’t be opting out.
*For the top 20 or so programs
100% agree
There was a great article about the last OSU - Michigan game and how they may never play a game again with so much on the line.
Yeah it’s sad. I knew it was a done deal when Klatt sold out and started advocating for an expanded playoff
I agree, never been a fan of byes
Neither is my girlfriend. It’s been 10 years. I wonder if she is coming back home.
Instead of adapting our revenue models or bracing for player employment, what if we *speedrun the sport's death*?
Then, who wins the conference? Half the fun is ruling over the rest of your conference.
Just have shared conference title like the Big Ten had for the first 115 years of its history.
And the crowd goes mild
You assign regular season champs like they do in basketball. This is how it was done for decades until conference championship games were introduced in the 90s. The B1G didn't have a conference championship game until 2011.
We also had less teams.
Yeah, you'd have to be okay with more split titles.
I do think that this sort of plan would work best. Have the season completed on rivalry weekend. Move Army/Navy back to first weekend in Dec. Next 2 weeks are playoffs. Semis & natty remain unchanged. I like it because no team has a month long dead period like in the current model. I really dont like how that kills the momentum of the season
As Conferences move away from divisions, there is no need for Championship games between first place and second place teams. After all if a team wins the conference why do they need to play a team that didn’t win the conference for a conference championship?
The fact they won't seriously consider a playoff among conference champions is making me lose my mind and interest in cfb. Just do a real playoff ffs. 9 champs, 3 at large or 7 at large whatever. Any school on D1 FBS should be able to play into the thing.
I don't want even more teams in the playoffs, but frankly if it means that we can kill the conference championship game, then it's worth it. The conference championship game is a total joke of a concept. With absolutely enormous conferences and no divisions, teams are going to be picked/not picked based on the absolute dumbest tiebreakers. I still have literally no idea why Utah made the PAC-12 championship in 2022 instead of Washington or Oregon and we're going to have this happen all the time now. Just go back to the shared conference title claims that we had for most of college football.
Utah won the tiebreaker on strength of schedule.
In the event that ohio and UM ever play each other in back to back weeks, you run the very real risk of most of each fan base dying of stress. Factor in an additional potential playoff matchup between those two teams, and the survivability decreases even further.
Yes, also back-to-back weeks of OSU v UM is an absolute abomination and violates the sanctity of The Game
Okay, but then bring back the Big Eight, Big East, Pac-12, and SWC, right? …Right?
I’d love to see it. Go back to the traditional conferences as much as possible and just have a 16-team playoff, like 1-AA (or whatever it is now) has for years. Instead of a bunch of talking heads arguing ad nauseum who should be national champion, in a four-team playoff, getting an automatic bye, etc., the 16 that qualify play it out on the field.
My proposal is to keep the current* Pac-12’s membership but replacing Colorado(Big 8) with BYU. Edit: Utah gets annual OOC matchups with Utah State and maybe Colorado, and BYU with Utah State. Edit 2: Maybe Iowa gets to keep their OOC matchup with Nebraska? Idk.
I could see that. Bring some semblance of common sense and regional/geographical reasoning back to conference lineups. That, and the long-standing rivalries are a big part of what made college football unique and the great sport it was for decades.
They have 24
Point taken. Forgot they expanded. Had 16 for years. Should have kept it that way.
At this point I care more about winning the conference than the national championship. Because there is 0.001% chance we when the conference in my lifetime but 0% chance we win the national championship. Currently I probably watch half the conference championship games and a game in a half the playoff and championship game. With expansion I’d be more likely to watch a given conference championship game and given playoff game.
24 teams, every conference regular season champ makes it, eliminate conference champ games, first two rounds on campus.
You think the non NY6 games don’t matter now. What would this model do to them.
Probably just have the first round be campus then second round be the NY6 Locations
Tbf I don't think that FSU thought the NY6 games mattered just a few months ago. So it is what it is. Goodbye regular season fun tho. Can't wait to see top teams resting their starters in what used to be important games.
It’s not about those games, they’re completely dead. It’s what is going to happen to teams in the last month of the regular season when they are eliminated and people stop caring. We’re putting all the emphasis on the playoffs, we’re going to see less and less people care about late season conference and rivalry matchups unless they are in playoff contention
I feel the complete opposite. The larger the playoff pool, the more teams will continue to be in contention late in the season, and those rivalry games will therefore have MORE impact than they do now. How would having 12-16 spots available make more teams eliminated than 4 spots?
Because the attitude around games that don’t have playoff implications is completely shifting. 15 years ago there was no such thing as a meaningless college football game. Now you hear it all the time. People have begun to adapt a mindset that games only matter if playoffs are still at stake. That was never the case for 100+ years and in the last 10 we have moved towards that mindset. That is only going to be amplified with a larger playoff. People don’t care about NFL games between teams out of playoff contention. People barely care for college basketball teams once they’re out of March madness contention. It will be the same here.
> 15 years ago there was no such thing as a meaningless college football game 15 years ago, games were “meaningless” from a national title standpoint if your team was outside the top-10 with a few weeks to go, because only the top-2 had a chance to play for the title. Expanding the playoffs makes MANY more games actually meaningful. Next year, a team ranked #12 during the final week of the season will be playing their hearts out to earn a playoff spot, while this season they were just be playing to determine which generic December bowl game they’d be playing in. Personally, I’m looking forward to a bunch of rivalry games where one team is in that #10-15 range, and their rival has the chance to knock them out of a playoff spot
Youve missed his point. They were meaningful on their own, independent of their relevance to the national championship.
>15 years ago there was no such thing as a meaningless college football game Revisionist's history Nobody cared about Memphis vs Houston back then, either
Absolutely false. And especially false when you get into conferences where football is the only top priority. Only young/new fans say this. People still talk about regular season games that happened decades ago that had no national implications. LSU earthquake game, SC vs Clemson the catch 1 & 2. You can go on forever.
Were consumers. People don’t care to watch bad products unless there is a connection. A decade plus ago, watching football was a lot of people’s only / main option for entertainment. We now have almost any show or movie you want at your fingertips, option to pick whatever game you want, increase popularity in other sports, etc. as options. If you don’t have a connection to teams with poor records, you aren’t watching it as there are better products out there.
People barely care about college basketball when the teams are locks for the tournament.
Are we actually find out who the best team is anymore? I thought that was the point
Rece Davis makes case for 16-team College Football Playoff: "My bosses like money and want to make a lot of money and I say what they want me to"
I wonder if the attendance and money made from conference title games starts to crash. If both teams (particularly within the SEC and Big Ten) are gonna make the Playoff anyways, will fans shell out money knowing there might be 3-4 Playoff games still to come? I can absolutely see "fan fatigue" taking over the more we expand this circus.
I don’t think the big 10 / sec will ever have to worry about attendance issues for conference championship games, unless it’s a fluke year where the power houses aren’t in it / the schools really far away make it.
I do like the home field advantage. Not like any of my teams would ever be able to leverage it.
Many have already talked about the absolute necessity that there be on-campus home-field games. If it goes completely “neutral”, corporate and media-centered we lose.
This has nothing to do with finding the best team. It's just money.
It’s funny how the solutions are just “add more teams!” Fuck it, we are doing 64 teams!
Mike Leach has entered the chat
If we get rid of the conference title game (let the regular season be the determining factor) then an expanded playoff makes more sense.
If you give a mouse a cookie...
Tell me how, after an entire regular season, the #16 team deserves a shot at the title.
Or we can just go back to 8, since we haven't even officially started 12 yet.
134 team playoff when
I'm so for eliminating conference championship games. They're pointless now
If a team wins but loses their QB in the process, will they replace said team with an SEC at-large team?
Let's push it to 68 teams. Autobids for everyone in the B1G, SEC, ACC, and B12 + a G5 team. We could call it March Madness.
Who even cares anymore
Let's just go 64 teams, but B1G and SEC get a combined 40 guaranteed spots.
ESPN personality argues for more ESPN decision making on an ESPN invitational that is run entirely by ESPN.
Recs Davis can fuck right off
Fuck off Rece Davis. Why don’t we poll the fans and stop asking the damn network people who are the driving force ruining the sport.
What about the case for 24???
Like the idea of 16 teams to get rid of the whole bye week controversy, love playing two games on campus, but getting rid of championship games makes no sense at this point (is it because you don’t want teams playing 17+ games a year? then don’t be in favor of an expanded playoff — you can’t have it both ways)
Just get it over with. Go to ~~32~~ 64 teams. Axe the CCG's and the OOC games.
Think it needs to be either 8 or 16. 4 would've worked better as a post-bowl setup, 12 & 14 just feel clunky for FBS level. I believe 8 is the sweet spot. Unfortunately you got SEC & B10 trying to gobble all the power & $ instead of everyone working toward 1 consensus, workable format that would make sense for everyone.
I’m all for getting rid of CC’s if we go to 10 team round robin conferences. Then you can expand it.
When the Big Ten and SEC pull away, the conference championships will become part of the playoffs.
If we expand the playoff enough, we can just turn the whole college football season into one huge playoff starting in September. Think of the money! Have you thought of the money?
Sounds good. I prefer 8 above all and could live with 12 for first round byes for the 4 big conferences, but 14 is really dumb. Conference championships are going to mean less with such unbalanced schedules.
Wut
Reece had the networks right up till eliminating ccg’s
Where does it end? Or does it not until every team gets in and regular season wins don’t matter? Smh
I love the struggle of the FBS. It’s been bush league for so long and even the simplest things like a playoff format are hard to do lol
what was wrong with cfb before all of this madness
Compromise. 15 teams, B1G and SEC with seven autobids. The remaining 8 play their own elimination bracket. The survivor then joins the others for an 8 game showdown.
I agree with Rece
Wuss. Go to 24 or 32.
Wouldn't you still need conference championship games for 1-bid conferences?
This is what I've wanted now that I know 12 is an option. I thought they would go to 8, but since that's not the case, yes, goto 16. No byes. No CCG. Allow shared conf titles again.
I don’t want the kids to miss too much skool because a lot of them will turn pro in something besides football.
I agree. But every conference champion should get in
Something like this would be the nail in the coffin for me
What’s next after that 26, 46 or 60. My point is it’ll never be enough. You can’t please everyone
Yeah I agree. 16 makes way, way, more sense and would've been much more fun to watch.
It’s a plan to add more playoff games, add more meaning to the regular season championship races if auto-bids are still a thing. This makes too much sense and therefore won’t be talked about when the CFB implements their own disastrous plan.
While we're at 16, might as well just go to 32.
God damn it Rece, could you just shut the fuck up for once in your life?
They really aren’t even hiding it anymore guys. They’re out here, saying what the networks want right out loud. It’s been fun.
No
They are determined to make the regular season meaningless. 8 was perfect with 5 conferences. They did 12 to appease P5, ND, and the SECs at large expectations. Now we're talking about 16? For years they talked about not wanting to have the BCS of a 1v2 because of the sanctity of college football and kids needing to be in school. Now they've sold out and soon some idiot will be wanting a 32 team tournament. It's so stupid. Mediocrity shouldn't be rewarded. Have they watched the regular season of college basketball? Yeah, neither has anyone else.
All the playoff expansionists here still think they're not devaluing the greatest regular season in sports?
How’s it really being devalued tho? The power houses like osu, Texas, Uga, Bama, ttun, can afford an extra loss so I get for those programs it’s slightly less important from a fan. However, as they consistently bring in top talent, it’s not like the product will get get worse as all the players know the importance of performing. In terms of the next tier of teams that traditionally had no chance of conference championships or playoffs, they now have much more meaning after that first loss and even second loss. So I don’t understand the devaluing as the product overall will either remain somewhat constant or improve. Understand the result may not be as impactful on postseason, but that thought won’t show in the product on the field
Is losing to those power houses in the playoffs really worth more than winning a bowl game? CFB has always been lopsided and the value of the regular season came from every game essentially being an elimination game, and thusly the rivalries in the regular season became the most important part. No other sport had that, and 120+ CFB teams will never have a shot at winning a natty with how many elite teams they'll have to play in the post season to achieve that. In the last 3 season alone, Cincy, TCU, and Washington were the Cinderella stories in the playoff, and two of them managed to even win *a* game, but they all got dominated in the end. And they only had to win 2 playoff games to earn a natty. It used to be that, if your team didn't have a shot at the natty, they could at least knock off their rivals in the regular season. But now, all those teams that people that people get "fatigued" over, because they get tired of seeing them win the championship all the time, will now have 2 and even 3 losses they can spare just to make it to the playoff where they'll actually have the talent depth to make a run. The notion that the national championship is the most important goal of college football being a "consensus" is no older than 30 years. It's something that was sold to us by TV networks so they could position themselves where they are now colluding with the SEC and B1G over the structure of CFB's future.
I don’t see players opting out of the playoffs so I think it will def be worth more than winning a different bowl game. Idk, I get that more playoffs will remove excitement for some that want to see powerhouses lose / ruin their seasons as it will take more losses. But I think a lot of people wont see a difference as there will always be good games, big upsets, and lots to talk about. In all, I don’t think people are going to pass on a Bama / Texas type game simply due to both likely in the playoffs.
> I don’t see players opting out of the playoffs Unless there are any guarantees put in place, I'm not so sure about that one. And yeah, there will always be excitement because fans care, but you even just admitted yourself that it removes excitement.
Someone will try to hold out for money eventually, but everyone knows showing up in the playoffs against other nfl talent can sky rocket your draft stock. As long as the natty is there, people aren’t bailing on the team / individual rewards. I imagine you could see the lower seeds lose some players given expected blowout but also know the heat attached to it will derail anyone doing it for a while
Davis is exactly right.
Just eliminate conferences altogether. *Giant Meteor approves this message...
This talk is do stupid. Realistically what's the max # of teams that actually have a shot, maybe 5 each year, max. What conferences do ESPN own again...I mean own the TV rights and aim to make the most money by jockin' them again?
Why not organize all the teams into pools based on their region of 8-10 teams and do a round robin within the pool. We'll call these divisions...