Shot in the dark - playoff possibilities

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 3:11 PM EST Comment 43 comments

This is kind of a dead time in my little Penn State-centric college football world when my mind is generally drawn to perfect world dreams of a beatiful bowl/playoff hybrid system were nobody gets screwed (unless they want to) and everybody has a chance for a TRUE National Championship not a MNC.

However, I realize that some people would consider this the ranting of a crazy man in the wilderness and wouldn't be interested. So, I put it to the group - if anybody is interested in a discussion about ideal world post season solutions let your voices be heard and I would be glad to share my rantings as well - maybe together we can come up with something worthy enough for derision from the BCS fat cats.

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I think the BCS system is good

that is, in order to determine the teams that participate in the playoffs.

It should be the top 8 teams in the final BCS standings after the conference championship games.

Conference champ games would be Saturday following Thanksgiving.

First round games would be around Christmas weekend, depending what day of the week Christmas fell on. So, if Dec 25 was a Sunday, Round 1 games could be Thurs & Fri night.

Semifinals could be held New Year’s Day, 4pm & 8pm, and these can be alternated between the current BCS bowls.

The championship could be the following week, as it is now, and could be one of the remaining BCS bowls.

by NittanyNutz2 on Dec 2, 2008 4:26 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Here is my solution

Take eight teams. Each of the six major conferences and two at large teams decided by the BCS standings. One of those at large teams HAS to come from outside the six major conferences. None of this crap where Notre Dame gets in just for winning ten games against Army and Navy. They have to beat out the Boise States and Utahs of the world to earn that last spot. The last at large spot is up for grabs to the highest ranked team that didn’t win their conference.

Of course where and when these games are played is a totally different matter that has major implications.

Mike
Black Shoe Diaries

by BSD on Dec 2, 2008 4:46 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

That's basically my proposal

Also, screw Notre Dame.

JoePa for governor

by ReadingRambler on Dec 2, 2008 5:04 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Higher seeded team gets a home game

Cold weather teams get the advantage of bringing teams to the frozen tundra, warm weather teams can exploit their OMG ESS EEE SEE SP33D! in picturesque conditions. And it’s an even way to do it (i.e. Boise has as good a chance of a home playoff game as we do)- the only one that would be a pain to justify would be the 4/5 matchup, because the rankings would be crucial.

John Madden told me 90% of the game was half-mental...

by TheK-GunNeedsReloaded on Dec 3, 2008 1:40 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

technically

Boise State wouldn’t have as good of a chance, since people are inherently biased against non-BCS (and some BCS) teams, and they’d get seeded lower.

by The JuggerNitt on Dec 3, 2008 7:48 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Point taken

John Madden told me 90% of the game was half-mental...

by TheK-GunNeedsReloaded on Dec 3, 2008 9:31 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

So, if this was in effect this year...

Which team woud get the final at-large bid?

an Alabama team whose only loss was in the SEC championship game to #4 Florida
or
A texas team who really should have been in the Big12 title game…but was shafted?

I bleed Blue and White.

by Horse N Buggy on Dec 3, 2008 9:19 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I don’t know, but wouldn’t you love that argument? I think that would be a fun one.

John Madden told me 90% of the game was half-mental...

by TheK-GunNeedsReloaded on Dec 3, 2008 9:32 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I think that's the problem with taking conference champs...

Boston College or Virginia Tech would get in over Florida/Alabama, or Texas or Texas Tech. Cincinnati would get in over those teams as well. Ohio State is probably more deserving than those 2 conference champs.

Could a 2-loss cutoff be implemented? I think that may help out a bit.

by jimbo2psu on Dec 3, 2008 10:40 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

well I think they have a similar cutoff for the BCS

at least for the Big East, where Notre Dame can get their automatic bid. There are also currently win cutoffs for non-BCS teams right now.

My problem with a cutoff like that is this (hypothetical) situation:
Imagine the 5 best teams in the country are all in one conference (unlikely, but not impossible…I mean heck, this year everyone was saying that Texas, OU, and Texas Tech were 3 of the top teams). Unless one team is clearly superior, you figure they’ll split the games amongst themselves around 2-2. Then if they have one more loss to another top ranked team in conference, or even OOC, then this rule backfires and you start excluding the good teams as well, punishing them for playing in a tough conference.

by The JuggerNitt on Dec 3, 2008 10:49 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

All I needed was one person...

So here is my idea…

Blow the whole thing up…

Begin by totally reorganizing the 120 Division 1 teams into 12 ten team conferences. (I can list my first takes on these later)

Each team plays a complete round robin schedule of 9 conference games and two OOC games.

The champion of each league makes a 12 team playoff.

the 12 league champions are seeded by a committee just like BB and the top 4 seeds get bye’s in the first round.

Teams 5 – 8 host teams 9 – 12 for round one of the playoffs
Teams 1 – 4 host the reseeded Round 1 winners for round 2 of the playoffs the next week.

Every team that loses in the first or second round of the playoffs plus every other team with winning record is eligible for a bowl game.

Bowl games play out as they normally do… except the reseeded 1-4 teams meet in Rose & Orange bowls on Jan 1 (or rotate with Fiesta & Cotton – doesn’t really matter)

The Championship game happens at the sugar bowl on Jan 8th (just because NO is such a great event city)

If the season started labor day weekend, it would end before thanksgiving including a bye week. First week of playoffs are the week of Tgiving with the second round following the next week. Not a big deal for scheduling because these are extra home games for the higher ranked team.

Most teams would play 12 games & the maximum number of games is 15 – for two teams assuming they didn’t get byes.

The biggest problem I can find is the carping about the realignment of conferences (which isn’t that big of a deal and actually happens all the time) and the loss of a game from the regular season… however that doesn’t really concern me because we only played 11 till this year.

The sanctity of the regular season is preserved because you MUST win your conference to make the playoffs.

Every single team has an equal chance at the TNC.

Excellent OOC games are encouraged because that would help each teams RPI (for lack of a better word) with the committee for seeding purposes.

Just my two cents -

I’ll get my proposed realignments up soon

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 4:49 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Super A number one Conference

Penn State
Pittsburgh
West Virginia
Boston College
Notre Dame
Maryland
Temple
Connecticut
Rutgers
Syracuse

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:17 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

BB Conference

Duke
North Carolina
North Carolina State
Wake Forest
South Carolina
Clemson
Virginia
Virginia Tech
East Carolina
Marshall

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:18 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Old Big Ten

Michigan
Ohio State
Michigan State
Wisconsin
Minnesota
Indiana
Purdue
Kent State
Bowling Green State
Toledo

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:18 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

What, no Chicago?

by gumbercules on Dec 2, 2008 6:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Sunshine Conference

Florida
Florida State
Miami-Florida
South Florida
Central Florida
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
Louisiana Tech
Southern Mississippi
Troy State

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:18 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Swamp Conference

Arkansas
Louisiana State
Mississippi
Mississippi State
Tennessee
Vanderbilt
Louisiana-Lafayette
Louisiana-Monroe
Arkansas State
Tulane

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

This conference name makes me laugh.

Look out for that Swamp Speed!

by Cairo on Dec 3, 2008 11:09 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

High Plains Conference

Colorado
Colorado State
Nebraska
Iowa
Iowa State
Missouri
Kansas
Kansas State
North Texas
Tulsa

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:19 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Southern Plains Conference

Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Southern Methodist
Texas Christian
Baylor
Houston
Texas-El Paso

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Deep South Conference

Alabama
Auburn
Georgia
Georgia Tech
Louisville
Kentucky
Alabama-Birmingham
Western Kentucky
Memphis
Rice University

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:20 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Pacific Conference

Washington
Washington State
Oregon
Oregon State
Southern California
UCLA
California
Stanford
Fresno State
Hawaii

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Western Conference

New Mexico State
New Mexico
Arizona
Arizona State
Brigham Young
Utah
Wyoming
Boise State
Utah State
Idaho

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:21 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Ohio Valley Conference (plus UNLV till I find a better place for them)

Cincinnati
Akron
Ball State
Western Michigan
Central Michigan
Eastern Michigan
SUNY-Buffalo
Miami-Ohio
Middle Tennessee State
UNLV

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Leftover conference (first take anyway)

Navy
Army
Air Force
Northwestern
Illinois
Nevada
Northern Illinois
Ohio
San Diego State
San Jose State

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:23 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The thinking behind the curtain...

Tried to keep traditional rivals together and mix in some of the non traditional powers with the big boys

Certainly not perfect by any means and I’ll admit my little western school knowledge is somewhat limited, but its certainly a place to start.

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 5:25 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The biggest problem I can find is the carping about the realignment of conferences

No, the biggest problem is economics. With a 9-game conference season, you’d have between 4 and 5 home games. With the 2 out-of-conference games necessarily being home-and-away splits (not enough patsies otherwise) or at least close to home-and-away splits, you won’t have enough home games to support the major teams (who need 7 at a minimum).

Also, only two out of conference games are relatively useless in a 12-conference alignment. It still leaves massive, massive connectivity gaps. It’s actually worse than what we currently have, since every team will have at least 10 4th order connections.

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Dec 2, 2008 9:54 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

I agree about the economics...

That is certainly a problem – figure the teams that get a 5 game home conf schedule (what counts towards playoffs) plays both ooc games on the road and vice versa. So 6 home games then 5 every other year.

Maybe there could be some sort of profit sharing with the playoffs to distribute the money to make up for losing the home game at a limited number of schools

Pac 10 is currently doing the rr with only 3 ooc games, so that’s not too far off from what I’m talking about.

I think that the advantages of an all inclusive system with a true champion outweigh alot of things. Another game could be added but that would obviously raise the number of games which seems to be a big deal with the presidents… something to think about though

by brubby on Dec 2, 2008 10:49 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

So 6 home games then 5 every other year.

Major BCS schools (like Penn State, Ohio State, etc.) need 7 home games a year to stay afloat. 5 would kill them.

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Dec 2, 2008 10:51 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

only since 2005

before that we somehow survived with 6 home games a year. I’m not saying that a few schools might have to make some sacrifices for the good of the entire sport – but there will be plenty more money generated by the addition of the playoff games and new television money that could be doled out to member schools that it might not be AS big a deal as we think.

How much money does Penn State make buying a coastal carolina game? Surely with the additional revenue streams a playoff would bring there would be some way to minimize any loss.

by brubby on Dec 3, 2008 10:11 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

before that we somehow survived with 6 home games a year.

6 in 2004, 7 in 2003, 8 in 2002, 6 in 2001, 6.5 (special) in 2000, 7 in 1999. Long term average is very close to 7 games.

I’m not saying that a few schools might have to make some sacrifices for the good of the entire sport

Not going to happen. When I said that they need 7 home games, they don’t need it for football. Football makes boatloads of money. They need it for other sports. You will never, ever, ever convince any athletic director that Sally shouldn’t get a scholarship for women’s softball because a small subset of college football fans (and yes, we are a small subset) think it’s not fair that we get 7 home games.

How much money does Penn State make buying a coastal carolina game?

I’ve seen estimates in the $5-10M range.

Surely with the additional revenue streams a playoff would bring there would be some way to minimize any loss.

How? Penn State, Ohio State, etc. make in the neighborhood of $50M/year from football. How do you justify giving them a much larger share than, say, Illinois, which makes a small fraction of that?

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Dec 3, 2008 2:00 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Ok - lets go ahead and concede some of those things and see if we can improve them

I’ve got a new format that’s a little more esoteric but it answers your 12 game problem…. lets continue the discussion in a new thread since this ones about to get bounced…

by brubby on Dec 3, 2008 5:26 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

probably a better way

would to have ten 12-team conferences, each with a conference champion
so you would have 5 division games plus 3 against teams from the other division, and then 4 OOC games.

Then you’d have the 10 conference champions and could either do 2 at large for a 12 team playoff with BYEs, or add 6 at larges for a 16 team playoff, which would take the same number of weeks, but wouldn’t give any teams a BYE.

As far as connectivity gaps, those would all get resolved in the playoff. Sure, seeding would be screwier, but you wouldn’t actually NEED rankings like we do now, so screw connectivity.

by The JuggerNitt on Dec 3, 2008 7:57 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

good point...

I thought about the 10 twelve team league and it actually made the groupings much easier – I went with 12 just to set up the playoff a little easier so I didn’t have to include bye’s and everybody got one home game. You could do the same thing with 10 auto teams and two at large teams.

by brubby on Dec 3, 2008 10:16 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Sure, seeding would be screwier, but you wouldn’t actually NEED rankings like we do now

Sure you would. How else do you determine the at-large teams or seeding? If you have no at-large teams, then without connectivity the tiebreakers in-conference become insane – two teams with 11-1 records, one lost to an undefeated Alabama in (if it were this year) what would be a strong conference and the other lost to an undefeated Northwestern in what would be a disaster of a conference.

All that does is transform the arguments from arguing about who gets into the NC game to who gets into the playoff (“how is it fair that the champion of the aptly-named ‘Leftover Conference’ gets in with a worse schedule than Hawaii in 2007, when two of the three powerhouses from the Deep South, in a circle-of-death, get left out?”).

And as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, that means that more teams actually have valid complaints. Which means you’ll only hear the complaints increase!

Without major-league connectivity, all tiebreakers, conferences, etc. will seem completely arbitrary.

It’d be interesting to simulate a season with an alignment like this, using rankings from, say, Sagarin’s predictor rankings (which is ~fine for simulating seasons, not for ranking them), and show what they look like.

Using this season, you’d have (with Sagarin’s predictor rankings to ‘guess’ at a team’s true strength, rather than ranked schedule):

Penn State (#5)
Clemson (#19)
Ohio State (#8)
Florida (#2)
Mississippi (#13)
Missouri (#9)
Oklahoma (#3)
Alabama (#6)
USC (#1)
Boise State (#12)
Ball State (#24)
Northwestern (#39)

In this case, there would be tons of teams that would complain: Texas, Texas Tech, TCU, Oklahoma State, etc. – the Ohio Valley conference and Leftover conference are flat out horrible. (Note that I’m using the margin-of-victory ratings because I’m trying to predict what would happen.)

People wouldn’t stop complaining just because of a playoff. Especially one that leaves them with valid reasons to complain.

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Dec 3, 2008 4:27 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

while I agree

that we would still need some sort of ranking for the at large spots (when I said we wouldn’t need them, I meant more that it would be diminished), I don’t completely agree with you simulation, just because you’re comparing their predicted strength for how they would do in their conference vs the actual results from this year. If the predicted strengths held true, then those teams you listed would have won their conferences, and would have beaten the Texas, TTU, TCU, OkSt, etc, who would then not have a basis for complaining about being left out: they didn’t win their conference.

You are right, though, they would have basis to complain about at large spots (if they’re included). There would also have to be better rules and tiebreakers for if there were situations like the Big 12 is having right now with 3 teams tied in the south. I don’t know what the best set of rules and tiebreakers would be after head-to-head (which breaks down in situations like these)

by The JuggerNitt on Dec 4, 2008 7:08 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Controversy-free playoff.

Add 11 teams to the FBS, then play six weeks of regular season football for seeding. Everyone qualifies so the regular season is meaningless. Then have a seven-week 128-team Fall Madness tournament. Whoever wins is the champion. To determine the rest of the postseason rankings, the tourney should be like Olympic hockey where there are lots of losers brackets to determine who places 7th, 8th, 9th etc. Only in NCAA football there would be dozens of loser brackets.

That way everyone gets ranked from top to bottom, no questions asked. No complaints ever.

by Cairo on Dec 2, 2008 5:05 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

That way everyone gets ranked from top to bottom, no questions asked. No complaints ever.

Except for all of the athletic departments that just went bankrupt from only playing 4 home games.

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Dec 2, 2008 9:55 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Details, details.

Perhaps my sarcasm was failing to show through. As you’ve stated before, it’s incredibly difficult to determine the champion of a league with 117 teams and 12 regular season games regardless of the format. The best solutions are reduce the teams or play more games. Neither is happening soon.

by Cairo on Dec 2, 2008 10:22 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The best solutions are reduce the teams or play more games.

True, but there are “not so terrible” solutions. I think people would be amazed at how much cleaner the BCS picture would be if you reduced Division IAA games (by removing them from bowl eligibility), forced conferences to not exclusively (or nearly so) schedule other conferences (Big 10/MAC), and cleaned up bias in the human polls.

Really, the Division IAA disaster is what’s killing things. People forget that we really only had 2 years of the ‘modern’ BCS without the Division IAA hell – 2005 and 2006. And in both of those cases, it was almost controversy-free, and produced absolutely fantastic bowl games.

by Bleed Blue 'n White on Dec 2, 2008 10:50 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Simple

Have USC play the SEC champ every year, because in no way is College power cyclical and they will always be the best two teams. I mean there was never a decade that was ruled by Nebraska and Florida State.

by Roland86 on Dec 2, 2008 6:11 PM EST reply actions 0 recs