Running CFB playoff thread

I know the lower divisions have more than their share of routs throughout the playoffs (a 66-0 Div. III semifinal, for crying out loud).

What I don't know is anything about conference strength. Is it as stratified as FBS, with SEC and B1G third teamers able to beat the C-USA champion? Or are things at least more balanced? Is the champion of the worst FCS conference 48-0 playoff cannon fodder every year?

 

Shit over the events. Shit on a team that's in a conference that they hold broadcast rights to and do a half-assed job of dedicating a network to. The transformation of ESPN's college football coverage as being one that really served fans with a ton of content to one that's completely dug its heels in a society of "red team vs. blue team" is something else.

There's nothing wrong with touting the strength of the SEC, it's a very good conference with a lot of good teams. But they can't do that without completely discounting other teams and conferences and trying to publicly shame them for attempting to put out a good product. It's fine if someone thinks Alabama or South Carolina or fucking Vanderbilt would have put up a better fight, but this wasn't about Bama being a better matchup, it was how much SMU and Indiana completely sucked and don't have football programs worthy of competiting for anything.

And college football is a sport that truly follows trends. ESPN discrediting non-SEC programs can have a major effect on where top players decide to go. Teenagers watch ESPN, they take in the hot-take form of discussion through short bits on social media. The Big Ten is the only conference that can actually match marketing dollars and they operate outside of the WWL.

But in reality this was bound to happen when the CFB power brokers decided to put all their CFP TV broadcasting eggs in one basket. Instead of learning from the NFL and spreading the wealth of these games, Bill Hancock allowed ESPN to grab them all and it's no surprise they have decided to hijack them to serve their best interest.

 

Division III has an extreme disparity in conferences, enrollment, and in how much money teams make/are funded with. You have conferences with schools like the Wisconsin system where enrollment at several is Division I level paired up with tiny liberal arts schools.

FCS, which I covered for a long time, has disparity too, but for a different reason. Many of the teams that provided balance to the division up until the mid-2010s bolted for FBS, the smart ones realizing that the canary in the coalmine of Division I athletics was when governing autonomy was given to the power brokers in the mid-2010s.

Now, FCS is left with a Dakota-dominant MVFC, a state of Montana-dominant Big Sky, and the lesser schools of the south and the eastern seaboard that didn't make the jump to FBS. By all rights, FCS should go back to a 16-team playoff. They expanded to 24 when those now-FBS teams were still around and it sorta made sense, but it doesn't anymore.

There isn't a one-and-done playoff system anywhere that doesn't have blowouts. NCAA Tournament has blow outs. NFL playoffs have blowouts.

 

With the FCS it seems like the play-in rounds are decent, but things really go to chalk once the 24 goes to 16 and it's clear that the MVC triad and Montana State were head and shoulders above the rest and have been for a few years. That spring Covid season is a bit of an outlier.

 

Can't like this enough.

 

No other sport discusses and argues inclusion and exclusion so vehemently a week after the games have already begun. It is so weird.

 

But somebody told me that a bowl trophy is absolutely not like a participation trophy!

 

Let me offer a counter to this: The opening games were lousy and SMU and Indiana showed they were out of their depth.

You can be angry that someone on ESPN pointed that out, but you can also at least acknowledge that it's entirely correct.

Where you go from there is up to you. Should Alabama have been there instead? Kinda depends on what you value more. Alabama had one great win and two horrible losses. SMU had no good wins and no bad losses. Is a bad loss more important than a good win? I don't know.

And as I've said repeatedly, I don't think the answer is to let in the three-loss team. I think the answer is to reduce the field.

 

If you think people are sick the SEC teams now imagine a world where the computer rankings come back into play.

 

Oh, I'm sure they will expand.

It will be worse when they do it.