Running CFB playoff thread

So Jacksonville State --- the team that lost by four touchdowns to Coastal Carolina, then followed that up by losing to Louisville by five touchdowns --- vs. Oregon in the first round. For no other reason than they were the best of a sorry lot of 10 teams in a conference that any decent team escaped from years ago.

And this is an idea we can "get behind"?

 

That’s another reason to go with 24 teams (and yes, eight first-round byes). Some of those garbage teams will get cleared out in the opening round.

 

Or they’d get cleared out by the regular season, the way they do now.

I get the warm and fuzzies for underdog stories too but this isn’t the same sport as college basketball and you just can’t make the one-to-one comparison to March Madness. We don’t need a playoff to tell us the weakest champions in a given year aren’t viable. One guaranteed slot and the ability for other teams to work their way into the top 12 is sufficient. (If Army had gone 11-1 against Tulane’s schedule they very well could have muscled out SMU.)

The championship coaches of the MAC and Sun Belt thought so much of what they accomplished this year that one immediately bolted for an AAC deadweight and the other took over the last-place team in the same league he just won.

 

Correct.
The notion of the upset is cool until the next round starts.

 

I don't disagree with you at all. It's why I think 12 is actually the right number. If you only go six or eight, then I'd say eliminate the conference champions and just pick the best eight teams. Sorry, Arizona State, Clemson and Boise State. That would suck. Twelve at least gives access to everyone.

 

In the current setup, it's much harder to say a club had "no chance" to make the postseason from the start. Yes, Army had less room for error than other teams, but beat Notre Dame, and they're in.

 

So if they go to 14 teams, that leaves room for two byes. It's almost like someone has a problem with teams other than the SEC and Big 10 getting a bye. Though I think it would be much tougher to play Boise in Idaho with very limited visiting team tickets than in Glendale, AZ with a 50-50 split.

 

Agreed. I was a 16-team guy for a long time, but 12 is the sweet spot.

I think a bigger problem the playoff will run into it is the economics for fans. Sticker shock is hitting Indiana fans, for example, right in the face for its first round game. Advance and you get the bowl game gouging.

I understand the desire to nod to tradition and keep the bowls in it, but it’s an expensive imposition. They should just go to campus sites all the way through the semis, but it won’t happen. Bowls will fight it. TV likely wants it too.

Really curious to see what kind of crowds show up at the bowl games. Probably more than I think, but we’ll see.

 

And if your team wins, the price gouging on tickets and hotels continues to the next level. And if you have to fly, good luck finding and affording a flight during the busiest travel season of the jyear.

 

Too lazy to look through all the CFB threads to see where it started, but FFS. Glad to know all of Ohio's problems have been solved so they can worry about this.

 

It’s been done.



Lower seeds advancing to the quarterfinals may do well at the gate for those bowls because it will likely be very hard for them to get away team tickets for the first round.

While the Vols haven’t been witness to the World’s Greatest Sunset since World War II, they used to have semi-regular home-and-homes with UCLA.