Big playoff = more interesting non-confernce games.

lou holtz LDO

wow... that answer is better than Zook

oh yeah, Condolezza Rice as a serious candidate for football czar

LOL ROSECOLOREDGLASSESAMENTS

The current system rewards teams for

A) having a familiar name

B) not losing at the end of the season

FWIW, the current system -- and all systems where post season monies are paid out to the conferences (and not the schools that qualify for the post season) and then disbursed equally from there -- it's not the Michigans of the world that are benefiting undeservedly by "cruising on their name". "Cruising on your name" is a profitable thing, it indicates people want to set their eyeballs to your game even if you're not good based merely on your reputation and not on your performance (see, Notre Dame, and yeah Michigan this season).

The largest benefactors of the current system aren't the Michigans of the world -- far from it. It's teams that invest nothing in their football programs, have little to no following, wouldn't be a profitable venture for a school if they weren't part of a BCS conference, and really only exist to give schools with large fan bases an opponent to play, BUT they still get to share equally in BCS payouts. DUCY?

Yes, of course. I've argued as much in SE several times (I think I've specifically singled out Illinois in this regard since MT2R is a big fan). But Michigan is certainly benefiting from that this year. Plus, who can turn down a chance to take a cheap swipe at ikes?

EDIT: that reminds me, I should bump the recession thread.

It doesn't matter if you have a familiar name or not, if your team is not good, it is not good and the rankings will reflect that.

The reason no name teams don't get in the championship is because they don't play as many good teams.

And why, then, is that?

every fan I've ever seen that was against the playoffs is using the same arguments that were used against divisional realignment/the wild card in baseball. "what's the point of the regular season if a non-division winner gets in?" etc etc.

results: August games that are actually meaningful for 2/3 of the franchises. yay!

fwiw, I'm not budging my position and I do not expect to enjoy debating it further, so I have decided to leave this thread alone.

A. What team without a "familiar name" has been jobbed by the BCS? Auburn is a very familiar name, btw.

B. Uh, you mean like all playoff systems do?

Oregon?

This. Great post.

The BCS has already ruined most of the things that the anti-playoff folks talk about, they just refuse to realize it. Either go back to the old way where bows mattered and were interesting, or do a playoff.

And seriously, can we stop with the "#9 team will get screwed as well!!!!" argument? It's horrible. Are we really comparing the a two loss #9 team getting screwed to a possible undefeated team getting screwed?

Utah, Boise St

fyp

A) other posts have covered that

B) YOU were the one pimping "rewarded for excellence throughout the entire season" as some sort of valuable criteria.

Why don't they just pick 4 teams instead of 2 and create a Final Four atmosphere? Right now it is very easy to finish #3 or 4 and have a legitimate case that you should have gotten to play in the title game, but if you took 4 teams the #5 team that was on the bubble would not have nearly as good an argument. My general impression is that by the time you get down to the fifth ranked team, if they complain, you can reasonably say "Well you probably just should have won those games, its your fault". Not so much to the #3 team right now.

It wouldn't diminish the "season is on the line every game" aspect, as a loss would still likely boot you out of the top 4, and would create 2 semifinal games which would be sweet matchups and TV events. I feel like expanding it to 8 would start to kill the selective aspect a bit. How would this not be an improvement?

i agree 4 teams would be awesome. keep all the same bowls, and tack on one more game and have it be the national championship bowl, or let the major bowls rotate to host it, national championship rose bowl w/e

Even though I oppose a playoff, I'd infinitely prefer a 4 team playoff to an 8 team playoff. 8 teams is just excessive.

For those that are against a playoff, would any of you be against some type of +1? I just can't fathom how anyone would be against that at the very least and would be curious to see some reasoning.

I understand why some people prefer 8 teams to 4, or 4 over 8 teams, but rather having things the way they currently are over having a plus 1 type situation just is insanity to me.

The problem with 4 is that non BCS-league teams are completely shutout. They would not have picked the undefeated Boisie or Utah teams for a 4 team playoff. Boise would have been passed over for the Oklahoma team they beat. The Utah team won every game in 2004 by more than 2 touchdowns, and still would not have been selected.

1. I don't see how they are any less screwed under the current system. Obviously

2. In 2004 they played Texas AM, Arizona, and North Carolina out of conference. How many top 25 or top 10 ranked teams did they or Boise beat in 04? How many of these wins did other programs in the top 10 have? (I am genuinely curious to the answer to this, I don't know what it is)

3. Maybe there could be a stipulation that 1 of the spots would be reserved for a non BCS conference team if they performed above a certain threshold, to even stuff like this out. Obviously making stipulations like this is where you start to get yourself into trouble and things get contentious. I was going to add something like this into my post but wanted to keep it simple.

I think the mechanics of having 2 semifinal games that would be for the chance to go the NC game would work very well. 8 teams is too much IMO.

I know A&M and Pittsburgh finished 2004 in the top 25, and Utah destroyed them both that year (41-21 and 35-7 respectively). I don't think the 2006 Boisie team beat a top 25 team (but pretty much crushed everyone they played) until the Fiesta Bowl, where they beat Big 12 champ Oklahoma.

My point is that we will never know how good those teams actually are - before a game is played they have zero chance of playing for the championship ever. There needs to be some path where teams from non-BCS conferences can play their way in.