In a CBSsports.com article, the author argued that one reason expanding the playoffs was a challenge was the issue of the Rose Bowl, and that an expanded playoff would hurt the game. He said that if the Rose Bowl became a third place game with teams with 3+ losses each, it would be more like the Holiday Bowl. It said that in the Rose Bowl's history, it had never matched up two teams that both had three or more losses.

That got me interested in this years matchups.

So:
Games Between Undefeated Teams: 1
Cotton (semifinal)

Games teams have no more than 1 loss:
Orange (semi)

Games where teams have no more than 2 losses: 0

Games where teams have no more than 3 losses: 7
Peach
Fiesta
Rose
New Mexico
Dollar General
Camping World
Citrus

So all together, 9/40 bowls. That's seems low to be (I'll try and go back and look at past years).

Reasons?

1) Top heavy conferences
2) Contract Bowls (i.e, Sugar taking Texas as the "runner up" from the Big 12, Fiesta gets the UCF Knights and their undefeated team, but needs LSU to make up for it)
3) The PAC being down overall.

Part of the issue is that they've created an additional game out of thin air to actually decide the national championship. That goes back to the BCS era, but it's not really necessary if we're concerned with making sure the big bowls get quality games.

What they could do is use the 6 bowl rotation as the basis for the semis and the final.

Let's say the Rose, Cotton, and Peach are paired together. Every other year, 2 of those games will serve as the semis and the 3rd will serve as the final. And then every other year, the Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange will be paired together. Same sort of concept. Once every 6 years, your game gets to host the national title, but 3 out of every 6 years you are at least guaranteed a semi-final game.

They should probably be doing that anyway even if they don't expand to 8 playoff teams.

I do foresee a time where a lot of these postseason games, for the Power 5 at least, are phased out. Fans are already losing interest and there's a great deal about the system that doesn't make sense.

I think there are a couple of things that keep the bowls going as we know them.

1. The networks want the content.

2. The schools want an end of season opportunity for their players.

The issue with the bowl system is that you've got a lot of ADs and Presidents enjoying perks from participating in a structure that's not optimal. The structure could be altered as long as the two listed priorities are still met. I can't help but think there are several better ways to do it and all it should take are a few enterprising leaders to make the change.

But I agree with the overall premise. There are a lot of mediocre games out there.

(12-22-2018 08:20 AM)Soobahk40050 Wrote:  In a CBSsports.com article, the author argued that one reason expanding the playoffs was a challenge was the issue of the Rose Bowl, and that an expanded playoff would hurt the game. He said that if the Rose Bowl became a third place game with teams with 3+ losses each, it would be more like the Holiday Bowl. It said that in the Rose Bowl's history, it had never matched up two teams that both had three or more losses.

That got me interested in this years matchups.

So:
Games Between Undefeated Teams: 1
Cotton (semifinal)

Games teams have no more than 1 loss:
Orange (semi)

Games where teams have no more than 2 losses: 0

Games where teams have no more than 3 losses: 7
Peach
Fiesta
Rose
New Mexico
Dollar General
Camping World
Citrus

So all together, 9/40 bowls. That's seems low to be (I'll try and go back and look at past years).

Reasons?

1) Top heavy conferences
2) Contract Bowls (i.e, Sugar taking Texas as the "runner up" from the Big 12, Fiesta gets the UCF Knights and their undefeated team, but needs LSU to make up for it)
3) The PAC being down overall.

Interesting data regarding the Rose Bowl. Diminishing bowl value was one of the reasons I cited for ESPN being reticent to advance the playoff expansion idea. Right now they have a contract with most of the mid tier and minor bowls and a few of the top bowls. I don't think they will consider expansion of the playoffs until those contracts are close to expiration.

Okay, I went back to 2011 (3 years before the playoffs):

2017: 10 bowls:
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Rose/Sugar (both semis)
One or both teams have 2 losses: 3 - Cotton, Fiesta, Orange
One or both teams have 3 losses: 5 - Peach, Armed Forces, Camping World, Holiday, Citrus

2016: 8 bowls
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Peach/Fiesta (both semis)
One or both teams have 2 losses: 0
One or both teams have 3 losses: 6 (Orange, Cotton, Rose, Las Vegas, Camellia, Alamo)

2015: 11 bowls
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Orange/Cotton (both semis)
One or both teams have 2 losses: 3 (Peach, Fiesta, Rose)
One or both teams have 3 losses: 6 (Sugar, Las Vegas, Citrus, Alamo, Boca Raton, Russell Athletic)

2014: 10 bowls
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Rose/Sugar (both semis)
One or both teams have 2 losses: 1 (Cotton)
One or both teams have 3 losses: 7 (Peach, Fiesta, Orange, Alamo, Boca Raton, Belk, Sun)

Pre-playoff:

2013: 8
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Fiesta, Championship Game
One or both teams have 2 losses: 4 (Cotton, Rose, Sugar, Orange)
One or both teams have 3 losses: Russell Athletic, Capital One

2012: 9
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Fiesta, Championship
One or both teams have 2 losses: 4 - Cotton, Chickfila, Orange, Sugar
One or both teams have 3 losses: 3 - Famous Potato, Capital One, GoDaddy

2011: 10
One or both teams have 1 loss: 2 - Fiesta, Championship
One or both teams have 2 losses: 3 - Cotton, Rose, Sugar
One or both teams have 3 losses: 5 - TicketCity, Outback, Capital One, GoDaddy, Orange

Things I noticed:
1) 8-11 is the range, meaning about 25% of the bowls have matchups that pit teams with no more than 3 losses. Sugar and Rose bowls both had some dud years, with for instance the Rose taking a 5 loss Wisconsin.
2) In the three years before the playoffs, the Fiesta without a specific tie-in, did really well for itself. Of course the semi's have never taken a 2 loss team, but it was interesting to note that no other game since the beginning of the playoffs pitted teams with less than 2 losses against each other.
3) I was pretty impressed with the Cotton's consistency.
4) There are some solid G5 games to be paying attention to.
5) The difference between the last years of the BCS and the playoffs don't seem that different in terms of quality.

As to expanding the playoffs, I actually wonder if a more realistic result is the Rose/Sugar becoming permanent semi-finals in a world with a P4.

In a world where the Big 12 dies out:
Rose = Big 10 vs. PAC
Sugar = SEC vs. ACC

Or if the PAC dies out?
Sugar: SEC vs. Big 12
Rose: Big 10 vs. ACC

Or:
Rose= Big 10 Championship after westward incorporation of several of the PAC teams?
and
Sugar: SEC vs. Big 12
Orange: Big 10 vs. ACC

Or I could see a non-seeded 8 team playoff, I guess, with:
Rose: PAC vs. Big 10 (this year, Ohio St. vs. Washington)
Sugar: SEC vs. Big 12 (Alabama vs. OK)
Fiesta: G5 vs. wildcard (UCF vs. ND)
Orange: ACC vs. wildcard (Clemson vs. Georgia)
with geographical considerations for the winner of the Rose/Sugar in the semis? But I would think the imbalance of the bowls in that set up would cause issues for the contenders, especially in the SEC where at least in the days of the BCS National Championship game, the Sugar was viewed as a consolation prize. Big 10/PAC 12 would be happy, but why should say Clemson have to play Georgia in the first round? Would should ND get UCF instead of Bama?

Of course, as always with expanding playoffs, the question is about the first team left out. Michigan would cry foul here.

Maybe top 4 seeds protected? Each of the four major bowls is a "host bowl" guaranteed a champ?

Sugar: SEC
Orange: ACC
Rose: Big 10/PAC
Fiesta: Big 12

So:
Sugar: Bama vs. UCF
Orange: Clemson vs. ND
Rose: Ohio State vs. Washington
Fiesta: OK vs. Georgia

I don't think they could play the quarters at neutral sites. That's a ton of travel for fans.

There's a lot of layers to the discussion, but I think Clay Travis pointed out some interesting ideas the other day. Not sure Presidents want to play the quarters at home venues. I can understand that.

There's also the question about devaluing the current bowl lineup. I can understand that as well although to be honest, there's only 3 games that matter right now. Everything else has already been devalued. An expansion of the playoffs would add 4 more meaningful games to a slate that currently only contains 3.

Every other game has a certain historical and sentimental value, but everyone knows those games don't matter in the long run. The entire slate of bowl games hasn't meant a lot since the BCS was created. The old system of voting on champions after the big bowls were played was a unique and kind of cool system, but it's been on a downward slide for some time.

Another thing to consider here is that the big bowl games are really surviving on name ID right now. As the decades pass, however, those games will come to be known as irrelevant. In the end, I'm not sure it's going to matter what we do to protect the bowls because the cat is already out of the bag.

(12-22-2018 10:13 PM)AllTideUp Wrote:  I don't think they could play the quarters at neutral sites. That's a ton of travel for fans.

There's a lot of layers to the discussion, but I think Clay Travis pointed out some interesting ideas the other day. Not sure Presidents want to play the quarters at home venues. I can understand that.

There's also the question about devaluing the current bowl lineup. I can understand that as well although to be honest, there's only 3 games that matter right now. Everything else has already been devalued. An expansion of the playoffs would add 4 more meaningful games to a slate that currently only contains 3.

Every other game has a certain historical and sentimental value, but everyone knows those games don't matter in the long run. The entire slate of bowl games hasn't meant a lot since the BCS was created. The old system of voting on champions after the big bowls were played was a unique and kind of cool system, but it's been on a downward slide for some time.

Another thing to consider here is that the big bowl games are really surviving on name ID right now. As the decades pass, however, those games will come to be known as irrelevant. In the end, I'm not sure it's going to matter what we do to protect the bowls because the cat is already out of the bag.

This is why ESPN won't cut their losses on the bowls until their contract with them is up. That's the day that is coming when the playoffs could be looking at expansion. That's the day when conference challenges might be played between schools with winning records but who don't make the CFP. Those games will likely be played at home venues instead of traveling to a bowl and in these challenges the conferences involved would even up the number of home and away games. The TV money for the challenge games would make up for the minor bowl money lost and could be played prior to New Years and on non CFP days. Good for TV, good for revenue, good for fans.