Souhan: Expanding College Football Playoff would limit guesswork

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beatles said:
So we want to make the college football regular season even less meaningful now? The college football season is a playoff it always has been we don't need to expand anything at this point.
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Wazzu fan here. I agree if you expand the playoff too much it makes the regular season less meaningful. However I think expanding it to 8 would actually make it more meaningful. If you expand to 8 then the conference champions of the power 5 conferences all automatically get in. This would mean that having a great regular (conference) season would become paramount. Ask Penn State if they think their regular season would have had more meaning if the playoff field was expanded to 8 teams.

Current system means some people locked in a room get to decide that even though you won a conference championship and defeated team X they can still put team X in the playoffs ahead of you. The idea of deciding it on the field was effectively killed when tOSU was named over Penn St. Expanding to 8 teams would, I think, revive it. 5 champions earn it on the field, some men locked in a room can decide the other 3.
 

opbuckets said:
Wazzu fan here. I agree if you expand the playoff too much it makes the regular season less meaningful. However I think expanding it to 8 would actually make it more meaningful. If you expand to 8 then the conference champions of the power 5 conferences all automatically get in. This would mean that having a great regular (conference) season would become paramount. Ask Penn State if they think their regular season would have had more meaning if the playoff field was expanded to 8 teams.

Current system means some people locked in a room get to decide that even though you won a conference championship and defeated team X they can still put team X in the playoffs ahead of you. The idea of deciding it on the field was effectively killed when tOSU was named over Penn St. Expanding to 8 teams would, I think, revive it. 5 champions earn it on the field, some men locked in a room can decide the other 3.
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tOSU went 11-1. PSU went 10-2. Took them that extra game to get to 11 wins. The money grab that is the Conference Championship game didn't work. Again. See 2012 Wisconsin. They went to the Big Ten Championship after going 7-5 and 4-4 in B1G play. They won and went to the Rose Bowl. There have been ACC and I think Big East/American Athletic Champs that lost 4 regular season games too.

That "Big Ten Champion" ended-up at 8-6. "Some men locked in a room" could have easily come up with a much, much better Rose Bowl participant.

If Michigan had got in this year instead of Penn State, then your sentence would have been fine.
 

Iceland12 said:
tOSU went 11-1. PSU went 10-2. Took them that extra game to get to 11 wins. The money grab that is the Conference Championship game didn't work. Again. See 2012 Wisconsin. They went to the Big Ten Championship after going 7-5 and 4-4 in B1G play. They won and went to the Rose Bowl. There have been ACC and I think Big East/American Athletic Champs that lost 4 regular season games too.

That "Big Ten Champion" ended-up at 8-6. "Some men locked in a room" could have easily come up with a much, much better Rose Bowl participant.

If Michigan had got in this year instead of Penn State, then your sentence would have been fine.
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2012 is a terrible example with 2 teams ahead of Wisconsin unable to participate due to sanctions. Most years it's going to work out.
 

GophersInIowa said:
That's not what happened in this case though. OSU beat Oklahoma on the road. So not only did they play a tougher opponent during the non conference, they also came out with no losses compared to Penn St's one loss.

Conference championships and head to head should mean something, but wins and losses should mean a lot too. An extra loss on your resume is a big deal when you only play 12 or 13 games overall.
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But you're ascribing an arbitrary value to Oklahoma. The same Oklahoma that was smoked in their non-con and plowed through what many view as a garbage conference. Do we know that Oklahoma is really as good as their ranking? No way.

A second point, what if PSU had played a weaker non-con slate and won all those and still beat OSU head to head? Still put OSU in over PSU?
 

A_Slab_of_Bacon said:
8 team playoff.

5 conference champs get in.

3 at large bids.

Done.
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I like this with one additional change. It would be a maximum of 8 teams, but doesn't have to be. The 5 conference champs are guaranteed and you can have up to 3 at-large spots for either non-power 5 schools (Boise State example) or if one conference has a team that is deemed worthy (OSU this year).

The committee would still have some subjective involvement, but it doesn't have to fill all eight spots, so this year would only be six teams with the conference and OSU. Top two teams get a bye.

Of course, this could never happen because choosing not to fill a spot and have an extra game is not grabbing all possible dollars.
 


Pompous Elitist said:
But you're ascribing an arbitrary value to Oklahoma. The same Oklahoma that was smoked in their non-con and plowed through what many view as a garbage conference. Do we know that Oklahoma is really as good as their ranking? No way.

A second point, what if PSU had played a weaker non-con slate and won all those and still beat OSU head to head? Still put OSU in over PSU?
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In that case I would put PSU in ahead of OSU because they a) would have a better record, b) have the head to head advantage, and c) won the conference.

Sometimes playing a an easier non conference schedule helps you and sometimes it hurts you. It's much harder to go through a season with just one loss compared to two losses in my opinion, especially when you play a tough schedule like OSU did. I really think people are undervaluing 2 vs. 1 loss.
 

Iceland12 said:
tOSU went 11-1. PSU went 10-2. Took them that extra game to get to 11 wins. The money grab that is the Conference Championship game didn't work. Again. See 2012 Wisconsin. They went to the Big Ten Championship after going 7-5 and 4-4 in B1G play. They won and went to the Rose Bowl. There have been ACC and I think Big East/American Athletic Champs that lost 4 regular season games too.

That "Big Ten Champion" ended-up at 8-6. "Some men locked in a room" could have easily come up with a much, much better Rose Bowl participant.

If Michigan had got in this year instead of Penn State, then your sentence would have been fine.
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If they ever went to an auto bid for conference champions after expanding the playoff, I think there would have to be some kind of stipulation that the team must be at least be in the top 25 to qualify.
 

GophersInIowa said:
If they ever went to an auto bid for conference champions after expanding the playoff, I think there would have to be some kind of stipulation that the team must be at least be in the top 25 to qualify.
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Seems like a reasonable condition and it would be easy to put in. Don't know if it's necessary. What are the chances of a P5 champion not being ranked in the top 25? I don't think non P5 champions would ever get an autobid unless they expand the playoff to like 32. That seems unlikely.
 

GophersInIowa said:
In that case I would put PSU in ahead of OSU because they a) would have a better record, b) have the head to head advantage, and c) won the conference.

Sometimes playing a an easier non conference schedule helps you and sometimes it hurts you. It's much harder to go through a season with just one loss compared to two losses in my opinion, especially when you play a tough schedule like OSU did. I really think people are undervaluing 2 vs. 1 loss.
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I think it's important to look at common opponents, injuries, suspensions and the like. PSU didn't play OK. It all gets very, very muddy and I understand people like rankings because it puts things in a box but we all see how much these rankings change as more data points develop. They are made up based on bias and incomplete information.

I like the idea of comebacks and underdogs so I feel there should be a mechanism for that in an expanded playoff
 




die hard gopher said:
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If this is supposed to mean that you can't use such logic to make a case for certain teams to get into an expanded playoff, you should realize the same type of logic would have to be used to pick a champion either without a playoff or in the current 4 team playoff. Either way you are making guesses as to the relative strength of teams based on who they played and how those teams did, etc, etc. Western Michigan is undefeated. It's only because people decided their strength of schedule was too weak to deserve consideration that they aren't being considered.
 

Half serious, because of course it would never happen... If the preseason rankings were just a bit more accurate I would say the best way to do it would be to have the top 15 teams forgo their regular conference schedules and enter a super-league for the year. They would play a 14 game round robin season. The winner of that league would be your champion and would have seriously earned it. No guess work (among those teams) as to who played the tougher schedule, etc.
 

SKOOKM said:
If this is supposed to mean that you can't use such logic to make a case for certain teams to get into an expanded playoff, you should realize the same type of logic would have to be used to pick a champion either without a playoff or in the current 4 team playoff. Either way you are making guesses as to the relative strength of teams based on who they played and how those teams did, etc, etc. Western Michigan is undefeated. It's only because people decided their strength of schedule was too weak to deserve consideration that they aren't being considered.
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It wasn't meant to be anything other than a funny tweet that I posted as I am a follower of SJU and MIAC football.
 



Like others have said. No matter how big you make the playoffs there will always be controversy because some team is left out. Soupcan is wrong as usual.
 


SKOOKM said:
If this is supposed to mean that you can't use such logic to make a case for certain teams to get into an expanded playoff, you should realize the same type of logic would have to be used to pick a champion either without a playoff or in the current 4 team playoff. Either way you are making guesses as to the relative strength of teams based on who they played and how those teams did, etc, etc. Western Michigan is undefeated. It's only because people decided their strength of schedule was too weak to deserve consideration that they aren't being considered.
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I think it's awesome logic. There was a season not too long ago in the West or Leaders where everyone beat the right team like this to complete a circle.
 

short ornery norwegian said:
Souhan's point was about academic requirements. A kid playing at St. Thomas practices every day, lifts weights, etc, just like his D1 counterparts.
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Souhan can't possibly be so naive as to believe this. He just knows he can mostly get away with saying something so stupid because this is Minnesota and people have foolishly convinced themselves tommy/johnny ball is something more than fancy intermurals with coaches.
 


I took Souhan's comment on the Alabama vs. St. Thomas comparison as a kid at UST most likely takes their education more seriously because they are not planning on staying in St. Paul for 3-4 years before jumping to the NFL. The common saying is a playoff system would keep kids out of class too long - which is a total joke. Football misses far fewer classes than other sports - travel Friday, play Saturday.

D1 college football is the only sport I know that has major controversy at the end of the season. Is FBS football smarter than every other league in every other sport? Like Dan B said on KFAN yesterday, the last four out in the NCAA Basketball Tournament complains for about an hour and a half and then everyone forgets about it.
 

Ski U Mah Gopher said:
I always thought a can agree with S2 on something!!!!! And this is it.
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Hey! I don't know who you are but always glad when someone agrees! I think the David and Goliath angle would be huge.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

10 team playoff. #7/#10 and #8/#9 are play in games played at higher seed. Quarterfinals are played at higher seed. Champion of EVERY conference gets a bid. Independents are OUT. Join a conference if you want part of the playoffs. If you don't, stay independent. All teams that do not qualify for the tournament go to the bowls.


#1 Alabama (SEC champ) vs. #8 San Diego State (Mountain West champ)/ #9 Western Kentucky (Conference USA champ)

#4 Penn St. (B1G champ) vs. #5 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ)

#3 Washington (Pac 12 champ) vs. #6 Western Michigan (MAC champ)

#2 Clemson (ACC) vs. #7 Temple (AAC champ)/ #10 Appalachian State (Sun Belt champ)

Win your conference or you are out. Regular season means EVERYTHING. If you do not win your conference you do not get a chance to play for a National title. No BS committees, polls, and power ratings. Just simple straight forward criteria. Win your conference championship.

To the "What about Notre Dame?" crowd and "It is a joke to let non Power 5 teams in" crowd:

2000-01 Fiesta Bowl: Oregon State 41 Notre Dame 9
2004-05 Fiesta Bowl: Utah (Mountain West) 35 Pitt 7
2005-06 Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State 34 Notre Dame 20
2006-07 Fiesta Bowl: Boise State (WAC) 43 Oklahoma 42 OT
2006-07 Sugar Bowl: LSU 41 Notre Dame 14
2007-08 Sugar Bowl: Georgia 41 Hawaii (WAC) 10
2008-09 Sugar Bowl: Utah (Mountain West) 31 Alabama 17
2009-10 Fiesta Bowl: Boise State (WAC) 17 TCU (Mountain West) 10
2010-11 Rose Bowl: TCU (Mountain West) 21 Wisconsin 19
2012-13 Orange Bwl: Florida State 31 Northern Illinois (MAC) 10
2012-13 BCS Title: Alabama 42 Notre Dame 14
2013-14 Fiesta Bowl: UCF (AAC) 52 Baylor 42
2014-15 Fiesta Bowl: Boise State (Mountain West) 38 Arizona 30
2015-16 Fiesta Bowl: Ohio State 44 Notre Dame 28
2015-16 Peach Bowl: Houston (AAC) 38 Florida State 24

Notre Dame, 0-5, losing by an average of 23.4 points per game yet they get the nod way more often than not over other teams.

Non 'Power 5' conference teams, 7-2 (with one "Push" as two Non 'Power 5' teams matched up against each other in the '09-'10 Fiesta Bowl).
 

Gophers2Omaha said:
10 team playoff. #7/#10 and #8/#9 are play in games played at higher seed. Quarterfinals are played at higher seed. Champion of EVERY conference gets a bid. Independents are OUT. Join a conference if you want part of the playoffs. If you don't, stay independent. All teams that do not qualify for the tournament go to the bowls.


#1 Alabama (SEC champ) vs. #8 San Diego State (Mountain West champ)/ #9 Western Kentucky (Conference USA champ)

#4 Penn St. (B1G champ) vs. #5 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ)

#3 Washington (Pac 12 champ) vs. #6 Western Michigan (MAC champ)

#2 Clemson (ACC) vs. #7 Temple (AAC champ)/ #10 Appalachian State (Sun Belt champ)

Win your conference or you are out. Regular season means EVERYTHING. If you do not win your conference you do not get a chance to play for a National title. No BS committees, polls, and power ratings. Just simple straight forward criteria. Win your conference championship.
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This would be simply awesome.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
I think it's important to look at common opponents, injuries, suspensions and the like. PSU didn't play OK. It all gets very, very muddy and I understand people like rankings because it puts things in a box but we all see how much these rankings change as more data points develop. They are made up based on bias and incomplete information.

I like the idea of comebacks and underdogs so I feel there should be a mechanism for that in an expanded playoff
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So, you want the CFP Committee to specifically ask teams to play tougher non-conference schedules (as it has done), and then ignore the Oklahoma-OSU game and PSU-Pitt outcomes?

The CFP Committee doesn't have the same goal the Big Ten does. The Big Ten's sole goal is to place each division winner into a Big Ten championship game. That's it. And, that is based only on Big Ten Conference games. Therefore, in a tiebreaker, using only B1G games, PSU wins. That doesn't take into consideration that OSU had to play crossover games against the two best teams in the B1G West (NEB, WIS, +NW), while PSU did not (IA, MN, PUR).

However, the CFP Committee doesn't have the same responsibility. It is supposed to look at the entire 12-game schedule, including the non-conference part that is ignored by the Big Ten. And, when doing that, there is absolutely, positively no doubt OSU had a better overall season than PSU. Quite frankly, it isn't even all that close.
 

No athlete is kept from studying. As with everything in life it is all about priorities. If education is important to you time will be there. If hanging out and playing Xbox is more important then that's ok.

Many students take full loads and work ~20 hrs a week or have children, etc. managing a busy schedule is doable with a dedicated mindset. Martyrdom talk is just that. If they don't have time to study or are forced to work out and practice beyond x hours per week depending on time of year that is an NCAA violation. I am all for strict enforcement of time limits -these guys are students first.
 

Gophers2Omaha said:
#1 Alabama (SEC champ) vs. #8 San Diego State (Mountain West champ)/ #9 Western Kentucky (Conference USA champ)

#4 Penn St. (B1G champ) vs. #5 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ)

#3 Washington (Pac 12 champ) vs. #6 Western Michigan (MAC champ)

#2 Clemson (ACC) vs. #7 Temple (AAC champ)/ #10 Appalachian State (Sun Belt champ)

Win your conference or you are out. Regular season means EVERYTHING. If you do not win your conference you do not get a chance to play for a National title. No BS committees, polls, and power ratings. Just simple straight forward criteria. Win your conference championship.
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The MAC/AAC/Sun Belt (lol)/MW "champion" has no business getting an automatic bid over say the 2nd or even 3rd best B1G/SEC team.

In the NFL, division winner auto-bids work because of the relative parity. College conferences are far too imbalanced for that system to work.
 

I'm not a fan of the playoffs made up of conference only champions. That essentially makes the non conference schedule meaningless.

What if Florida found a way to beat Alabama Saturday? You'd have one of the best teams in the country out of the playoffs and a Sun Belt champion in. No thanks.

And not all conferences are equal (don't play the same amount of games, don't play everyone in their conference, etc).
 

MNfootballfan said:
This would be simply awesome.
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IF all conferences were included, I literally would watch as many of the games as I could. Play in games gives the "little guys" some limelight. Quarterfinals gives fans a little bit of everything - some "Davids vs. Goliaths", a matchup between the "best" non Power 5 team and and the #3 Power 5 team, and finally a #4/#5 Power 5 matchup. The semifinals either have a Cinderella story or two making waves or Power 5 teams going toe to toe with each other. Each team already having a tourney win under their belt.

With this year's 4 team College Football playoff, I'll probably give the Washington/Alabama game a look. Have always liked Petersen and the two teams haven't played since the 1986 Sun Bowl. Zero chance I'll watch Clemson/Ohio State. Same if it is a rematch of Clemson/Alabama for all the marbles. I might check out the Alabama/Ohio State finals match up though. Probably the Bluest of the Blue Bloods as of today.

Though, if it is the same 5-6 teams every year, the 4 team playoff is going to get stale pretty quick. So far (Champion in bold.):

2014-15: Alabama, Florida St., Ohio State, Oregon
2015-16: Alabama (2nd appearance), Clemson, Michigan State, Oklahoma
2016-17: Alabama (3), Clemson(2), Ohio State (2), Washington
2017-18: Gophers,...,...,... ha ha!! One can dream.
 

GophersInIowa said:
I'm not a fan of the playoffs made up of conference only champions. That essentially makes the non conference schedule meaningless.

What if Florida found a way to beat Alabama Saturday? You'd have one of the best teams in the country out of the playoffs and a Sun Belt champion in. No thanks.

And not all conferences are equal (don't play the same amount of games, don't play everyone in their conference, etc).
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I would think the non conference games would have a large effect on the perception of a particular conference in regards to seeding the teams in the playoffs. Also, a potential added bonus is that it might lead to more heavyweight match ups in the non conference portion of schedules. You still control your destiny by winning your conference's championship. So, you don't have to worry about losing when challenging your team early on in non conference match-ups. Take Oklahoma playing and losing to Houston and Ohio State (Not a fan of the Sooners BTW. Just an example.). If the Sooners won the Big 12 they would still get into the tournament even though they lost both games. Though they would likely be seeded behind Ohio State and maybe even Houston if the Buckeyes and Cougars happened to win their respective conference championships.

Regarding your point about Florida beating Alabama - What if Washington beats Alabama by 20? Should the game be replayed because most people thought Alabama would win handily? No. Alabama is out. If they lost to Florida they would be out and Florida would be in the 10 team tournament as the SEC representative. Alabama would get to play in the Sugar Bowl and watch SEC champion (The SEC considers their conference championship winner their conference champion.) Florida play in the National Championship tourney.

Every conference champion should get a chance. Right now, only 4 Power conference teams are going to get a chance. Non Power 5 teams are never going to get a chance in this 4 team playoff. Literally ever. Maybe if/when the field expands to 8 a non Power 5 team will get a sniff. I say settle it on the field. All of it. Everything is speculation until two teams meet on the field.

Your point about everyone not playing everyone in conference play is totally valid. I have a real problem with the unbalanced schedules but don't see how that can be fixed with a 12 or 14 team conference. Pin the B1G, playing Michigan State last year is a little bit different than playing them this year... We are already forced to accept imbalanced conference schedules. Seems like that is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Non conference schedules are far from equal as well. Washington's schedule versus Penn State's schedule is a joke yet they got in over Penn State likely because Penn State lost to Pitt. At least having conference champions only represented in a 10 team tourney takes the non conference scheduling imbalances completely out of play.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
No athlete is kept from studying. As with everything in life it is all about priorities. If education is important to you time will be there. If hanging out and playing Xbox is more important then that's ok.

Many students take full loads and work ~20 hrs a week or have children, etc. managing a busy schedule is doable with a dedicated mindset. Martyrdom talk is just that. If they don't have time to study or are forced to work out and practice beyond x hours per week depending on time of year that is an NCAA violation. I am all for strict enforcement of time limits -these guys are students first.
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I heard they were kept from studying at NC...worked out for a while.
 

MNfootballfan said:
I took Souhan's comment on the Alabama vs. St. Thomas comparison as a kid at UST most likely takes their education more seriously because they are not planning on staying in St. Paul for 3-4 years before jumping to the NFL. The common saying is a playoff system would keep kids out of class too long - which is a total joke. Football misses far fewer classes than other sports - travel Friday, play Saturday.

D1 college football is the only sport I know that has major controversy at the end of the season. Is FBS football smarter than every other league in every other sport? Like Dan B said on KFAN yesterday, the last four out in the NCAA Basketball Tournament complains for about an hour and a half and then everyone forgets about it.
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This is true and if anything, the complaining last about 30-seconds. The 64th team is not going to make it past the first or second round so the teams that follow really don't matter. The larger the pool, the more you minimize the complaining for the last team out. Clearly football can't have a 64-team playoff but having an eight team playoff would be much better than four. Leaving out the #5 team is much worse then leaving out #9.
 

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