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Worth the listen (11 minutes)

https://soundcloud.com/thesportsrekap/pjf

"How are you doing today?" --> "I'm doing elite, thanks..."

"People were surprised when I said we could be national champions"

Well, yeah, they were.

Let's beat NIU once first.

(01-09-2016 09:35 PM)Dirty Ernie Wrote:  "People were surprised when I said we could be national champions"

Well, yeah, they were.

I suspect part of Fleck's delusion in that particular area stems from him being on '04 NIU team that beat a bad (4-9) Alabama eleven.

(01-10-2016 10:35 AM)MajorHoople Wrote:  

(01-09-2016 09:35 PM)Dirty Ernie Wrote:  "People were surprised when I said we could be national champions"

Well, yeah, they were.

I suspect part of Fleck's delusion in that particular area stems from him being on '04 NIU team that beat a bad (4-9) Alabama eleven.

I think you are right about that.

I don't have a problem with him saying that. Sure, it isn't realistic, but you don't play competitive sports to "know your place" so to speak. You play them to be the best, and that should be the goal for everyone in the program.

I like that fleck does not put limits on the prospects of our success, and what I like more is that I think he truely believes a MAC school could build something simmilare to what Boise has done. Does anyone think that if Boise, or some other top level mid-major school have no shot to get into the playoff if they went undefeated? NIU played in a bcs bowl, and if you build a genuinly dominating program in the MAC, which is sustained for several years, anything is possible. I'm not betting on that happening, but it certainly is within my wildest imagination, and therefore I don't disparage fleck for thinking big; I applaud him for it.

(01-10-2016 12:57 PM)Dirty Ernie Wrote:  

(01-10-2016 10:35 AM)MajorHoople Wrote:  

(01-09-2016 09:35 PM)Dirty Ernie Wrote:  "People were surprised when I said we could be national champions"

Well, yeah, they were.

I suspect part of Fleck's delusion in that particular area stems from him being on '04 NIU team that beat a bad (4-9) Alabama eleven.

I think you are right about that.

Perhaps noteworthy that NIU didn't even win MAC-West that year (they did the following season).

NIU didn't win MAC championship until 2011 - which may be Fleck's reasoning for "his six to eight year plan."

Quote:Does anyone think that if Boise, or some other top level mid-major school have no shot to get into the playoff if they went undefeated?

Depends on schedule and how the other Top 5 are doing. Yes, you'd need to dominate in the MAC for a while like NIU has done to ensure it. This past year, if we went undefeated and beat MSU and Ohio State + GA-Southern... and whipped @Toledo & @NIU & BGSU 2x over -- it'd come down to Stanford (2L) vs WMU (0L) -- where we'd be under consideration, but they'd choose Stanford, unless we completely destroyed everyone, and Very Solidly beat both MSU & Ohio State.

And that's with about the toughest G5 schedule, which we won't see every year anyway. If we dominated like NIU year-in/year-out AND went "merely" undefeated this year, we probably would be picked over 2L Stanford.

Thankfully, I think it'll expand to 8 teams roughly by the time we could theoretically establish ourselves with double-digit wins year-in/year-out like NIU has done. Then, merely being undefeated would get a mid-major in, assuming they had a good schedule. An undefeated Houston would have Definitely gotten into it this year on an 8-team playoff, no question.

(01-10-2016 05:01 PM)toddjnsn Wrote:  Thankfully, I think it'll expand to 8 teams roughly by the time we could theoretically establish ourselves with double-digit wins year-in/year-out like NIU has done. Then, merely being undefeated would get a mid-major in, assuming they had a good schedule. An undefeated Houston would have Definitely gotten into it this year on an 8-team playoff, no question.

Good point Todd!! It's happening people!!!!

A perfect playoff would consist of 16 teams: 10 conference winners, plus 6 at-large (which would almost always be P5 teams). This would present a scenario like basketball where every team has a shot at the big prize when they walk out on the field in September, no matter how tiny.

If there's concern for too many games, then reduce the regular season from 12 back down to 11.

(01-10-2016 08:45 PM)Motown Bronco Wrote:  A perfect playoff would consist of 16 teams: 10 conference winners, plus 6 at-large (which would almost always be P5 teams). This would present a scenario like basketball where every team has a shot at the big prize when they walk out on the field in September, no matter how tiny.

If there's concern for too many games, then reduce the regular season from 12 back down to 11.

16 team playoff is Spot on! +2

Here would be the 16 teams: 10 conference winners and then 6 "next best" teams according to rankings, using coaches poll for example, and then seeded #1-#16 accordingly. I think BG would've opened with Alabama.

Houston
Clemson
Oklahoma
Michigan State
Western Kentucky
Bowling Green
San Diego State
Stanford
Alabama
Arkansas State
Iowa
Ohio State
Notre Dame
Florida State
North Carolina
TCU

That would be awesome. BGSU should have the right to get rolled by the Tide. Or pull something off that would be talked about for ages.

Quote:A perfect playoff would consist of 16 teams:

Yeah, but that's not so realistic though (at any point in the foreseeable future). It was like pulling teeth to get a Final Four. Which college football was a stone throw away from with a national champ bowl + 2nd-best-BCS-bowl. Now they just swap teams in each bowl and the winners play each other for a final one. It's not so much a real playoff, but more like a "play off" - lol.

Although I would like to see a 16-team-all-conf champs, I think if/when it nears that stage, it could bring up the concept of separating P5/G5 into different brackets. I think the fact that not all P5 conference champs can't go to a playoff will move it to an 8-team playoff. I do strongly believe it's not going to go from 4 -> 16, and it won't go to 16 anytime until someone's newborn right now is hooking up in the dorms (a long ways away!).


For a Final Four: It would take a G5 getting double-digit wins year after year, capping it off with a schedule like ours in 2015, but going Undefeated with it to make it in. Yikes. They'd have to be Convincingly better than the 5th best P5 Conference Champ (Stanford in this case, this year).

For a 8-team Playoff: It would take a G5 to go undefeated, having a tough schedule. If Marshall went undefeated last year, they wouldn't go. BUT Houston this year, if they went undefeated, given their schedule, they'd be ranked around/close-to #8, and would. There'd probably be some rule that if the Top G5 was in the Top 10, they'd be allowed in (along with other rules that a max 2 teams from same conference can be allowed in; which would free up a high-level G5 team coming in, as it'd almost always get down to #10th/#11th team to make that last 8th team due to that anyway).

For a 12-team Playoff: This is more realistic to those who want the every-conf-16-team playoff, but this won't happen anytime soon, but this is where I'd see it cap off within the next 10-12 years. Top 4 that's present now gets a bye, the remaining-8 play each other 1st round to get to remaining-4 to play Top 4. In this scenario, even though not all conference champs get in, it would guarantee the Top G5 to come in... much like right now with the 'BCS' bowls bringing in an auto-G5 contender.

(01-11-2016 01:10 PM)toddjnsn Wrote:  

Quote:A perfect playoff would consist of 16 teams:

Yeah, but that's not so realistic though (at any point in the foreseeable future). It was like pulling teeth to get a Final Four. Which college football was a stone throw away from with a national champ bowl + 2nd-best-BCS-bowl. Now they just swap teams in each bowl and the winners play each other for a final one. It's not so much a real playoff, but more like a "play off" - lol.

Although I would like to see a 16-team-all-conf champs, I think if/when it nears that stage, it could bring up the concept of separating P5/G5 into different brackets. I think the fact that not all P5 conference champs can't go to a playoff will move it to an 8-team playoff. I do strongly believe it's not going to go from 4 -> 16, and it won't go to 16 anytime until someone's newborn right now is hooking up in the dorms (a long ways away!).


For a Final Four: It would take a G5 getting double-digit wins year after year, capping it off with a schedule like ours in 2015, but going Undefeated with it to make it in. Yikes. They'd have to be Convincingly better than the 5th best P5 Conference Champ (Stanford in this case, this year).

For a 8-team Playoff: It would take a G5 to go undefeated, having a tough schedule. If Marshall went undefeated last year, they wouldn't go. BUT Houston this year, if they went undefeated, given their schedule, they'd be ranked around/close-to #8, and would. There'd probably be some rule that if the Top G5 was in the Top 10, they'd be allowed in (along with other rules that a max 2 teams from same conference can be allowed in; which would free up a high-level G5 team coming in, as it'd almost always get down to #10th/#11th team to make that last 8th team due to that anyway).

For a 12-team Playoff: This is more realistic to those who want the every-conf-16-team playoff, but this won't happen anytime soon, but this is where I'd see it cap off within the next 10-12 years. Top 4 that's present now gets a bye, the remaining-8 play each other 1st round to get to remaining-4 to play Top 4. In this scenario, even though not all conference champs get in, it would guarantee the Top G5 to come in... much like right now with the 'BCS' bowls bringing in an auto-G5 contender.

i don't think so. It has been pretty obvious the past two years that many top teams are missing their qb and many other top players by the end of the season let alone 2-3 more bowl games. . Football is a game of injury and very few schools go 4-5 deep at every position. I for one like the large number of bowl games, I would lessen the regular season by one game.