NCAA Football '11-'12

[Ed Anger]

The Hindenburg flies again.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Bingo.  That's why Michigan is in a BCS bowl (and was the first at-large chosen), and the far more deserving Kansas State team isn't.  Michigan puts asses in seats and sells well on TV (what with their Cinderella season), while K State doesn't travel well, and doesn't even sell out its own stadium.

$$ talks.

What I still don't understand is the outrage when the big name teams get the bowl selections.

Are people totally ignorant of college football history? Up until the 90s virtually all bowl bids were essentially at the whim of the bowl committee and it was not only known but expected and accepted that bowl committees selected the team that would bring the most people and disposable income into the host city. The whole reason cities started football bowl games in the early 20th century is because they attract tourism, attention, money, and prestige.

Obviously some bowls have historical conference tie-ins, but outside of that the bowls have never been about selecting the best "skilled" team available, and as long as we have a bowl system they never will be about that.

Bowl spots are not analogous to NCAA Tournament spots in basketball, where the committee genuinely tries to select the 64(+n) teams in the country although we all know they make a few minor judgment calls in favor of more "established" programs when it comes to seeding and deciding which bubble teams get in. What's important to note is the bowls have never claimed they were, either, so I guess I don't get why Boise, Michigan State, Kansas State and etc fans are acting like this is some great American travesty, unprecedented in human history.

[OttoVonBismarck]

FWIW I was once a die hard opponent of a tournament in IA because I felt it would kill the traditions that make college football distinct and special versus pro football. But given all that's happened in the past 2 years college football as I once loved it is dead, so I'm all for just getting the top ~70 teams in major superconferences and having some sort of post-season tournament that incorporates the traditional major bowls in some way.

I think the way it could work is you have 5 super conferences with somewhere in the neighborhood of 12-14 teams each. The conferences would, based on what I'm seeing now, be the Pac, B1G, Big-XII, SEC, ACC.

You have an 8 team playoff system. Obviously that means a Quarterfinal-Semifinal-Championship format, so with conference championship games teams that go all the way are looking at 16 games a year. If people have a problem with that I point to Montana and Alcorn State which have played up to 16 in IAA, if they can do it so can Alabama and Texas. Alternatively teams could opt not to play a IAA cupcake team every year and thus if they go to a conference championship they'll only have 12 games going into the postseason with a potential for 3 more.

I'd give the champions of the 5 major conferences auto-slots in the 8 team field. I'd make the Big East champion play against the champion of some other conference (depending on which one is strongest, C-USA or MWC, or some bastardized amalgamated conference.) The winner of that game would get an auto-slot as well. The last two slots would be available to the highest ranked teams not already in the tournament, using a ranking system similar to the current BCS standings. The only difference is I would cut one of the human polls (almost certainly the ESPN/USA Today Poll), and make the computer polls account for 50% of BCS standing instead of 33%.

[Valmy]

A four team tournament is perfectly satisfactory to me.  8 would be ok but no more than that.  I just hope they run it with the #4 playing #1 and #2 playing #3 and not have some stupid BCS-esque way of doing it.

[CountDeMoney]

Personally, I wish they'd eliminate the whole OT thing, and go back to no overtime.

[dps]

Personally, I wish they'd eliminate the whole OT thing, and go back to no overtime.

Well, if you're going to have a playoff format, you have to have overtime, because only 1 team can advance to the next round.  But I've always thought that that's the only time that OT makes sense.

The stupidest use of OT is in the NFL pre-season.

[grumbler]

A four team tournament is perfectly satisfactory to me.  8 would be ok but no more than that.  I just hope they run it with the #4 playing #1 and #2 playing #3 and not have some stupid BCS-esque way of doing it.

A six-team playoff would be even likelier to include the #1 team.  Teams would be selected by a panel, like the NCAA BB tournament.  In the first round, played the week after conference championships, #6 plays Playoff Game A at #3, and #5 plays Playoff Game B at #4, while #1 and #2 get byes.  Then, a week later, play the second round: the winner of Game A plays at #2, and the winner of game B plays at #2.

The winners of round 2 games meet for the NC in bowl week.

This maximizes the chances that the best team will be in the pool, ensures that any winner will have an impressive resume, but also rewards success in the regular season with home fields and byes.

[sbr]

No way the TV networks allow the top 2 teams to sit out the first weekend of a playoff.  That is a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Go Navy.

[grumbler]

No way the TV networks allow the top 2 teams to sit out the first weekend of a playoff.  That is a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table.

Probably.  There are no byes in any other sport's playoff, are there?  In the NFL, for instance, that would be a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table   

[MadBurgerMaker]

Haha while waiting for the Heisman show thing, I got to see Indiana beat Kentucky by one on a three at the buzzer.  College basketball is still pretty awesome.

[MadBurgerMaker]

Griffin wins the Heisman, award not a complete joke for at least this season.

Is anyone watching this Todd Marinovich 30 for 30?  I knew a lot about how he was raised and what happened and all that, but it's still just so crazy seeing it like this, and my wife, even without knowing anything about it, was almost immediately (when Marv was talking about stretching his newborn son's hammys. what a fucking nutjob) asking about how fucked up Todd turned out to be, etc.

[Barrister]

No way the TV networks allow the top 2 teams to sit out the first weekend of a playoff.  That is a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table.

Probably.  There are no byes in any other sport's playoff, are there?  In the NFL, for instance, that would be a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table   

The CFL has a six-team playoff, and is getting record TV ratings.

[dps]

No way the TV networks allow the top 2 teams to sit out the first weekend of a playoff.  That is a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table.

Probably.  There are no byes in any other sport's playoff, are there?  In the NFL, for instance, that would be a huge number of eyeballs and ad revenue left sitting on the table  

The CFL has a six-team playoff, and is getting record TV ratings.

Five people have actually tuned in this year!

[grumbler]

Kansas has hired Charlie Weis to be their HC.

I love Brian's reaction to this at MGoBlog:

I'm still waiting for Orson to email the Kansas AD asking "who are you and when did you think of this," thus exposing the brilliant hoax. Because that ain't real. Kansas did not just hire an old sociopath whose college tenure is spectacular failure at Notre Dame and leading the Florida offense into walrusball territory. They did not shell out three million a year for him. These are not things that happen without Batman villains intervening in the water supply.