New Divsion I-FBS Playoff Proposition

[Ralph Turner]

HSC - There are 11 conferences in D-1 and you can't exclude any of them to make it a legit tournament.

But it makes for a nice 16 team bracket with 11 AQ's and 5 at-large bids.

That would keep in the conference playoffs in play, especially for seeding.

[smedindy]

It does, Ralph. And it saves room for the upstarts. Sure, it's unlikely the Sun Belt champ wins a game 19 times out of 20, but who would have thought Boise State would be Boise State in 2001?

[HScoach]

Going from nothing to a full 16 team bracket would have zero chance of getting approved by the BCS schools.  Starting with an 8 team bracket with AQ's to only BCS conferences has a chance of getting done. 

Not going to argue against everyone having a chance to get it, but I would love to start with just 8.  Let it go for a while and then 16 might be possible.

[smedindy]

Anti-trust lawsuits may have a funny way of convincing them, though!

[SUADC]

Going from nothing to a full 16 team bracket would have zero chance of getting approved by the BCS schools.  Starting with an 8 team bracket with AQ's to only BCS conferences has a chance of getting done. 

Not going to argue against everyone having a chance to get it, but I would love to start with just 8.  Let it go for a while and then 16 might be possible.

Having 8 is a big step in the right direction. However, only having the AQ conference teams violates the NCAA agreement of every university/college having an equal chance of competing for a national championship. Even though the BCS says that each school has an equal chance, the formula definitely doesn't allow it even if every AQ school top team looses two games, the only way is that a non-AQ team has to go undefeated and every AQ top team has to have three losses (also no other team in that AQ conference has a better record). So just allowing each conference champ is the best step without controversy. Even the plus one has it controversy, because with this past/current season, I believe that Boise St would beat VT, Standford,Oklahoma St., Oregon, and Houston and given 6 weeks compete with both  of those SEC teams.

[AO]

I would love to see an 8 team bracket in D1, with the games played at the higher seeded school up until the final.  I also think the current BCS calculation would be perfect to select the at-large teams to the D1 playoffs.  Take the champion of the major conferences as automatic qualifiers and then fill the bracket based on the BCS ranking.  It would reward the conference champs and allow someone with 1 loss to still have a chance.

IMHO, a D1 football playoff would be bigger than March Madness in terms of TV revenue.  Unfortunately what it is keeping it from occurring is the not the amount of money made by the bowls, but who gets the money.  Right now the BCS conferences get the $ from the big bowls.  If it goes to a NCAA sanctioned playoff, the money goes to the NCAA like it does from the basketball tournament.  That is what is killing the playoff discussion in D1.

this would probably be a bonanza for D3 tournaments.  i'm thinking the new march madness contract had to help with our most recent more national playoff.  If d3 got to spend bowl money too, we might get a fully seeded, fly anywhere tournament.

[jknezek]

I would love to see an 8 team bracket in D1, with the games played at the higher seeded school up until the final.  I also think the current BCS calculation would be perfect to select the at-large teams to the D1 playoffs.  Take the champion of the major conferences as automatic qualifiers and then fill the bracket based on the BCS ranking.  It would reward the conference champs and allow someone with 1 loss to still have a chance.

IMHO, a D1 football playoff would be bigger than March Madness in terms of TV revenue.  Unfortunately what it is keeping it from occurring is the not the amount of money made by the bowls, but who gets the money.  Right now the BCS conferences get the $ from the big bowls.  If it goes to a NCAA sanctioned playoff, the money goes to the NCAA like it does from the basketball tournament.  That is what is killing the playoff discussion in D1.

this would probably be a bonanza for D3 tournaments.  i'm thinking the new march madness contract had to help with our most recent more national playoff.  If d3 got to spend bowl money too, we might get a fully seeded, fly anywhere tournament.

You are right, and at the same time that is the root of the problem. The big BCS schools don't want to share the money they generate. I can see both sides of it and wish there was an independent playoff, outside the NCAA but truly open to all D1 conferences. Of course, we all know what happened to the NIT, which was essentially just that...

[SUADC]

I decided that I am not going to watch this years BCS championship game. However, I am hoping the Alabama beats LSU and we can start talking about who deserves to be the National champion, out of all the 1-loss teams.

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

Quote from NCAA President:

"The notion of having a Final Four approach is probably a sound one," Emmert said when asked what he heard coming out of New Orleans this week. "Moving toward a 16-team playoff is highly problematic because I think that's too much to ask a young man's body to do. It's too many games, it intrudes into the school year and, of course, it would probably necessitate a complete end to the bowl system that so many people like now."

Um, all of the other divisions have 32-team playoffs and the players seem to be handling it fairly well...

[SUADC]

Quote from NCAA President:

"The notion of having a Final Four approach is probably a sound one," Emmert said when asked what he heard coming out of New Orleans this week. "Moving toward a 16-team playoff is highly problematic because I think that's too much to ask a young man's body to do. It's too many games, it intrudes into the school year and, of course, it would probably necessitate a complete end to the bowl system that so many people like now."

Um, all of the other divisions have 32-team playoffs and the players seem to be handling it fairly well...

'"

In addition to all of the other divsions having a 32-team playoff, Division III has the ECAC Bowls in the east for teams who did not qualify for the tournament. I had the opportunity in playing in both the tournament and ECAC Bowls and I have to say when we were not selected to play in the tournament, it hurt, but then getting selected to play in the ECAC Bowl help a little, especially when your selected to play against a team you have never played against before.

[smedindy]

Quote from NCAA President:

"The notion of having a Final Four approach is probably a sound one," Emmert said when asked what he heard coming out of New Orleans this week. "Moving toward a 16-team playoff is highly problematic because I think that's too much to ask a young man's body to do. It's too many games, it intrudes into the school year and, of course, it would probably necessitate a complete end to the bowl system that so many people like now."

Um, all of the other divisions have 32-team playoffs and the players seem to be handling it fairly well...

Not quite:

D-2 has 24 teams, D-1AA has 20.

[ExTartanPlayer]

*Disclaimer: I am a huge supporter of the non-AQ schools and hate the arbitrary distinction that has prevented Boise State and TCU from getting an adequate shot at the title.  I also think that it's laughable how stuck-up fans of many AQ conferences are, continuing to insist that those schools "couldn't compete every week" in some of the big conferences, when much of the objective on-field evidence suggests that the top-tier small schools are every bit as good as even the best AQ schools.

With that said, re: the 8 vs. 16 discussion, I've always thought that there was a realistic way to keep the "AQ" conferences' advantage and still allow room

8-team version:

6 "Pool A" bids (BCS conferences)
1 "Pool B" bid (highest-ranked non-BCS conference champ)
1 "Pool C" bid (highest-ranked team not yet in field)

16-team version:

11 automatic bids (all conference champs)
5 at-large bids (either selected by committee or by a version of the BCS rankings)

I know that there are OTHER factors that play into this discussion - this is just fun hypothetical conversation that leaves out where the dollars go, et cet.  I also know that the changing landscape of which teams are in which conference has made this pretty badly outdated by now.  But I would have enjoyed that 8-team format back in the 2006-07-08 years.

[Kira & Jaxon's Dad]

Quote from NCAA President:

"The notion of having a Final Four approach is probably a sound one," Emmert said when asked what he heard coming out of New Orleans this week. "Moving toward a 16-team playoff is highly problematic because I think that's too much to ask a young man's body to do. It's too many games, it intrudes into the school year and, of course, it would probably necessitate a complete end to the bowl system that so many people like now."

Um, all of the other divisions have 32-team playoffs and the players seem to be handling it fairly well...

Not quite:

D-2 has 24 teams, D-1AA has 20.

My bad.  I guess what I am saying is that with a 10 Game Schedule + 32 Team Playoffs

Only 2 Teams will play 15 Games
Only 4 Teams will play 14 Games
Only 8 Teams will play 13 Games
Etc...

D1 already has teams playing 12 Game Schedules, + Conference Championship, + Bowl Game.  Reduce the schedule back to 10 or 11 games and have a 16 Team (at least) Tournament, and it wouldn't affect the players as much as he is stating in his interview:

"Moving toward a 16-team playoff is highly problematic because I think that's too much to ask a young man's body to do. It's too many games, it intrudes into the school year

[ExTartanPlayer]

In addition to all of the other divsions having a 32-team playoff, Division III has the ECAC Bowls in the east for teams who did not qualify for the tournament. I had the opportunity in playing in both the tournament and ECAC Bowls and I have to say when we were not selected to play in the tournament, it hurt, but then getting selected to play in the ECAC Bowl help a little, especially when your selected to play against a team you have never played against before.

Ditto.  I played in the 2006 playoffs (as a junior) and an ECAC bowl in 2007 (as a senior).  While it was frustrating to lose a few games as a senior, playing the bowl game against a new opponent was certainly worthwhile.

If Division I ever adopts a playoff system (8 or 16 teams), I would support the continuation of the existing bowl system to reward non-playoff teams in the same fashion (although I would probably require any "bowl" teams to have at least seven wins over Division I-A opponents).

[ExTartanPlayer]

Re: Kira & Jaxon's dad,

I agree completely.  I've always found it humorous when the "intrusion on the school year" argument is brought up.  So holding a 65-team basketball tournament (which occurs smack in the middle of an academic semester) in which EVERY participant likely misses Thursday/Friday class on the opening weekend, participants on all Sweet 16 teams miss those classes for TWO straight weekends, and participants in the Final Four miss class for THREE straight weekends is less of an "intrusion" than holding a 16-team football playoff which would require virtually ZERO missed classes?*

*This is something that's often ignored, and I've never understood why: if the playoff games are all played on Saturdays, then the players would never HAVE to miss a class.  At worst, they would miss Friday classes (which is no different than what happens during the year for virtually all NCAA athletes, even Division II and Division III level).  The NCAA could even stipulate that teams cannot depart before, say, 7:00 PM on the Thursday before the game, to ensure that all players could at the very least attend their Thursday classes.

I know that I'm making some leaps of faith by even assuming that SEC players actually GO to class (zing!), but just humor me.  What am I missing?  Isn't the "academic" argument pretty much a shamockery?