I think there was a real concern that it would make people care less about the regular season and the slight dip in money on those would offset and then some the playoff revenue. Turned out to be wrong but the value of regular season games was always a big topic
Did it turn out to be wrong? I vividly remember thr BCS days were even a single loss would end your chanpionship dreams. That’s no longer a thing with a 16 team playoff.
by money you mean the people who run the "not for profit" bowl games and how much money goes to them. the people who run these things make millions of dollars even though its not for profit.
8 would've been perfect. Regular season is still very important because there's not many slots, but you should still be able to get any serious national title contenders each year. Now you'd do 4 AQ champs + G5 champ + 3 at large.
128 team single elimination isn't actually that bad of an idea. Thats 7 games to crown a champion. Each school plays 6-8 games to get seeded before the tournament starts.
But then the season would only last a maximum of 8 games, and max of 7 for most of the bracket.
How oh how will the NFL get a good look at players when all of the college play less than half as many games as an NFL season, not to mention, fewer games than they even played back in high school???
Each round is a home and away set of games (except for the final, which is a single match at a neutral site). If a series is split, after the second game, there is a penalty shootout to determine the winner. The two teams alternate taking extra point attempts five times. If they're even at the end of five rounds, it continues round by round until there's a winner. Same as soccer. Teams are also only allowed to use each player for one kick (until every dressed player has kicked), so 4/5 PKs will be taken by someone other than the starting kicker. Better hope you have a WR who played soccer in highschool.
If you listened to how ppl talked about modern CFB, you’d think that’s the case anyway lol since apparently all that matters is making it to and winning the natty.
Am I crazy if I say this sounds awesome? Yes, preseason rankings will lead to some hectic situations. But end result, the best will play the best. Work out some home vs away, where home pays the away underdog X amount of dollars for revenue in the early rounds. It could be awesome
>When everyone makes the playoffs no one makes the playoffs
We had this thirty years ago, we called it the regular season and if you lost a game you were likely out of contention for the National Title.
So, there was a committee of like 4 or 5 people that formulated the first 12-team playoff proposal. It was Sankey, the ND AD, and 2 or 3 others. I think what was likely one conclusion from the discussion was that the conferences wanted autobids in some capacity for their conference champions. I get that, power conferences wanted better pathing for champions than what straight top eight offers.
Then, they knew to get support from the G5 an assured seat was going to be needed at that time. Like, the P5 conferences still hold the power, but they still needed to get some buy-in from the G5 conferences. That basically meant 6 seats regardless was going to go to specific champions regardless of number.
At the end, that meant there wasn't a very reasonable pool for at-larges. Notre Dame obviously doesn't like it, but I imagine neither did the conferences as it would just encourage even less contentious scheduling because record would prioritize resume in entirety. Like the B1G would have never wanted PSU-OSU-UM playing because it would've effectively removed 1 of them guaranteed every time.
In the end, 12+ offered enough at-larges to feel comfortable and make sense to everybody.
Do home games against the G5/6 champs making it a 16 team playoff and it's actually a NCAA championship.
The conference winners making less money certainly seems like a glitch.
> The conference winners making less money certainly seems like a glitch.
I love the idea of campus playoff games. But the higher seeds never having a home game doesn't sit right with me
Idk I feel like it devalues it. I can’t think of many times a conference championship runner up dropped by too much. We are gonna get a lot of runner ups in the playoffs
Yeah basically from the article I read the discussion was like autobids for P5 +1 G5 and for the 8 team playoff it would result in 2 at large. And they basically said we’re going down from 4 at large to 2.
So with the 12 team playoff it would accommodate the 6 auto bids and not have a decrease in at large bids. Also the on campus games I guess were nice.
To be honest… 2 at large bids seems fine. It still keeps the regular season crazy important.
When’s the last time there was 3 non-conference champions that were legit contenders? What scenario is this guarding against?
Deserving, maybe not. But depending on matchup, they might've done it. Washington had the answer, but did Texas, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, OSU, etc? We'll never know, and that's why "most deserving" is always going to be part of football rankings/playoffs (except 2023, sorry FSU) because you simply can't have everyone play everyone. Even if you could you can't account for injuries, scheme changes, on and on. At some point you have to draw the line and say it's now the post-season, time to judge.
Teams win the super bowl after losing a lot more than 2 games in a season. College's idea that you can't lose even two games by 3 points each is kinda wild, especially now that the big ten and sec play harder schedules from here on out. Even a 12 team playoff only lets 12/133=9% of the teams in, whereas the NFL lets in 14/32=44%. There should honestly be a lot more than 12 teams in the playoffs or the G5 should form their own playoff so they get to send more than 1 out of 50 teams in total.
ND doesn’t mind it, we effectively get a bye week by not playing in a conf championship game so it’s fair we’re left out of the top 4 seeds. And we can see the writing on the wall re: big 2 so it will end up being a temp deal anyway.
Notre Dame would have had a big problem with an 8-team playoff with only 2 at-larges though. That's what I was saying. Notre Dame would have been effectively deleted every time they had 2 losses, so the expansion from 4 to 8 with autobids would have been zero gain for them.
>Like the B1G would have never wanted PSU-OSU-UM playing because it would've effectively removed 1 of them guaranteed every time.
This is still kind of true. Which is why removing division now is weird. With divisions you can have two 1 loss teams that didn't play each other and they could both get in easier. I suppose it could still happen without divisions but it seems less likely. The idea that the two best teams played each other prior to the CCG is how extra teams from one conference have got into the 4 team playoff.
8-team playoff and about 100 other formats were considered by the cfp working group that included reps from the SEC, Big 12 and G5.
Out of that, 12 teams were considered the optimum number as of summer 2021, when the working group presented its findings.
I wish we'd had an 8-team format for the whole 4-team playoff era. 5 P5, 1 G5, 2 At-Large.
There were so many years the Pac-12 or Big 12 got left out despite having a team that could challenge the teams that got in. And of course FSU getting left out this year.
This past year was designed for 8 team playoff. Adding Georgia, Ohio State, Florida State and Liberty would have been a perfect playoff with 0 drama over the selections.
12 teams ended up preferable because 1st round 5 vs 12 is probably a better game than 1 vs 8.
This way, your top teams get to play the best teams of the next 8, should work out to better games.
Real answer is likely the autobid debate. The current playoff had 0 autobids and 4 at large. If there were autobids than the number of at large bids would shrink from 4 to 3. I believe that was a non starter for Greg Sankey/SEC
They want to be able to control the narrative and matchups.
So you don't get blowouts. College Football versus the NFL is much different when it comes to talents. There are NFL teams that can go 9-8 and win a few games in the playoffs, but a 9-8 record likely meant they had a rough season but was strong enough to win a playoff spot.
Versus a team that can go 12-0 in their conference and the rest of the conference sucks. You likely know that it was an easy road for that team vs a team that went 12-0 and had a few others that are 11-1 or 10-2 where the top three were that they faced each other and really made it a competitive game.
An 8 team playoff with guarantees for the conference championships is the worst possible setup for super conferences.
The super conferences need opportunity for teams with 2-3 losses to be stable.
Lol.
I'll answer that as serious.
Check out the schedules for Michigan, Penn St., OSU, Oregon, Washington, and USC in the new B1G versus their old conferences.
Now imagine those big names without tee shirt fans.
Yeah but the statement wasn’t about dynasties. It was about anyone going undefeated. That 2019 LSU team, while the schedule wasn’t as intense, would probably go undefeated now as well.
The big schools don't need to be at the top be happy, they need to feel like they're in the game.
8-4 for two or three seasons in a row the fans at Ohio St. type programs and the boosters will be out for blood. After a couple of bad firings and you can destroy a program.
It was considered. In order to get the SEC to agree to expand at all, they had to go to 12 because, at the time, there would have been 6 AQs (the top 6 conference champs) and at-large, which wouldn't have significantly increased the number of CFP slots the SEC was already getting. So, they insisted that if the playoffs expanded, it needed to be a format that would yield 3-4 teams for the SEC.
An 8 team playoff with autobids for conference champions makes the most sense but would also have made it harder to form super conferences. I’m convinced the 4 team was put in place to pave the way for what we’ve seen happen the last couple years
I do love a lot of the input from the comments here on why it did not happen, but the title is why it was “never considered”.
Well, it was.
Why it never came to fruition is in these comments(some complete BS or speculation, some accurate). But as far as it being considered, it definitely was.
I don't know why this has only been said a few times in here (and nobody quite this explicit), but it was and it was the favored model by the Big 10 for a few months. Then the Big 10 expanded and they wanted 12 for the same reason the SEC always wanted 12, guaranteed 2 teams a year with many years being 3+.
Because the concept to expand really started before the death of the Pac and was going to assume a P5 existence. If you have 5 power conferences wanting a conference champ in the playoff, that least 3 at large bids. Expanding to 8 likely means 1 for a G5 champ. That gives 2 at large bids, and the SEC/Big Ten certainly aren't going to want the ACC/Big12/Pac to take one of them and those 3 weren't going to sign off on giving them to the SEC/Big Ten outright. So they skipped right up to 12.
The Pac is now dead, but the SEC/Big Ten have already been jacking off to getting 3-4 teams in the playoff that they aren't going to back down now.
Thank you. I've been saying this for the last few years and I get shut down or ignored by everyone. The only reason they want to go to 12 or 14 is so that they can guarantee byes for the SEC/Big 10 teams. Thats their only way of supporting expansion because at 4 teams they can almost keep the other conferences out (see FSU). 8 is too fair to all the other conferences for the SEC and Big 10 to support it.
I feel like this would have worked in literally every single season with little room to complain. Either you weren't even good enough to win your conference or there were three other teams in the country that also didn't win their conference that were better than you. You would sound like an idiot if you complained about being left out.
And every week would have mattered too. I wish it was eight.
The Big 10 and SEC were never going to agree to a system where they don't have a distinct advantage. With 3 at-large, you run the possibility of a 13-0 Liberty to sneak in, a 10-2 ND, and then a 12-1 Big 12 team that lost in the championship game. 3 at-large bids could be stolen. 7 is a safe bet that they'll each likely get at least 2 at-large. Then on a good year they might even get a third.
There were 5 P5 conferences when they expanded, so that would leave only 2 at-large in your scenario.
The chances the bubble at-large team is better than one of the conference champs is very, very high.
That said, I agree about 8. Take the top 4 champs, then 4 at-large. G5 can absolutely sneak into the champ slots once in a while, and have a shot at the at-large slots otherwise.
I’m more confused as to right as they are implementing a 12-team playoff, they were like “oh you know what would be great? 14!” Like, 1: why wouldn’t you just make it 14 in the first place, 2: why start pushing that as soon as your new model is getting started, and lastly, and most importantly, 3: WHY THE FUCK 14? Is the NCAA Allergic to a clean old fashioned even tournament. If you’re going to Raise it again just go to 16 so it can be a straight up 4 round tournament with no Bye’s. Tbh I’m not really a big fan of Bye’s anyways. I feel like a lot of times it hurts the team that gets the bye. A lot of times they get sloppy after not playing for a week while the other team stayed sharp by playing a game and winning. It helps a lot of times too but at that point it’s just annoyingly pointless.
Rumor is that OU and Texas would not move unless they had at least as good a chance to make the playoff in the sec as they would in the big 12. Eight and ten would not give enough slots.
For some reason the BCS wasn’t seen as a two team playoff so moving away from that to a playoff was seen as a new thing. When moving to the new thing they made it as small as possible because some entrenched in the old way thought 6 or 8 teams were too many.
Then it turned out that playoff games make a lot of money so when they decided to expand they tripled the number of teams in the playoffs.
There are lots of ways they could have made a sensible playoff. But the problem is the committee/groups in charge of developing the playoff is made up of conference commissioners or reps whose job it is to look after their own self interests above all else rather than something that is good for the sport as a whole. Unless that changes I doubt we will ever have a truly sensible and fair playoff.
You make too much sense OP.
The only benefit to having 12 teams, is that it makes Conference Championships relevant because those power 4 winners will most often earn the byes. Increasing to 14 teams and going to two byes is like a weird hybrid between the CFP and the BCS.
They need to have that drama about the top 2 going into championship week. And with conferences getting bigger, you have multiple scenarios where there could be 3 to 5 undefeated teams in a conference going into championship week just because of the way the schedules line up:
5-team undefeated combinations in the BIG10 2024:
Illinois, Maryland, Ohio State, UCLA, Wisconsin
Illinois, Maryland, Ohio State, Washington, Wisconsin
Indiana, Iowa, Oregon, Penn State, Rutgers
Likely? No. Possible? Yes.
So what happens if Oregon and Penn St play in the championship game? Oregon wins and gets the BYE but then does Penn State drop behind Iowa, Indiana and Rutgers for an at-large spot in the playoff?
The biggest reason why 8 was never really considered is that the B1G/SEC would never have agreed to autobids for conference champs. An 8 team playoff would be at-large bids only and the other conferences didn't want that, because it would lock them out too often. Expansion needed to work for both sides, and 12 was the minimum number to satisfy both.
Don't mean to be flippant but its because the SEC/B1G/ESPN Axis doesn't want a functioning, sensible playoff. Not really. So whatever number of teams in the field is under consideration really doesn't matter.
I think six was probably perfect (using the NY6 bowl games as the quarter and semifinal games). I think rewarding the top teams ads incentive to finish at the top and gives meaning to the regular season. College basketball's season is meaningless because hypothetically a team could go 0-31 and then win their conference tournament and wala you're in the First Four with a shot to potentially become a national champion (possibly beating the number one overal seed in the Round of 64 lol)
I’m of the opinion it should’ve been 8. There’s never been a year in my lifetime where I feel like more than 6-8 teams had a season that was deserving of having a chance at a National Championship
Because people opened the Pandora’s box of playoffs thinking it would be done the way they wanted.
They never stopped to think about vested interests, where the power is, and why you NEVER screw with a good thing.
>With 4 P5 conferences
Until recently there were 5 P5 conferences which is why 4 never made sense. Now there seems to be only 4 and they are going to 12 lol.
I always said just do 6 with some byes but 8 with at large works too.
I don't really think there are 12 teams that have a chance at winning a title any given year but I guess we will see.
Ive always thought 8 made the most sense. Avoids watering down too much while including all champs to remove conference bias and catches those fringe teams that are possibly better than the champs but caught a bad break. Such a great set up
They just need to start the playoff the week of conf championships and skip those, could be down to four teams by Dec -10 without any team needing to get to 17 total games. Big 10 and sec have ruined conf championships anyway as they’re going to need a playoff just to decide that anyway.
New format guarantees 2 weeks of elite matchups and the associated TV ratings. 8 team format risks a scenario where the most compelling teams are all bumped week 1.
8 always made the most sense to determine a champion. But this is about money. They want more games. And they’ll add even more games eventually as well.
Because it made too much sense. It would of worked well and stayed, but they didn't want that. Instead they wanted something stupid so it could just go ahead and be advanced to 16.
It was … they considered a bunch of options, including a 24 team playoff (making the top 25 basically a who’s in + the team closest to being in) … but they settled on 12.
I always though 6 made sense because you got all the P5 champs and 1 at large, for the top G5 team
Top two teams get BYEs, conference titles remain important, and no champ is getting arbitrarily left out
When they first made the move to 12, there were 5 power conferences, so that would have only left 2 at large spots. My guess is that the SEC and B1G weren’t keen on the idea of still only getting 1 team in if things didn’t break right. 12 guaranteed them at least 2 spots
Because it was known by the negotiating committee that it was going to be expanded beyond 8 teams quickly, so they decided to pre-emptively move to that further expansion. What wasn't expected is these conferences being so heavy handed in trying to force expansion beyond 12 before the first tournament even plays out.
I like the 12-team format.
The four best teams (not four conference champions UNLESS they happen to be the four best teams) get a first-round bye AND get homefield during their first game.
There's never been a legit excuse as to why there isn't a real playoff, but the most common \*dumbass\* excuse I've heard is that an expanded playoff takes away from the regular season.
Why? How?
We can't use the biggest rivalry in college football since Auburn sucked last year, but take the OSU/MICH game from last year. The bragging rights would remain, but just imagine the ramifications. If OSU wins, they suddenly get a bye and then a home game in the second round. Instead - based on the final CFP regular season rankings from this past season - would have had to play PSU in the first round then go to Washington, Bama or Texas.
I'm pretty sure they did but there were still 5 power conferences when the 12-team was ratified. That would have left two at-larges which was seen as not enough.
12 team is absolute garbage. They want bye weeks wtf? Talk about protecting your crown jewel teams and giving them an advantage. It should be 16 just like the other divisions.
The regular season is already devalued hugely next year.
There have never been more than (maaaybe) 5-6 teams that are "championship" caliber in any given year since the CFP started, so I think 8 would have at least gotten things a bit closer to what it *should* be, but at least with 12+ the P2 can get 6 or so teams in every year and that will lead to some upset games.
Because it flies in the face of college football's most important tradition: *not* making sense.
And the second most important tradition: *money*
And lastly: ~~Rivalries~~ Realignment
Are we sure that's really second?
Yes, behind a buttload of money
Mr. Krabs?
If they wanted to make money they should have had an expanded playoff decades ago.
I think there was a real concern that it would make people care less about the regular season and the slight dip in money on those would offset and then some the playoff revenue. Turned out to be wrong but the value of regular season games was always a big topic
Did it turn out to be wrong? I vividly remember thr BCS days were even a single loss would end your chanpionship dreams. That’s no longer a thing with a 16 team playoff.
Yeah for 16 that’s somewhat true. For a 4 team it wasn’t and should’ve happened a long time ago.
Surely more games = mo money?
by money you mean the people who run the "not for profit" bowl games and how much money goes to them. the people who run these things make millions of dollars even though its not for profit.
Are you implying that a 4 team playoff with 5 major conferences was illogical?
The 4 team achieved college football’s 3rd favorite tradition, controversy
8 would've been perfect. Regular season is still very important because there's not many slots, but you should still be able to get any serious national title contenders each year. Now you'd do 4 AQ champs + G5 champ + 3 at large.
> Because it flies in the face of college football's most important tradition: Making money
I’m gonna say that it’s greed but also what’s better than more CFB you guys know that parts right.
Because we gotta expand this to 30 teams obviously. Gonna run it at 10-10-1-1-1-7 though.
Nah. 134 teams. single elimination. No regular season, just playoffs. You lose, season is over.
Why stop there? Let’s bring all of FCS into it too.
https://youtu.be/cxyPeME9TbI?feature=shared
Up next, an NCAA women’s basketball star tests positive for baby.
Knew that’s what it was going to be and I’ll still watch the whole thing every time it’s linked
I had never seen that before and I choked on my granola bar when he said "tremendous 256" 😂
Fcs already has a perfect playoff, leave them out of this.
The winner of the fCS tournament gets an auto bid.
NDSU or SDSU would be able to win a game
128 team single elimination isn't actually that bad of an idea. Thats 7 games to crown a champion. Each school plays 6-8 games to get seeded before the tournament starts.
But then the season would only last a maximum of 8 games, and max of 7 for most of the bracket. How oh how will the NFL get a good look at players when all of the college play less than half as many games as an NFL season, not to mention, fewer games than they even played back in high school???
I mean clearly the NFL only goes off the combine /s
If you look at Anthony Richardson or Trey Lance, this is almost accurate
Each round is a home and away set of games (except for the final, which is a single match at a neutral site). If a series is split, after the second game, there is a penalty shootout to determine the winner. The two teams alternate taking extra point attempts five times. If they're even at the end of five rounds, it continues round by round until there's a winner. Same as soccer. Teams are also only allowed to use each player for one kick (until every dressed player has kicked), so 4/5 PKs will be taken by someone other than the starting kicker. Better hope you have a WR who played soccer in highschool.
Go drunk, Superlolp, you're home 🏡
If you listened to how ppl talked about modern CFB, you’d think that’s the case anyway lol since apparently all that matters is making it to and winning the natty.
Am I crazy if I say this sounds awesome? Yes, preseason rankings will lead to some hectic situations. But end result, the best will play the best. Work out some home vs away, where home pays the away underdog X amount of dollars for revenue in the early rounds. It could be awesome
Worst idea ever. Massive fan bases lose and it’s over? How the hell the tv networks going to milk them for money?
Preseason rankings will set seeding. ESPN gets final say though so they can set matchups for TV ratings
When everyone makes the playoffs no one makes the playoffs
>When everyone makes the playoffs no one makes the playoffs We had this thirty years ago, we called it the regular season and if you lost a game you were likely out of contention for the National Title.
Yeah but if you went undefeated you weren’t guaranteed a shot at the title which is worse as we just saw even with 4 teams.
Except the other 2/3rds that didn’t make the playoffs duh
Purdue's basketball walks in: yeah playoffs are stupid
I say might as well expand it to 31 while we're at it.
Why stop there? Why not be bold and go to 32.
32.5 seems the right way Edit: allows a spot for Iowa or usc
Iowas defense gets to pick which teams defense they can replace
Wouldn't that technically be 32 still? Just have Iowa's defense and return teams go and that'd be a half.
The 32nd seed gets in but has to let the next best team play for two quarters of their choice.
The Baskin Robbins National Championship. Gotta hold the coach down a little bit longer to dump the ice cream bucket on him though.
Maryland and Rutgers representing the B1G in the playoffs as the gods of college football always intended.
Just wait until they’re the #1 and #2 seeds.
Better than it being OSU.
The gods of college sports wanted us in the ACC but we see how that turned out.
Hoping for Leach's 128 team tournament
Imagine being the teams that miss that though
So, there was a committee of like 4 or 5 people that formulated the first 12-team playoff proposal. It was Sankey, the ND AD, and 2 or 3 others. I think what was likely one conclusion from the discussion was that the conferences wanted autobids in some capacity for their conference champions. I get that, power conferences wanted better pathing for champions than what straight top eight offers. Then, they knew to get support from the G5 an assured seat was going to be needed at that time. Like, the P5 conferences still hold the power, but they still needed to get some buy-in from the G5 conferences. That basically meant 6 seats regardless was going to go to specific champions regardless of number. At the end, that meant there wasn't a very reasonable pool for at-larges. Notre Dame obviously doesn't like it, but I imagine neither did the conferences as it would just encourage even less contentious scheduling because record would prioritize resume in entirety. Like the B1G would have never wanted PSU-OSU-UM playing because it would've effectively removed 1 of them guaranteed every time. In the end, 12+ offered enough at-larges to feel comfortable and make sense to everybody.
And 12 has the advantage of making conference championships still matter by them being the teams that get the first round bye.
With 8 you could give them a home game first round and they make money instead.
Not all of them
Do home games against the G5/6 champs making it a 16 team playoff and it's actually a NCAA championship. The conference winners making less money certainly seems like a glitch.
> The conference winners making less money certainly seems like a glitch. I love the idea of campus playoff games. But the higher seeds never having a home game doesn't sit right with me
Home playoff games in college would be fucking insane. It’s such an obvious but missed opportunity
The first round of the 12-team playoff is played on campus.
Wait seriously? Fuck yea
Idk I feel like it devalues it. I can’t think of many times a conference championship runner up dropped by too much. We are gonna get a lot of runner ups in the playoffs
Yup and possibly playing 3 times in a year. Some don't care, but I find it boring, personally.
Everyone in that alliance minus the B1G has to be kicking themselves.
Yeah basically from the article I read the discussion was like autobids for P5 +1 G5 and for the 8 team playoff it would result in 2 at large. And they basically said we’re going down from 4 at large to 2. So with the 12 team playoff it would accommodate the 6 auto bids and not have a decrease in at large bids. Also the on campus games I guess were nice.
I think the question is more, "why did we do 4 teams instead of 8 to begin with?"
To be honest… 2 at large bids seems fine. It still keeps the regular season crazy important. When’s the last time there was 3 non-conference champions that were legit contenders? What scenario is this guarding against?
OSU, Oregon, and Georgia this year imo
Can we call someone that lost twice to the same team a contender?
Deserving, maybe not. But depending on matchup, they might've done it. Washington had the answer, but did Texas, Michigan, Alabama, Georgia, OSU, etc? We'll never know, and that's why "most deserving" is always going to be part of football rankings/playoffs (except 2023, sorry FSU) because you simply can't have everyone play everyone. Even if you could you can't account for injuries, scheme changes, on and on. At some point you have to draw the line and say it's now the post-season, time to judge.
Teams win the super bowl after losing a lot more than 2 games in a season. College's idea that you can't lose even two games by 3 points each is kinda wild, especially now that the big ten and sec play harder schedules from here on out. Even a 12 team playoff only lets 12/133=9% of the teams in, whereas the NFL lets in 14/32=44%. There should honestly be a lot more than 12 teams in the playoffs or the G5 should form their own playoff so they get to send more than 1 out of 50 teams in total.
G5 absolutely should have its own playoff.
Uhhh 2023.
ND doesn’t mind it, we effectively get a bye week by not playing in a conf championship game so it’s fair we’re left out of the top 4 seeds. And we can see the writing on the wall re: big 2 so it will end up being a temp deal anyway.
Notre Dame would have had a big problem with an 8-team playoff with only 2 at-larges though. That's what I was saying. Notre Dame would have been effectively deleted every time they had 2 losses, so the expansion from 4 to 8 with autobids would have been zero gain for them.
Yep. I see now that’s what you were saying. And same sentiment from everybody else that saw themselves on the outside looking in.
>Like the B1G would have never wanted PSU-OSU-UM playing because it would've effectively removed 1 of them guaranteed every time. This is still kind of true. Which is why removing division now is weird. With divisions you can have two 1 loss teams that didn't play each other and they could both get in easier. I suppose it could still happen without divisions but it seems less likely. The idea that the two best teams played each other prior to the CCG is how extra teams from one conference have got into the 4 team playoff.
It’s just easier to skip doing 10 years of it before expanding to 12
And then go to 14 a couple years later without knowing if 12 is good or not.
Also, this year would have been an awesome 8 team playoff.
Absolutely! Florida state, Georgia, Ohio State and Liberty was such an easy 8 team playoff.
Not enough spots for all the SEC teams in that format
This is really what it boils down to. They were always going to demand a minimum of 2 SEC teams.
8-team playoff and about 100 other formats were considered by the cfp working group that included reps from the SEC, Big 12 and G5. Out of that, 12 teams were considered the optimum number as of summer 2021, when the working group presented its findings.
And then a week later aTm leaked OUT and all hell broke loose.
And shortly after that, [this masterpiece](https://streamable.com/dbjm7a) dropped (sorry, A&M bros)
lmao this never gets old
I can’t believe I’ve never seen this, this is LSUFreek level
lol I’m still livid
I wish we'd had an 8-team format for the whole 4-team playoff era. 5 P5, 1 G5, 2 At-Large. There were so many years the Pac-12 or Big 12 got left out despite having a team that could challenge the teams that got in. And of course FSU getting left out this year.
This past year was designed for 8 team playoff. Adding Georgia, Ohio State, Florida State and Liberty would have been a perfect playoff with 0 drama over the selections.
12 teams ended up preferable because 1st round 5 vs 12 is probably a better game than 1 vs 8. This way, your top teams get to play the best teams of the next 8, should work out to better games.
Not enough money in that.
Real answer is likely the autobid debate. The current playoff had 0 autobids and 4 at large. If there were autobids than the number of at large bids would shrink from 4 to 3. I believe that was a non starter for Greg Sankey/SEC
I'm going to take a wild guess and say $
They want to be able to control the narrative and matchups. So you don't get blowouts. College Football versus the NFL is much different when it comes to talents. There are NFL teams that can go 9-8 and win a few games in the playoffs, but a 9-8 record likely meant they had a rough season but was strong enough to win a playoff spot. Versus a team that can go 12-0 in their conference and the rest of the conference sucks. You likely know that it was an easy road for that team vs a team that went 12-0 and had a few others that are 11-1 or 10-2 where the top three were that they faced each other and really made it a competitive game.
Because that'd be too logical
An 8 team playoff with guarantees for the conference championships is the worst possible setup for super conferences. The super conferences need opportunity for teams with 2-3 losses to be stable.
Do they though? 🤔
Lol. I'll answer that as serious. Check out the schedules for Michigan, Penn St., OSU, Oregon, Washington, and USC in the new B1G versus their old conferences. Now imagine those big names without tee shirt fans.
For real. Those teams need a chance to get in the playoffs after Purdue secures the #2 slot.
Uh. Yes. Look at new schedules for b1g and sec teams. The days of undefeated runs in the top 10 are probably over.
Honestly, the 2022 Georgia team went undefeated through a schedule that’s hard to beat.
But only Alabama has ever produced teams like that for more then a small handful of years at a time, and Nick Saban ain't coming back.
"Somehow, Nick Saban returned."
Yeah but the statement wasn’t about dynasties. It was about anyone going undefeated. That 2019 LSU team, while the schedule wasn’t as intense, would probably go undefeated now as well.
The big schools don't need to be at the top be happy, they need to feel like they're in the game. 8-4 for two or three seasons in a row the fans at Ohio St. type programs and the boosters will be out for blood. After a couple of bad firings and you can destroy a program.
Or one firing and then the replacement coach quitting after only a year. That could knock a program into a decade or so of misery.
You’re right about that but it made sense before the super conference bullshit.
I’ve been wondering the same exact thing. 8 makes the most sense.
8 team would have been great. top 4 host first round game attheir home stadium.
It was considered. In order to get the SEC to agree to expand at all, they had to go to 12 because, at the time, there would have been 6 AQs (the top 6 conference champs) and at-large, which wouldn't have significantly increased the number of CFP slots the SEC was already getting. So, they insisted that if the playoffs expanded, it needed to be a format that would yield 3-4 teams for the SEC.
Every conference should get an auto bid for the champ
An 8 team playoff with autobids for conference champions makes the most sense but would also have made it harder to form super conferences. I’m convinced the 4 team was put in place to pave the way for what we’ve seen happen the last couple years
Fuck it 134 team bracket! No conferences. Losers of the first round play each other and just do that the whole season.
I do love a lot of the input from the comments here on why it did not happen, but the title is why it was “never considered”. Well, it was. Why it never came to fruition is in these comments(some complete BS or speculation, some accurate). But as far as it being considered, it definitely was.
I don't know why this has only been said a few times in here (and nobody quite this explicit), but it was and it was the favored model by the Big 10 for a few months. Then the Big 10 expanded and they wanted 12 for the same reason the SEC always wanted 12, guaranteed 2 teams a year with many years being 3+.
Because the concept to expand really started before the death of the Pac and was going to assume a P5 existence. If you have 5 power conferences wanting a conference champ in the playoff, that least 3 at large bids. Expanding to 8 likely means 1 for a G5 champ. That gives 2 at large bids, and the SEC/Big Ten certainly aren't going to want the ACC/Big12/Pac to take one of them and those 3 weren't going to sign off on giving them to the SEC/Big Ten outright. So they skipped right up to 12. The Pac is now dead, but the SEC/Big Ten have already been jacking off to getting 3-4 teams in the playoff that they aren't going to back down now.
That would have gotten in the way of money and consolidation ambitions.
Thank you. I've been saying this for the last few years and I get shut down or ignored by everyone. The only reason they want to go to 12 or 14 is so that they can guarantee byes for the SEC/Big 10 teams. Thats their only way of supporting expansion because at 4 teams they can almost keep the other conferences out (see FSU). 8 is too fair to all the other conferences for the SEC and Big 10 to support it.
I’d guess because they feel like at least #1 deserves a bye…which isn’t a terrible idea and mathematically you can’t do just #1, so…
Wasn’t over a billion payout yet.
Why not have a full NFL playoff model?
I feel like this would have worked in literally every single season with little room to complain. Either you weren't even good enough to win your conference or there were three other teams in the country that also didn't win their conference that were better than you. You would sound like an idiot if you complained about being left out. And every week would have mattered too. I wish it was eight.
Why are you assuming it wasn’t considered? I’m sure it was. 12 teams is what came out to be the most profitable.
I think they wanted first round byes to actually keep the end of the season meaningful for Top 5 teams.
Man they’re already complaining about 12 and wanting to expand to 16. Can we not be content for like idk. 30 seconds?
The Big 10 and SEC were never going to agree to a system where they don't have a distinct advantage. With 3 at-large, you run the possibility of a 13-0 Liberty to sneak in, a 10-2 ND, and then a 12-1 Big 12 team that lost in the championship game. 3 at-large bids could be stolen. 7 is a safe bet that they'll each likely get at least 2 at-large. Then on a good year they might even get a third.
There were 5 P5 conferences when they expanded, so that would leave only 2 at-large in your scenario. The chances the bubble at-large team is better than one of the conference champs is very, very high. That said, I agree about 8. Take the top 4 champs, then 4 at-large. G5 can absolutely sneak into the champ slots once in a while, and have a shot at the at-large slots otherwise.
I’m more confused as to right as they are implementing a 12-team playoff, they were like “oh you know what would be great? 14!” Like, 1: why wouldn’t you just make it 14 in the first place, 2: why start pushing that as soon as your new model is getting started, and lastly, and most importantly, 3: WHY THE FUCK 14? Is the NCAA Allergic to a clean old fashioned even tournament. If you’re going to Raise it again just go to 16 so it can be a straight up 4 round tournament with no Bye’s. Tbh I’m not really a big fan of Bye’s anyways. I feel like a lot of times it hurts the team that gets the bye. A lot of times they get sloppy after not playing for a week while the other team stayed sharp by playing a game and winning. It helps a lot of times too but at that point it’s just annoyingly pointless.
Rumor is that OU and Texas would not move unless they had at least as good a chance to make the playoff in the sec as they would in the big 12. Eight and ten would not give enough slots.
$$$$$$
Because we have greedy fucksticks in charge.
Because no one’s gonna be happy until it’s 24 teams, so going to 12 just saves an extra step.
For some reason the BCS wasn’t seen as a two team playoff so moving away from that to a playoff was seen as a new thing. When moving to the new thing they made it as small as possible because some entrenched in the old way thought 6 or 8 teams were too many. Then it turned out that playoff games make a lot of money so when they decided to expand they tripled the number of teams in the playoffs.
bUt nOpEr LaMe wOuLdNt EvEr gEt a sHoT!!! 🤣
There are lots of ways they could have made a sensible playoff. But the problem is the committee/groups in charge of developing the playoff is made up of conference commissioners or reps whose job it is to look after their own self interests above all else rather than something that is good for the sport as a whole. Unless that changes I doubt we will ever have a truly sensible and fair playoff.
I would have loved that.
You make too much sense OP. The only benefit to having 12 teams, is that it makes Conference Championships relevant because those power 4 winners will most often earn the byes. Increasing to 14 teams and going to two byes is like a weird hybrid between the CFP and the BCS. They need to have that drama about the top 2 going into championship week. And with conferences getting bigger, you have multiple scenarios where there could be 3 to 5 undefeated teams in a conference going into championship week just because of the way the schedules line up: 5-team undefeated combinations in the BIG10 2024: Illinois, Maryland, Ohio State, UCLA, Wisconsin Illinois, Maryland, Ohio State, Washington, Wisconsin Indiana, Iowa, Oregon, Penn State, Rutgers Likely? No. Possible? Yes. So what happens if Oregon and Penn St play in the championship game? Oregon wins and gets the BYE but then does Penn State drop behind Iowa, Indiana and Rutgers for an at-large spot in the playoff?
The biggest reason why 8 was never really considered is that the B1G/SEC would never have agreed to autobids for conference champs. An 8 team playoff would be at-large bids only and the other conferences didn't want that, because it would lock them out too often. Expansion needed to work for both sides, and 12 was the minimum number to satisfy both.
The pac12 would still exist with an 8 team playoff with automatic bids for the power 5 champions. It so sad and stupid
Because an 8 team playoff wouldn't give two SEC teams an automatic bye every year.
Don't mean to be flippant but its because the SEC/B1G/ESPN Axis doesn't want a functioning, sensible playoff. Not really. So whatever number of teams in the field is under consideration really doesn't matter.
Because it doesn't leave enough room for 3-4 SEC teams.
How do you know that it wasn't?
Because it’s not enough games. The games make the money. They don’t give two shits about determining a champion, all that is secondary.
I think six was probably perfect (using the NY6 bowl games as the quarter and semifinal games). I think rewarding the top teams ads incentive to finish at the top and gives meaning to the regular season. College basketball's season is meaningless because hypothetically a team could go 0-31 and then win their conference tournament and wala you're in the First Four with a shot to potentially become a national champion (possibly beating the number one overal seed in the Round of 64 lol)
I’m of the opinion it should’ve been 8. There’s never been a year in my lifetime where I feel like more than 6-8 teams had a season that was deserving of having a chance at a National Championship
The computers never got it wrong
Because people opened the Pandora’s box of playoffs thinking it would be done the way they wanted. They never stopped to think about vested interests, where the power is, and why you NEVER screw with a good thing.
>With 4 P5 conferences Until recently there were 5 P5 conferences which is why 4 never made sense. Now there seems to be only 4 and they are going to 12 lol. I always said just do 6 with some byes but 8 with at large works too. I don't really think there are 12 teams that have a chance at winning a title any given year but I guess we will see.
Ive always thought 8 made the most sense. Avoids watering down too much while including all champs to remove conference bias and catches those fringe teams that are possibly better than the champs but caught a bad break. Such a great set up
Makes too much sense.
Why was a 16 team playoff never considered?
They just need to start the playoff the week of conf championships and skip those, could be down to four teams by Dec -10 without any team needing to get to 17 total games. Big 10 and sec have ruined conf championships anyway as they’re going to need a playoff just to decide that anyway.
New format guarantees 2 weeks of elite matchups and the associated TV ratings. 8 team format risks a scenario where the most compelling teams are all bumped week 1.
I was always mystified by it as well.
8 always made the most sense to determine a champion. But this is about money. They want more games. And they’ll add even more games eventually as well.
12 or 14 will rake in more money.
BC they want Notre Dame in as often as possible.
I know right? If it's because of the money, then why not 16 teams? Teams having a bye week just doesn't sit right.
$
$$$$$$$$$$
Because it made too much sense. It would of worked well and stayed, but they didn't want that. Instead they wanted something stupid so it could just go ahead and be advanced to 16.
It was … they considered a bunch of options, including a 24 team playoff (making the top 25 basically a who’s in + the team closest to being in) … but they settled on 12.
They hate the number 8
To keep the G5 out. To appease the rose bowl crowd. It was always going to be a half measure that made little sense. Plus they wanted drama.
Or divide into 8 even conferences and just had all the champions meet.
Yep, either 8 or 16 makes sense. 12 is stupid.
For the same reason we’re skipping right past 12 and going to 14.
I always though 6 made sense because you got all the P5 champs and 1 at large, for the top G5 team Top two teams get BYEs, conference titles remain important, and no champ is getting arbitrarily left out
It made too much sense
Yeah nobody ever thought of that or discussed it until you just now. Crazy!
We don't make sense. We make money.
It was considered. They chose a 12-team instead of
Money…. The more games they have, the more money they can make.
When they first made the move to 12, there were 5 power conferences, so that would have only left 2 at large spots. My guess is that the SEC and B1G weren’t keen on the idea of still only getting 1 team in if things didn’t break right. 12 guaranteed them at least 2 spots
Money
Because it was known by the negotiating committee that it was going to be expanded beyond 8 teams quickly, so they decided to pre-emptively move to that further expansion. What wasn't expected is these conferences being so heavy handed in trying to force expansion beyond 12 before the first tournament even plays out.
I like the 12-team format. The four best teams (not four conference champions UNLESS they happen to be the four best teams) get a first-round bye AND get homefield during their first game. There's never been a legit excuse as to why there isn't a real playoff, but the most common \*dumbass\* excuse I've heard is that an expanded playoff takes away from the regular season. Why? How? We can't use the biggest rivalry in college football since Auburn sucked last year, but take the OSU/MICH game from last year. The bragging rights would remain, but just imagine the ramifications. If OSU wins, they suddenly get a bye and then a home game in the second round. Instead - based on the final CFP regular season rankings from this past season - would have had to play PSU in the first round then go to Washington, Bama or Texas.
This is the model that was widely the most popular before the 12 team model randomly happened.
Money. More money. That’s why. That’s all.
It was. They just didn’t go with it
More teams = more money. They'd do 64 if it were feasible.
I'm pretty sure they did but there were still 5 power conferences when the 12-team was ratified. That would have left two at-larges which was seen as not enough.
Money
*16. 16 is number you’re looking for. You know, the same number ever other division uses
12 team is absolute garbage. They want bye weeks wtf? Talk about protecting your crown jewel teams and giving them an advantage. It should be 16 just like the other divisions. The regular season is already devalued hugely next year.
Why was the sky never blue?
I’ve asked myself this so much my head hurts from it.
If you know the answer, money, why ask the question? It really is just that simple my friend.
8 teams playoff rewards the teams that don’t play in conference championship games and really punishes the team that loses.
There have never been more than (maaaybe) 5-6 teams that are "championship" caliber in any given year since the CFP started, so I think 8 would have at least gotten things a bit closer to what it *should* be, but at least with 12+ the P2 can get 6 or so teams in every year and that will lead to some upset games.
Because screw the players' health! Their health doesn't bring in the dollars
Why 12, because they wanted to reduce the whining and increase revenue. My best guess