CFP Thread

[betarhoalphadelta]

I agree with RiffRaft This Is It and it if the coaches/writers choose differently have a one game play off. Settled,glad we got it sorted after all that stress I'm gonna finish off my 12 pk of Shiner's

I say don't even have the one game play off. 

What's wrong with a split championship? It's a beauty pageant anyway. 

Agree. 


I'll add-- go back to the conference alignments/bowl tie-ins from about 1983.  PAC 10 exists, Big 8 and SWC exist, "Big Ten" actually exists, SEC is only 10 teams.  I'd be okay with the Eastern Independents coalescing into their own conference as they always should have done, but other than that, early 80s conferences and bowl tie-ins.

Agree as well. But this is more selfish... Purdue probably won't win a conference championship more than once every 30-40 years in a 10-team Big Ten. But probably not more than once every 70-80 years in an 18-team Big Ten. So I'm just trying to improve the odds here. 

Glad we solved that, let's move on to world peace which should be a lot easier.

What I don't understand it that it seems like all of us here, pretty much some of the most die hard of die hard college football fans in existence, all agree that's what we want to see. 

And yet every single thing happening in the sport is going the EXACT opposite direction. 

[OrangeAfroMan]

They aren't winding it back to the stone age, boomers.

Nope, which is why all we can hope for is edited old-timey conferences becoming the divisions of 2-3 super-conferences.

What's funny is that looking back, none of the old conferences had depth.  UM and OSU completely owned the B1G since 1960.  USC owned the PAC.  Alabama and Tennessee owned the SEC.  The Big 8 was especially top-heavy with OU and Nebraska.  

Parity has gradually expanded, actually.  The bluebloods became what they are due to decades of dominance.  Like actual dominance, not the relative dominance that exists today with certain programs. 

[OrangeAfroMan]

And yet every single thing happening in the sport is going the EXACT opposite direction.

I'm going to get a little ageist here, but when the evidence is so total, idk where else to go.  

Somewhere along the line, the boomers decided the almighty dollar matters above all else.  It matters above the general health of an entire industry.  It matters more than doing the right thing.  It matters more than other people's lives.

College football is no different.  If you can squeeze an extra dollar out of it, you end a rivalry. If you can make an extra dime, you cause a 100-year old power conference to disband.

No, it wasn't always like this.  And yes, the boomer generation is systematically extracting every last dollar from everyone beneath them because that's what they value above all else.

Now, cue the individual anecdotes as a rebuttal!!!!!

[Brutus Buckeye]

The Wolverines would like to wind it all the way back to whatever they did before World War 1. 

[OrangeAfroMan]

The Wolverines would like to wind it all the way back to whatever they did before World War 1.

They were in a terrible rush.

[betarhoalphadelta]

Parity has gradually expanded, actually.  The bluebloods became what they are due to decades of dominance.  Like actual dominance, not the relative dominance that exists today with certain programs.

Well, I think some of what created that parity were actual NCAA governance decisions that limited the ability of the biggest teams to stockpile talent.

Decisions that have been undone by lawsuits and state legislatures 

Scholarships dropped from unlimited, to 105 (1973, partly or wholly due to Title IX), to 95 (1978), to 85 (1992). Amateurism limitations on paying players were always there (although who knows how much they were monitored/enforced in earlier eras), and limitations on player transfers were as well. 

All of that was in the service of parity. Scholarship restrictions meant that the blue bloods couldn't just stockpile talent, and transfer limits ensured that smaller teams who actually could develop players and build a program around a successful coach could at least punch above their weight class for a decade or so. 

But NIL and the unlimited [immediate] transfer portal turned the entire sport into unrestricted free agency. Which now means that the bluebloods who have lots of fans [and lots of money] can simply outbid others, only having to contend with upstart teams who have deep-pocketed billionaire donors. 

[FearlessF]

I say don't even have the one game play off.

What's wrong with a split championship? It's a beauty pageant anyway.

hell, split the title in 94 & 97
THEN,.... have an unsanctioned game a week or two later in Vegas or some neutral field between Nebraska - Penn St./Michigan just for the helluvit, the money, and the fans.

[Brutus Buckeye]

Well, I think some of what created that parity were actual NCAA governance decisions that limited the ability of the biggest teams to stockpile talent.

Decisions that have been undone by lawsuits and state legislatures

Scholarships dropped from unlimited, to 105 (1973, partly or wholly due to Title IX), to 95 (1978), to 85 (1992). Amateurism limitations on paying players were always there (although who knows how much they were monitored/enforced in earlier eras), and limitations on player transfers were as well.

All of that was in the service of parity. Scholarship restrictions meant that the blue bloods couldn't just stockpile talent, and transfer limits ensured that smaller teams who actually could develop players and build a program around a successful coach could at least punch above their weight class for a decade or so.

But NIL and the unlimited [immediate] transfer portal turned the entire sport into unrestricted free agency. Which now means that the bluebloods who have lots of fans [and lots of money] can simply outbid others, only having to contend with upstart teams who have deep-pocketed billionaire donors.

With the rosters back at 105, OSU/Michigan/Penn St can go back to signing guys that they don't intend to play, just to keep them from going to MSU/Wisconsin/Purdue. 

[betarhoalphadelta]

With the rosters back at 105, OSU/Michigan/Penn St can go back to signing guys that they don't intend to play, just to keep them from going to MSU/Wisconsin/Purdue.

BTW rosters were never limited, just scholarships... You could have as many walk-ons as you wanted. Which in the NIL era, might be that you have a "walk-on" that would normally be a scholarship player, because his NIL deal was more than enough to pay tuition and it opened up a scholarship spot for someone who needed it but couldn't make the same amount in NIL. Now there's both a roster limit of 105 (reduced from unlimited) and a scholarship limit of 105 (increased from 85). 

I think with NIL / transfer portal, though, scholarship limits are now sort of useless. Any player who isn't playing isn't going to be getting a lot of NIL, so they're not going to want to stick around. While that might not mean they'll end up at MSU/UW/Purdue, it does mean they're not just going to rot on the bench at OSU/UM/PSU for 4-5 years. "Play me, pay up, or I'm transferring" is the new normal. 

[OrangeAfroMan]

A post-bowl +1 as needed is completely doable.  Especially when you know the situation is possible back at the beginning of December.

[betarhoalphadelta]

A post-bowl +1 as needed is completely doable.  Especially when you know the situation is possible back at the beginning of December.

But why is it needed? Will the world end if the AP and the Coaches choose a different #1? 

Recognize that everything that has gone wrong for 30+ years seems to have come from wanting an "objective" national champ. It was behind forcing a #1 vs #2 on the field matchup. It was then behind expanding to a 4 team playoff, then to a 12 team playoff. 

If we want to embrace the uniqueness of college football relative to the NFL, then maybe accepting that we might have two teams who are BOTH national champions at the end of the year because we have two different polls is... OK!

[OrangeAfroMan]

Poll the fans and players what they'd like to have happened in 1997.  I'll hang up and listen.

[MrNubbz]

 Purdue probably won't win a conference championship more than once every 30-40 years in a 10-team Big Ten. But probably not more than once every 70-80 years in an 18-team Big Ten. So I'm just trying to improve the odds here.

Indians haven't won the Series in 77yrs at least your fans can hang their hats on the fact that they're amatuers

[betarhoalphadelta]

Indians haven't won the Series in 77yrs at least your fans can hang their hats on the fact that they're amatuers

My god, man! I thought being a Purdue fan was depressing. 

But at least I can look down on anyone who lives in Cleveland with pity. I'm sorry for your existence, sir!