If you are a college football fan and you haven't read this book, it's a must.

Pretty interesting this guy from pre-snap read is taking the 16-team formula presented by the authors and doing his version of "bracketology" based on the formula.

http://www.presnapread.com/death-to-the-...more-12675[/i]

#3 Auburn vs #14 NIU in the 1st round. Hmm, stopping the heisman trophy winner would be a heck of a challenge...wouldn't be the 1st time we beat a team from Bama though

Common sense, some day it will happen. Just have to hope Boise State and TCU screw it up for the SEC or Big 10.

Thank god he is suggesting a 16 team playoff. Every conference needs an automatic bid. An 8 team playoff leaves the non BCS conferences at the same place as before.

I don't know about that HMM, I have to think in a year like this they let TCU and Boise State in to an 8 team playoff. Do we need to do more than other team? Sure, but it's better than the current model.

I agree, the first step is to get to a play-off...whether it be 8 or 16 teams, a lot of the arguments against play-offs could be debunked by just getting a small one to start and then adding on later.

An 8 team playoff would be a mess - teams would be bitchin even worse about not getting in. Sure you have 3-4 teams who think they should be 1-2 but you have 20 teams who would claim a shot at the top 8.

Going to 16 eliminates having any legitimate team complain.

The teams in the playoff would be teams who think they should be 1 or 2. If you don't think you're one of the top 2 teams, who cares? The chance of having 9 teams worthy of being a championship are slim to none. There surely won't be 20 teams who think they are the best team in the country. It's not about thinking you are the 8th best.

It's about which teams think they are number 1. 8 teams should be enough to include that many teams. As you said there are probably only 3 or 4 teams that meet those requirements. 8 teams gives you a solid enough buffer that any true championship contender should find it's way in the tournament.

16 would be better, but 8 is fine in my opinion. A team like Boise or TCU would be in that group this year.

(10-19-2010 04:16 PM)HuskieFan84 Wrote:  The teams in the playoff would be teams who think they should be 1 or 2. If you don't think you're one of the top 2 teams, who cares? The chance of having 9 teams worthy of being a championship are slim to none. There surely won't be 20 teams who think they are the best team in the country. It's not about thinking you are the 8th best.

It's about which teams think they are number 1. 8 teams should be enough to include that many teams. As you said there are probably only 3 or 4 teams that meet those requirements. 8 teams gives you a solid enough buffer that any true championship contender should find it's way in the tournament.

16 would be better, but 8 is fine in my opinion. A team like Boise or TCU would be in that group this year.

Doesn't matter how big the field is, there will always be schools bitching. Case in point the NCAA basketball tournament. Always a handful of schools thinking they were robbed, despite the fact they wouldn't be seeded any higher than 12th or 13th in a particular region.

It's all a matter of degree. You'd still have schools bitching, but you'd have a MUCH better chance of having the 2 best teams in the NC game if you start out with 8 or 16 teams. That would also eliminate the complaint that Boise and TCU don't play anybody since, if they're good enough to at least get into the playoffs, any team they faced would theoretically be a very good one, and if they didn't belong they'd get eliminated in one of the playoff games. They'd have to beat 3 good teams in a row to be the Champions, with the 8-team playoff.

If you have 16 teams and get left out, you can't blame anyone but yourself for not winning your conference and getting an auto bid. You think if a sun belt team plays a weak OOC schedule and runs the table they will be guaranteed a spot in a 8 game playoff with 6 teams already taking an auto bid? Not a chance. Still not fair.

If and when there ever is a 16 team playoff, there should NOT be automatic berths for every conference. Now by the time it happens, the conference landscape will likely be quite a bit different. But for the sake of argument, let's use the current conference setup.

Without question, the Sun Belt winner will be undeserving. The MAC winner will likely be undeserving too. But using this year as an example, I guess if us or Temple ran the table to finish 11-2, you could make an argument. CUSA champ? Maybe, but debatable. The non-AQ schools should get 2-3 automatic bids. Of course if that were the case this year, Boise State, TCU and Utah would keep everyone else out of the mix. There has to be a happy medium between the 16 best teams but still offering inclusion, very similar to the NCAA basketball tournament.

Think about it: if every conference had an autobid to a 16 team playoff, how embarrassing would it have been to have Buffalo in 2008 get destroyed by any team they played? Or Akron in 2005? It's not fair. It's different in basketball, because there's so many more teams in the playoff, but their rules are still stupid as well. The regular season means nothing but that's a different debate.

Looks awesome to us, but there would be just as much if not more complaining.

What argument could be made for us or Troy in there over Iowa? It still wouldn't be the best teams in the country getting in, thus, the same amount of complaining.

At the same time, that's similar to how march madness works, so maybe people would get used to it.

(10-19-2010 07:49 PM)clcfball11 Wrote:  What argument could be made for us or Troy in there over Iowa?

The foremost goal of any team is to win their conference, and, as all nonconference games have zero impact on that goal, they must be read in context, or even discounted completely, because teams will use this time to a degree to work out the kinks (by, eg, testing out different quarterbacks). Any team which accomplishes that foremost goal of winning their conference must then be given the chance to prove their worth against other teams who have accomplished the same, on a national stage, for the national championship. Sorry Iowa, but if you couldn't win your own conference, why should you be allowed to make a claim to be the best in the nation?

For several decades the NCAA basketball championship operated on this theory (ie, that only a team that wins its conference can make a claim to win the national championship), but with the ballooning of the tournament in the early 80s of course that was discarded.

You have to include all conference champions. That is the only way that the championship would be open to every team. A national championship that doesn't have an avenue for literally any eligible team to win it any given year isn't really a national championship.

If you limit your entry to teams subjectively determined "worthy" by whoever you create a gaping hole of bias. A team that isn't famous enough, doesn't have a long history of success, lacks a star player, etc has a higher barrier to entry than a team that does have a long history and wins 10 games. The only unbiased result is the one on a live scoreboard. Take in all conference champions and every team has an unbiased avenue to the title. You minimize subjectivity by limiting it to at large bids.

Results don't lie. Opinions are warped by individual biases and limited information. Unless all conference champions are in, it isn't really "settled on the field"

A 16 team play-off will include a 13-0 or possibly 12-1 MAC team.
An 8 team play off could mean a 13-0 NIU will face a 6-6 Big 10 team.

The whole point of the playoff is to settle which team is the best team in the nation by playing it ON THE FIELD, rather than letting computers, formulas and rankings decide which one it is.

Who cares if the MAC or Sun Belt Champion get destroyed in the first round? They won their conference, and at the end of the day, that's the whole point.

Also, are you really serious that we shouldn't have a playoff because teams will be "complaining". They complain now with this system, so what if they complain if they get left out in a 16 team playoff?

It's not like deserving teams that may get upset in their conference championships or finish a close second in their conference won't have a chance to get the last 5 at large bids.

By giving automatic bids to all conference champions, it keeps the playoffs objective, and eliminates room for arguments (though not completely, there will always be arguments as to which 5 teams are deserving of the 5 at large bids)

At any rate, a playoff with teams arguing and complaining is much better than a system where faulty formulas and computers decide who plays for the National Championship.

clfball.. If at the end of the year, people thought Iowa was a national championship contender they'd get into this 16 team bracket. It doesn't look as fair right now because the season hasn't been played. If Iowa wasn't the best team in it's conference, and not a top 5 at large, then they don't deserve to be in the playoff. They had a fair chance to win their conference and prove their worth. If they didn't get it done, they have no real complaint.

I wonder what the BCS folks would say to the suggestion that the NFL should eliminate the playoffs, and instead, after the regular season is over, get everyone together and just take a vote on who they think is the best. You wouldn't need to even play the Superbowl, the vote would decide it. You could even include computers in the polls to make it seem more accurate than it really is.

(10-20-2010 03:20 PM)NIU007 Wrote:  I wonder what the BCS folks would say to the suggestion that the NFL should eliminate the playoffs, and instead, after the regular season is over, get everyone together and just take a vote on who they think is the best. You wouldn't need to even play the Superbowl, the vote would decide it. You could even include computers in the polls to make it seem more accurate than it really is.

lol, now that would be funny!

hahaah nice.