Bama or Buckeyes?

[CharleyHorse46]

It's not the ambiguity in venue selection, that would prevent a flexible postseason schedule.  It's the ambiguity in future revenue streams.
School athletic budgets, and therefore conference athletic budgets, cannot tolerate a wide variance in year-over-year income.  It must be steady and predictable, and in all honestly it must be contractually locked in to be guaranteed to be steady and predictable.  A 4-team playoff is going generate a lot more revenue than a 2-team playoff.  An 8-team playoff will generate more revenue still.  The money generated by these games goes to the conferences, and is then distributed to the schools.  And it can not be erratic, it must be be somewhat steady and predictable.
This is also why the idea of relegation would never work for college athletics, which doesn't come up often but has come up every once in a while over the past couple of decades.

You want the security of steady predictable income?
Fine.  Simply roll the flexible playoff into the existing bowl schedule.   There are 40 bowls.  39 are on ESPN.
So seven or eight 6-6 or even 5-7 teams get left out some year so that we can possibly see OU, Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State play in two or three bowls instead?
Who's going to complain?
  
ESPN who gets higher rankings?

The Liberty Bowl or Belk Bowl or whoever gets a better match up?

The teams in the national championship play off picture?

[utee94]

You want the security of steady predictable income?
Fine.  Simply roll the flexible playoff into the existing bowl schedule.   There are 40 bowls.  39 are on ESPN.
So seven or eight 6-6 or even 5-7 teams get left out some year so that we can possibly see OU, Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State play in two or three bowls instead?
Who's going to complain?
  
ESPN who gets higher rankings?

The Liberty Bowl or Belk Bowl or whoever gets a better match up?

The teams in the national championship play off picture?

The ratings will be significantly lower in the 2-team playoff years, compared to a 4-team playoff or 8-team playoff.  That will materially and significantly affect the revenue generated.
 People aren't watching the lower tier bowls just to watch them, but they would if they were playoff games.  So your proposal above doesn't address the inconsistency in revenue streams from year to year.
Like I said, it's a beautiful dream, but an impossible one.

[CharleyHorse46]

It's a beautiful dream my friend.  But finances have been the driving force in college football for a very long time now.  That ship sailed long ago.
As I've said many times, I'd really prefer to go back to conference affiliations and bowl alignments from around 1980 or so.  Conferences were regional and made sense.  Beating your rival and winning the conference were the primary goals, and hoping for a "good bowl" where you might or might not get a chance to prove yourself on the national stage was significantly less important.  But that time is long gone, and there's no going back.

On the contrary.  It will happen someday because there's money in it.  And when it does you and everybody else will proclaim it to be the most brilliant thing since sliced bread.
And of course none of you will remember I've been proposing it since about 1998.

[Drew4UTk]

of the one loss teams

Ooga has the advantage imHo- losing to a team they returned to beat. 
OU is in a very very close second with a inexplicable loss to surging Iowa State
Bama lost to the 'same' team that beat UGA but lost to sara-excuse, but bruised them enough that UGA could beat them. 
Wiscy lost to a surging tOSU and not by a lot- a lot less than most expected, actually.  
Clemson lost to sara-excused, BUT beat Auburn, which is a 'good' win. 

of those teams, the most common proxy is Auburn.  Auburn played 3 of the 4 in the playoff.. proxy is about dumb, because things change from day to day- consistency is what rates rewards... just thought i'd toss that in there..

Auburn was hot at the end of the year, and nowhere near the team that was beaten by Clemson nor LSU... I'd argue that tOSU was hot at the end of the year and at times during the year- but they were hot and cold NOT consistent.  Wiscy was consistent throughout the season to include the CCG where they gave tOSU enough grief to make the game interesting.  They weren't 'hot', they were consistent.  OU played consistent all season but caught a flashing Iowa State team at the same time they played arguably the worst game of the season.  Clemson lost to sillycuse- and has no excuse- 'cuse wasn't flashing, nor were they consistent (in a good way)- Clemson did lose their starting QB in that game, but does a QB a 'team' make (while playing a scrub)? 

i decided to offer this comment it's own paragraph:  Georgia has played consistent except for one game, and that is the game they lost.  they simply weren't playing with the cohesion they'd played with all season in that game (you should have witnessed it if you've watched at least four of their game- choose any three, and then that loss). it could be said that lack of cohesion was auburn breaking them up, but could be said UGA simply showed a lack of consistency.... i'm not willing to burn them for this, because they got what others usually don't get, which is to play the team that whooped them again.... and win... 

bama lost to a surging 'hot' auburn.  they also got all they could get from MSU and still slink away with a win.  that's two games they weren't consistent- could be argued 'because of LB's being injured' and maybe there is truth in that- but... it's bama... they have no excuse based on personnel when they lose.  so... nope.... lump them in 'inconsistent' group. 

grading with consistency as the principle determination and weighing the quality of loss, it's pretty clear to me that the committee got it right, but possibly not the seeds.  it should be a split between OU and Georgia sharing #1, and then Bama.... over clemson- because: Syracuse... those last four letters in their name is as close to an excuse clemson should get.  

i'm joining UGA and OU as they both lost to legitimate surging teams.  

[CharleyHorse46]

The ratings will be significantly lower in the 2-team playoff years, compared to a 4-team playoff or 8-team playoff.  That will materially and significantly affect the revenue generated.
 People aren't watching the lower tier bowls just to watch them, but they would if they were playoff games.  So your proposal above doesn't address the inconsistency in revenue streams from year to year.
Like I said, it's a beautiful dream, but an impossible one.

You bank on the two-team scenario every year and count the variations as windfall.  Given enough time for historical analysis (or scenarios built off of historical seasons) a formula will emerge.
It's not incalculable or unmanageable.
It just requires a bit of imagination.

[utee94]

You bank on the two-team scenario every year and count the variations as windfall.  Given enough time for historical analysis (or scenarios built off of historical seasons) a formula will emerge.
It's not incalculable or unmanageable.
It just requires a bit of imagination.

There's no school or conference that's going to be willing to accept this solution.  Since we ALREADY have a 4-team playoff, nobody's about to sign up to accept LESS money in the case of a 2-team year.  


But fight the fight my friend.

[MikeDeTiger]

While I think that Bama would probably beat tOSU, the Committee in selecting Bama unfortunately has sent the message that you don't need to win your conference--heck! you don't even need to play for the championship--and you don't need a tough OOC schedule.

The Committee says that it stresses SoS, but when that stress interferes with selecting the team that it wants to see in there, SoS is quickly forgotten.

Sort of like having a key injury or two diminishing the impact of a loss.

They've sent that message since at least 2011, when Alabama was voted in the BCS game in the same manner.  Effectively they were rewarded for losing a regular season game to LSU.  LSU won the division, and for their trouble got to go face another top 5 team in UGA while Alabama stayed at home and beauty-pageanted their way in.  And this was on top of sos and actual quality wins between LSU and Alabama....or more importantly, Alabama and Oklahoma State.  
Sure, Ohio State got in last year because they beat OU, but the lesson is why even take the chance?  A big ooc win can help you, but losing it will hurt you, so why bother when you can avoid it altogether and get by on your shiny helmet?  

[utee94]

They've sent that message since at least 2011, when Alabama was voted in the BCS game in the same manner.  Effectively they were rewarded for losing a regular season game to LSU.  LSU won the division, and for their trouble got to go face another top 5 team in UGA while Alabama stayed at home and beauty-pageanted their way in.  And this was on top of sos and actual quality wins between LSU and Alabama....or more importantly, Alabama and Oklahoma State.  
Sure, Ohio State got in last year because they beat OU, but the lesson is why even take the chance?  A big ooc win can help you, but losing it will hurt you, so why bother when you can avoid it altogether and get by on your shiny helmet?  

Agreed, but that strategy really only works for the helmet teams.  

[FearlessF]

it would have worked for the Badgers if they could have bypassed the Champ game vs the shiny helmet

[CousinFreddie]

of those teams, the most common proxy is Auburn.  Auburn played 3 of the 4 in the playoff.. proxy is about dumb, because things change from day to day- consistency is what rates rewards... just thought i'd toss that in there..

If you go back to all of 2017, including January, Auburn has played all four, since OU defeated Auburn fairly convincingly in the Sugar Bowl on Jan 2.  Since that time 8 of those Sooners and 6 Auburn players went to the NFL, by my count, so there have been some personnel losses, and of course things change from year to year, but I still think OU would match up pretty well with Auburn if they were to play right now.

[CousinFreddie]

On the contrary.  It will happen someday because there's money in it.  And when it does you and everybody else will proclaim it to be the most brilliant thing since sliced bread.
And of course none of you will remember I've been proposing it since about 1998.

That's probably true.  No one here remembers that I observed back in the CNN days that our gathering of armchair philosophers and flagrant but congenial smack artists was like being on the back porch, shooting the breeze, etc, about essentially nothing of importance.  A nice getaway from our otherwise responsibility filled lives.  And the name stuck, but no one remembers who first made the observation, and that's okay.  It's just cool that it stuck, because it fits pretty well.

It's kind of like the Nike swoosh, which was created by a Portland State University art student back whenever as she was being paid minimal wages by the shoe empire in their castle in nearby Beaverton, and so for $35 or whatever it was they parlayed her creative brilliance.  Even though her name remains relatively unknown to this day, she has the satisfaction of knowing that her idea made it all over the world, and is an enduring symbol in athletics.

So, Hooky my man, when your idea eventually takes hold, even when no explicit credit comes your way, you'll be able to sit back in your rocking chair, maybe on a back porch somewhere, and bask in the glow of your idea becoming reality.

[utee94]

it would have worked for the Badgers if they could have bypassed the Champ game vs the shiny helmet

Badgers tried to schedule one decent OOC game although it might be time to stop thinking BYU is going to produce a decent team.

[MikeDeTiger]

^^^  

And I'll give that much credit to the Gumps for sure.  I don't blame them for their schedule, only their performance against it.  It's not their fault their division decided to suck out loud this year, and as far as ooc, FSU is about as good as you can do, forecasting-wise.  How were they to know FSU would limp to their worst season in decades?

I don't think Alabama was the wrong choice.  I think there were no right answers once Wisconsin lost, and I question the way the committee makes their decisions, but if I were a Gump, I wouldn't be apologizing for getting in.  

[utee94]

It came down to 1-loss helmet Alabama versus 2-loss helmets OSU and USC.  As long as it's all helmets, the committee looks no further than the number in the L column.