Running CFB playoff thread

Always thought with football a "Flex" week would be great - maybe two weeks before rivalry week - where top teams would play out of conference games against each other. Help clear up the nonsense. Ole Miss - Indiana, BYU - Penn State, Boise - Miami, that sort of thing. I'm kind of glad the SEC eight conference games and walkover weeks at the end of the season are biting them in the ass. Heck, maybe they could schedule it in for the teams not making the conference title games - use that weekend for teams hoping for another "data point." Of course, you know coaches would rather sit home and not worry about falling out of the playoff than playing their way in.

 

A football version of the SEC-Big Ten challenge would be interesting, but you would need to get the conferences involved to keep the week clear. Football schedules are strangely intricate things with a lot of moving parts. If you take out one week of conference games you need to add it back somewhere else, and then it mucks up another set of games, make sure the home-away balance is kept, etc.
Plus, given the state of flux every league is in these days, there's no guarantee that if you announce that now to start in, say, 2027, that half the teams involved will even be in your league by then.

 

Another part of the 16-team playoff: Three-fourths of the field (12 out of 16) will be from the B1G and SEC. Money talks. The rest of college football can scramble to fill the other four spots.

Hell, MileHigh’s hypothetical bracket for this season already has 10 from those two super leagues.

 

There is money to be made

 

That’s honestly a deal. Some of those kids will spend $28 on DoorDash without blinking an eye.

 

I agree. $28 is not extortionate. Also, there's money to be made on the secondary market, too.

 

Max Ralph? Sounds like projectile vomiting.

 

I think I paid $35-$40 for my student ticket for the SEC Championship Game in 1994, the first in Atlanta.

Also, I forget the specific snafu but Alabama nearly didn’t have a student section for that game thanks to the rocket scientists at the ticket office back in Tuscaloosa. I think they tore off part of the ticket stub that wasn’t supposed to be removed. After refusing entry to the first handful of us in line, the gate workers finally were convinced we were telling the truth when every student showed up with the same issue.

 

Where I went to school, tickets were free although they were a part of student fees, so not technically free. But whenever there was something extra, usually postseason (see NIT or something), then you had to pay. So not crazy that it would be the case for something like this. Plus a lot of these schools charge for the regular season anyway, so most probably aren't batting an eye.

The places that will likely host games are big-time atmospheres so they probably won't have to worry about it and this is all new, but a lot of times in postseason stuff -- as mentioned NIT, maybe championship games -- attendance isn't always spectacular. I wonder if that might come up at all? It is new and big so probably not, but I am sure the thought has crossed the minds in some places.

 

The problem will be if you have a ton of students head for home once the term is over. Many probably already have their plane tickets booked.

 

ND's gonna lose to USC, the 2nd most talented team on its schedule.

 

The home games will be enough of a novelty that they should be fine the first couple of years. But the quarterfinal bowls could end up an incredibly soft market. A lot of those fan bases anticipate having two more road trips to pay for and so why do I want to add a Fiesta Bowl trip onto the tab?