CFB51 College Football Fan Community
The Power Five => SEC => Topic started by: davidg32 on December 07, 2017, 11:16:55 AM
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It's always seemed to me that an 8-team playoff would be the best CFB arrangement. Most years it would include every team that has a reasonable argument that they deserve to be in, while being compact enough that it wouldn't take too long to get done with. (You wouldn't be able to have as much time between games, since you would need one more round.) That's my two cents' worth, anyway...others are certainly free to disagree.
Here's one mockup of an 8-game playoff this year:
LINK (http://thespun.com/college-football/what-an-8-team-college-football-playoff-wouldve-looked-like-this-year)
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i'm not a huge fan, but not completely opposed to it either.
you'd almost certainly have the p5 champs guaranteed a spot. so that's uga, clemson, osu, usc and ou.
then 3 spots up for grabs.
nd and maybe byu would likely be guaranteed a spot for some kind of criteria met (being in top 10 with 2 or fewer losses for example). didn't meet it this year, so open spot.
g5 would also have a similar provision to what they had in bcs, something like being undefeated and in top 15, within 5 spots of a competing contender, and if that contender has 2+ losses, the g5 gets that spots first. some weird calculation. likely ucf meets thats this year and gets in.
then you're left with either 1, 2, or 3 at large depending on the above. this year would be 2. my guess is they'd take the easy road and take 1 loss bama and wisk. there might be some provision of being in top 5 guarantees a spot, but i could see that being an issue as well with potentially guaranteeing a 9-10 spots when only 8 are available.
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There needs to be some kind of uniformity in P5 conference size and determining a champ for this to fly with me. In general the P5 champs + 3 at large teams would be okay with me, but I'd want to avoid situations like 2001/LSU/UT. Also the B12 and Big Ten (not sure about PAC and ACC) play 9 conference games, which the SEC needs to catch up with for more even comparisons.
Basically, I just want a better way to determine conference champions in general. The Big 12 had it right with a round robin and then dumbed it all up. If we're going to persist with these super-conferences, there needs to be something more definitive, because a winner-take-all cross-division championship starts getting really goofy when one team has no chance of matching the other team's season, even with a win.
Under such a playoff scenario, it wouldn't actually be the playoff violating us old-timer's plea for the regular season to matter, it'd moreso be our own conference championships devaluing the regular season. Under the BCS, that wasn't a problem, under an 8 team playoff, it would be.
Not that I think what we have right now is so hot.
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An eight team playoff would move the controversy from the 4th place team to the eighth and accomplish nothing except extend the season to 16 games for certain teams, furthur destroy the regular season and the bowls. How much physical trauma do the players have to experience before enough is enough?
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i don't buy into the play to many games argument. it'll only be for a couple teams each year. rd 1 will be like a bowl, so no different from any bowl eligible team of the last 30+ years. then you're down to 4 teams, 2 of which will play at most 15 games, which is what almost all hs champs play across the country, and fcs plays. then 2 teams will play 1 more game. not that big a deal.
there are arguments against expanding, but adding 1 game to 2 teams per year is a weak one imo.
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Wisconsin's 3* kids would kick everyone's ass. We all know it. Consider it done.*
* So long as Wisconsin gets its 9 injured players back, that is.
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Let's water down the regular season even more. Funnnnn.
It used to be if you lost, you crap your pants, because you're kinda screwed. Now? Clemson loses to Pitt, and it's "they'll be okay". OU loses to ISU and it's "okay that's one loss, but they can't have another and be safe".
Let's just have a 64-team tournament starting in October - everyone over .500 gets in. How about that?
College football used to have one thing over every other sport - all of them, the NFL, the NBA, etc......the best regular season. It was a tight-rope with no safety net.
But let's distance ourselves from that further. Sure. Great idea.
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Talking about it is fine, but it won't happen for a long time I suspect, decades.
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Well decades from now, remember UGA's 2017 season. The loss to Auburn already didn't matter one bit, thanks to the 4-team playoff. They got blasted on the road and it warranted a shrug. How about the 2002 Dawgs? One little close loss to Florida, season ruined, no NC.
An 8-team playoff turns the 1-loss shrug into a 2-losses shrug. Apathy.
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I do tend to be apathetic about most things over which I have no control, and I personally would not like an 8 team playoff.
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EIGHT teams!? I am of the opinion there has NEVER been more than three teams in any one season worthy of being the NC. And the CFP has done nothing to disprove that opinion. There has been at least one of the four teams in each of the three CFP's to lose by THIRTY or more points! tOSU 0-31, Michigan State 0-38, and FSU 20-59!
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EIGHT teams!? I am of the opinion there has NEVER been more than three teams in any one season worthy of being the NC. And the CFP has done nothing to disprove that opinion. There has been at least one of the four teams in each of the three CFP's to lose by THIRTY or more points! tOSU 0-31, Michigan State 0-38, and FSU 20-59!
Preach it ALA.
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I like the idea of a 12-team playoff (even though I think that is too many teams).
Five conference champions are ranked by the committee with the top four getting byes. The committee would then pick seven wild cards and rank them six through 12 with the other champ getting seed five.
This would make the regular season and the conference championship games means something - the rankings and the week bye.
Just a thought.....
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I'd rather have the Rose, Sugar, Orange, Cotton and Fiesta mean something, along with all the other bowls - which could be reduced from 40 (or however many we have) to about 20.
But, I'm an old man and we aren't going back.
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SLM, you got it wrong while citing the biggest argument against you: the college basketball regular season. Here, help me out - name the last big, costly loss in the NCAA basketball regular season for Kentucky. For Duke. For UNC. For anyone.
Yeah, it's a trick question. There is no such thing as a big loss in college basketball's regular season, because it doesn't mean anything. Duke v. UNC means nothing besides bragging rights. Literally nothing is genuinely at stake.
Same with the first Auburn-UGA game this year in football. Expanding to 8 would only increase the number of meaningless games. It would increase rematches. It would suck.
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If UCF wants equal access to a national championship, they need to play a big-boy schedule. If that means moving to a better conference, then do it. If that means doing a bunch of prerequisite stuff, then do it.
No matter how good UCF actually is, it doesn't warrant serious playoff consideration because of its schedule. They only played 2 fringe-ranked teams, and gave up 95 points in those 2 wins. A playoff team's toughest test cannot be Memphis. Plain and simple.
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Uh, okay—just happened this week. Thanks for making my point stronger Afro! You seriously think that Wofford beating UNC on their floor doesn’t hurt UNC’s seeding and won’t help Wofford’s seeding in the tournament depending on how the rest of the season plays out. If that loss by UNC is not made up by a long winning streak or winning their conference, that could be the difference between a number one seed (a very big deal) and a five or six seed, which does affect UNC’s chances of winning a national championship. Unimpressive wins are one thing and bad losses are another. Thus, the regular season means just as much if you look at it that way. That’s not only a humiliating loss for UNC, but it shows how any quality team is beatable on any given night especially with more parity across the country, which is why I agree that SOS should help determine seeding, but not keeping a team out entirely unless they don’t make the cut using all the criteria.
The committee is having to split hairs on only four teams in the entire country when there are too many differences in conferences, SOS and playing nine conference games versus eight, etc. Plus, the way the selection process works now is insane to me. “Here’s the way the fourth team was picked: just ten committee members ranked the teams from 4-6. There were only ten committee members ranking the teams because three of the 13 committee members to my knowledge had to recuse themselves from voting — Ohio State and Clemson’s athletic directors because their two teams would be ranked inside the top six and former Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer because his son is on the Georgia coaching staff. This means there is the distinct possibility that the committee split, with five voting for Ohio State and five voting for Alabama in the fourth spot. If they split like this do you know how the tie is broken? THEY SIT IN THE ROOM AND ARGUE UNTIL SOMEONE CHANGES THEIR MIND. It’s like being in a hung jury when everybody is ready to just go home and changes their vote to get out of there. Seriously, this is the brilliant method we’ve selected to choose four playoff teams. One person could literally just change their mind and that’s how the playoff gets picked. I trust the BCS more than that with computers as human beings have too much bias.
Furthermore, if that isn’t crazy enough, here’s more — the ballots of the voters aren’t made public, which means the ten voters never have to allow their ballots to be seen publicly by college football fans across the country. So there is an incredible amount of corruption that could be in play here because we’re talking about tens of millions of dollars to the conference that makes the fourth playoff — either the SEC or the Big Ten. You think benefit of the doubt doesn’t matter when it comes to Alabama? You think the Big Ten’s Playoff flops in 2015 and 2016 didn’t factor in the subconscious of those committee members? One can make a valid argument for either Alabama or Ohio State, but that’s the point—either way is splitting hairs when an eight game playoff would negate that. Additionally, I hate the argument that well, if eight, then why not twelve? As Aristotle’s golden mean dictates, finding the desirable middle between two extremes, one of excess and the other of deficiency works best. The point is driven home to me when you look at arguments for both Ohio State and Alabama getting in or staying out: First, Vegas would likely favor Alabama by 5.5 over Ohio State on a neutral field. If the goal of the committee is to pick the best teams for the playoff — that’s literally their charged goal — shouldn’t the fact that Alabama would be nearly a touchdown favorite over Ohio State break any close tie? Second, 11-1 Alabama has the same number of wins against teams with winning records as Ohio State, two more wins against teams going to bowl games, and its single loss will be demonstrably better than Ohio State’s two losses. Bama lost on the road to Auburn, a bitter conference rival, who is undoubtedly a top ten team. Ohio State lost to likely #2 seed Oklahoma at home by 15 and lost by 31 on the road to 7-5 Iowa. Presently Ohio State has five wins against teams with winning records: Army, Penn State, Michigan State, Michigan and Wisconsin. Alabama also has five wins against teams with winning records right now: Fresno State, Colorado State, Mississippi State, LSU, and Texas A&M. (Florida State also finished 6-6, but what would the Seminole record have been without Deondre Francois’s injury? Since the committee considers quarterback injuries for Clemson, shouldn’t they also consider FSU with Francois? Remember, Alabama played FSU with Francois until late in the fourth quarter. FSU with Francois definitely finishes with a winning record, right? They lost games by 6, 4, and 3 this year with a true freshman quarterback. Plus, is it Alabama’s fault that a top five preseason FSU team ended up losing several tight games after their quarterback was injured? The Tide scheduled a challenging neutral site game, which the committee wants to encourage. So it’s not like Alabama dodged anyone on this schedule. In fact, they tried to challenge themselves, which is a clear directive from the committee). Both teams also have three top wins against top 25 teams. Thus, Alabama has the same number of wins against winning teams as Ohio State and fewer losses. Plus, their loss comes against a better team by fewer points. Breaking down the numbers more fully, Alabama went 7-1 against bowl teams while Ohio State went go 5-2 against bowl teams. So Alabama played more bowl teams than Ohio State did and won more games against those bowl teams. How about FBS teams in big five conferences with .500 or better records? Alabama went 5-1 against these opponents while Ohio State went 4-2. Okay, how about records against FBS teams from big five conferences with winning records? Bama went 3-1, Ohio State went 4-2. Finally, Ohio State lost by 15 to Oklahoma and 31 to 7-5 Iowa while Alabama lost by 12 at Auburn. Put simply, Alabama’s record at the top is better and its record at the bottom isn’t as bad as Ohio State’s. But Alabama didn’t even win its own division or its conference! Maybe it’s a better conference; however, Alabama slid into the playoff by doing nothing. It was rewarded for losing to Auburn in a game that decided the SEC West title. And that’s simply not the way this process should work according to the committee that has said they favor conference champions all things being equal. Was this committee really watching that 24-10 victory against LSU where Alabama actually got outgained 306-299 and thinking this is “unequivocally” one of the four best teams in the country? Were they really watching the Tide’s struggle in Starkville, Miss., and thinking this was the Alabama of old? Were they really watching them get pushed around in Auburn and thinking this is a team worth a second chance as a non-champion? And, if you're going to mention that Alabama has more wins against bowl eligible teams and teams with winning records, you should also mention that Alabama's best win was against #17 LSU, while Ohio State now had two wins against top ten teams and Ohio State has wins against 3 teams ranked higher than LSU. I see that we’re starting to veer in pretty significant ways from what the commissioners who created the playoff told us they wanted.” More playoff spots takes more bias out of the process because the margin of error is not so small. Just my long-winded opinion and I know we aren’t going to agree as we’ve had this discussion before.
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If UCF wants equal access to a national championship, they need to play a big-boy schedule. If that means moving to a better conference, then do it. If that means doing a bunch of prerequisite stuff, then do it.
No matter how good UCF actually is, it doesn't warrant serious playoff consideration because of its schedule. They only played 2 fringe-ranked teams, and gave up 95 points in those 2 wins. A playoff team's toughest test cannot be Memphis. Plain and simple.
Uhh, UCF is moving to a better conference.
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I stopped reading after " that could be the difference between a number one seed (a very big deal) and a five or six seed".
It's obvious you have some odd, skewed view of college basketball. One game doesn't alter a team's seed by 4-5 spots...ever. Ever. The idea is nuts.
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Uhh, UCF is moving to a better conference.
What does that have to do with 2017? Thanks for the 2 face-palms, thirty seconds apart.
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Whatever--I'm not going to provide overly simplistic answers to complex circumstances like you do constantly. I'm not saying just one game would impact them to the degree that it would in college football under the same scenario. I answered your trick question with a legit one that makes the point that the basketball season is not meaningless because of how the tournament is structured since there is a method to selection that is far superior than college football. You sound like you don't understand how the seeding works. SOS is important in college basketball just like football so they count wins and losses as well as who teams beat and lost to so that a loss to Wofford could drop UNC's RPI significantly if their record is not as good as the other teams in their league. Of course--one loss to a crappy team won't make a difference if they win their league as I already stated or if they have a great year and that was one slip, but the point was that the season is important for how you seed, which impacts the teams you play in the tournament. Higher seeds get easier opponents and you have to win them all versus two games in college football. The one game is not as significant as the loss would obviously be if a Power 5 team lost to a mid-major such as when Michigan lost to App State because that would knock them out from the start by dropping their ranking and there are many more basketball games compared to a football schedule.
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What does that have to do with 2017? Thanks for the 2 face-palms, thirty seconds apart.
Not every program can get into a Power 5 Conference, which is another reason why the NCAA Tournament is more fair. Nevertheless, You said, "If UCF wants equal access to a national championship, they need to play a big-boy schedule. If that means moving to a better conference, then do it. If that means doing a bunch of prerequisite stuff, then do it." To which I said they are doing it. Obviously they couldn't get it done this year so it has nothing to do with 2017 other than they did all they could do, but it takes time.
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Right, so in 2017, with their high school schedule, they don't warrant a playoff spot. Not in a 4-team, not in an 8-team, not in a box, not with a fox. Not here or there, not anywhere.
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Wofford beating UNC was an ESPN.com cover story for about 3 hours on a slow day. When UNC finishes the year 24-6 and gets a top 2 seed, who they lost to won't matter. One game out of 30 doesn't decide anything. The difference between a 2 seed and a 6 seed in the tournament is 16 teams, you realize that, right? 16 positions or spots of difference. 1 loss to the Deaf & Blind kids won't cause a drop that far come tourney time, sorry.
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Right, so in 2017, with their high school schedule, they don't warrant a playoff spot. Not in a 4-team, not in an 8-team, not in a box, not with a fox. Not here or there, not anywhere.
Maybe not Dr. Seuss. But, try to look at UCF in the theoretical as an example rather than their specifc record, which means that a larger playoff pool such as 8 teams could accomodate a team that would have been out, but now may be in. It's really not that hard a concept so just forget it.
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Wofford beating UNC was an ESPN.com cover story for about 3 hours on a slow day. When UNC finishes the year 24-6 and gets a top 2 seed, who they lost to won't matter. One game out of 30 doesn't decide anything. The difference between a 2 seed and a 6 seed in the tournament is 16 teams, you realize that, right? 16 positions or spots of difference. 1 loss to the Deaf & Blind kids won't cause a drop that far come tourney time, sorry.
If it worked out exactly like that, but you don't know that do you! UNC probably will win 22 games this year, but what if they win 20? That’s not a great record going into the Tourney as bubble teams had that many last year and didn’t get in. No sparky--that is a foolish way to view the difference between a 2 seed and a 6 seed by a long shot!!! Stats show the probabilities: No. 2 seeds are still 120-8 all time against No. 15 seeds while No. 6 seeds have won 64 percent of the meetings overall, but the past seven years tell a very different story. The No. 11s have won seven of 12 meetings the past three tourneys, and hold a 15-13 advantage since 2010. In that span, only once have the No. 6 seeds won a majority of the matchups and only once since 2000 have the No. 6 seeds won all four meetings with 11 seeds in a single tournament. Therefore, it’s totally obvious to the casual observer and even the brain dead that a six seed’s chances of winning a national championship pales in comparison to a 2 seed by a magnitude beyond your capability to understand. Your either careless or brain dead—not sure which. Go back to read the long post you skipped to get up to speed on how the tourney works and the math behind it. Again, you oversimplify the argument. Anyway, it’s been a blast from the past! Gotta run………..
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You're extrapolating UNC losing to Wofford out to a higher seed wins more often than a lower seed in the tournament. What?!?
Let's ask 10 people if the UNC-Wofford game was a "big" game. Upsets happen.
What your win% by seed ignores is movement within seedings - UNC can go 24-6 and get a 2 seed, but would've gotten the highest 2 ssed if it went 25-5 (beating Wofford) and been placed in the regional with the weakest 1 seed. Yes, it's convoluted, but it's equally as convoluted as what you've already stated.
My point is that UNC vs. Wofford in early December wasn't a "big game", couldn't be a big game, and will never be a big game. Because it's one game in the NCAA basketball regular season. You're on the wrong end of the spectrum - the argument FOR big games (and the importance of) in the regular season are the big-time programs playing each other. Yet none of us has any idea the last top 5 team Kansas has beaten or the last regular season loss Duke had at home to a top 10 team.
Because each regular season game is completely meaningless - the huge upsets, the 30-point wins, the rivalry games, and even top 10 match-ups. It's all garbage. If college football goes to an 8-team playoff or 16 or whatever, the regular season will become irrelevant and people will only care about the playoff, a la the NCAA tournament. College basketball matters in March only. People watch in March only. People pay attention in March only.
So please, let's add more playoff teams to guarantee college football will only matter in December. So people will only watch exclusively in December. Will be noteworthy only in December. It'll be great.
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You're extrapolating UNC losing to Wofford out to a higher seed wins more often than a lower seed in the tournament. What?!?
Let's ask 10 people if the UNC-Wofford game was a "big" game. Upsets happen.
What your win% by seed ignores is movement within seedings - UNC can go 24-6 and get a 2 seed, but would've gotten the highest 2 ssed if it went 25-5 (beating Wofford) and been placed in the regional with the weakest 1 seed. Yes, it's convoluted, but it's equally as convoluted as what you've already stated.
My point is that UNC vs. Wofford in early December wasn't a "big game", couldn't be a big game, and will never be a big game. Because it's one game in the NCAA basketball regular season. You're on the wrong end of the spectrum - the argument FOR big games (and the importance of) in the regular season are the big-time programs playing each other. Yet none of us has any idea the last top 5 team Kansas has beaten or the last regular season loss Duke had at home to a top 10 team.
Because each regular season game is completely meaningless - the huge upsets, the 30-point wins, the rivalry games, and even top 10 match-ups. It's all garbage. If college football goes to an 8-team playoff or 16 or whatever, the regular season will become irrelevant and people will only care about the playoff, a la the NCAA tournament. College basketball matters in March only. People watch in March only. People pay attention in March only.
So please, let's add more playoff teams to guarantee college football will only matter in December. So people will only watch exclusively in December. Will be noteworthy only in December. It'll be great.
Your biggest problem I've noticed from past discussions is that you don't define terms. It was a "HUGE" game for Wofford, which was probably why UNC lost. LOL Ten people is hardly a large sample size, but who cares anyway. It was only a BIG game to UNC after they lost. Laughing again! From personal experience, I hated losing more than I liked winning. Also, I'm not extrapolating anything since I already said that UNC will likely have a good year and was using them as an example of what could happen IF they had a mediocre season and how that would show up in the NCAA Tourney if it did. You are clueless about college basketball. The national sports media is calling this the worst loss in UNC school history, which explains why UNC dropped ten spots in the top 25. Yeah, it's only one loss and upsets happen and you have no idea how a selection committee will view a number 4th ranked team losing to a 196th ranked team at HOME! Lots of cool embarrassing stats: It was Wofford's first victory against a top 25 opponent in program history. Wofford was 0-23 before Wednesday night. Wofford is (8-4) in a crappy conference. People like you watch in March only, but the selection committee looks at the body of work for the season. Stop talking basketball since you don't know what you are talking about. Go easy on the bong dude. Adding four more college playoff games will result in people only watching in December. I can't stop laughing. I don't know if you struggle with analogies or you just are completley black or white with no gray type person. You sound like the type who didn't want to change to the BCS--just stick with the AP poll dammit! You're not alone. When we were only six years into the BCS, most ADs thought it was a little too early to scrap the BCS and most of the national sports media agreed with that. Then you likely struggled with more change by going to a four team playoff, but I bet you didn't know that the original proposal in 2009 was for an 8 team playoff. I get it. Change is hard for you and you are a purist until after the change takes place and then you love it. I would bet you $1,000 today that if they went to an 8 team playoff, you would watch every playoff game (only four games) and you still would watch the big games during the regular season and I would win cuz I'm a winner.
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It's not about me and my watching habits - it's about the masses. That's all I'm going to say.
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Uhh, UCF is moving to a better conference.
Where are they going?
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Where are they going?
Badge, UCF is looking to move to the Big XII, but American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco is trying to get them to stay. I would leave too as Afro said, they need the exposure.
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It's not about me and my watching habits - it's about the masses. That's all I'm going to say.
You speak for the masses Messiah?
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UCF moving to the Big 12, or even having something in the works involving a move to the Big 12, would be news to Big 12 fans.
A lot of fans want the Big 12 to expand. Maybe some movers and shakers do too. UCF was one of those schools with a good deal of fan support. But the Big 12, after coercing a bunch of schools into putting on dog-and-pony shows, decided not to expand. It seems that in the short run at least it's more financially lucrative to stay at ten schools. It also seems like things could change as we approach the end of the grant-of-rights term, which I think is after the 2024-25 school year.
About expanding the playoff, no, thanks! Better to have a semi-deserving team left out (with the consolation prize of playing in a NY6 Bowl) than to have three clearly undeserving teams brought in. It should be a high accomplishment to make the playoff, not just "have a very good year."
I'd rather go back to bowls and polls than to expand to 8 teams.
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UCF moving to the Big 12, or even having something in the works involving a move to the Big 12, would be news to Big 12 fans.
A lot of fans want the Big 12 to expand. Maybe some movers and shakers do too. UCF was one of those schools with a good deal of fan support. But the Big 12, after coercing a bunch of schools into putting on dog-and-pony shows, decided not to expand. It seems that in the short run at least it's more financially lucrative to stay at ten schools. It also seems like things could change as we approach the end of the grant-of-rights term, which I think is after the 2024-25 school year.
About expanding the playoff, no, thanks! Better to have a semi-deserving team left out (with the consolation prize of playing in a NY6 Bowl) than to have three clearly undeserving teams brought in. It should be a high accomplishment to make the playoff, not just "have a very good year."
I'd rather go back to bowls and polls than to expand to 8 teams.
Thanks as you would know more about what the XII is thinking than I would since I don't stay on top of them.
Better to have a semi-deserving team left out (with the consolation prize of playing in a NY6 Bowl) than to have three clearly undeserving teams brought in. That sounds to me like saying it's better to keep a possibly innocent guy in prison rather than letting a possibly guilty guy out. It all depends on perspective.
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On a long timeline, both the XII and ACC aren't going to exist on the same plane. One has to pillage the other - that will leave 4 power conferences, and THEN we'll have a champs-only playoff.
The plus of that is that tough non-conference games will be useful, and losses won't be damaging.
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Did anybody besides Afro-Dude change their mind on expanding the playoff after seeing UCF beat on a big boy school that beat two number one teams during the season and staying undefeated? Just curious.
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Not me. Any team (OK, almost any) can win a game on a given day, especially with a month to prepare. Auburn lost 4 games too, so it's really not the same as when Utah beat Bama, for example.
And now it's Frost to Nebraska. Hopefully he can revive that program too.
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Not me. Any team (OK, almost any) can win a game on a given day, especially with a month to prepare. Auburn lost 4 games too, so it's really not the same as when Utah beat Bama, for example.
And now it's Frost to Nebraska. Hopefully he can revive that program too.
Yes, of course almost any team can beat another one on any given day, but this was no fluke if you break down the numbers as Auburn did NOT dominate with size at the line nor did they dominate with SEC speed. Every prediction on this game looked like this: The Tigers have beaten two of the four members of 2017’s College Football Playoff. That’s just too much for the best UCF team in program history to compete with. Well, that was NOT true and now we will never know how far they could have gone.
UCF, champions of the American Athletic Conference, did go 12-0, but the list of teams it beat (an exclamation point emphasized by all those who say UCF doesn't belong in the playoff), and the scores, didn’t seem like something a team like Auburn, which beat undefeated Georgia and Alabama during the regular season, should worry too much about. While Auburn was competing against playoff teams such as Clemson, the Bulldogs and the Tide, the Knights were throttling Memphis 62-55 in a Tecmo Bowl-like game, USF 49-42, Austin Peay 73-33, East Carolina 63-21, Cincinnati 51-23 and FIU 61-17.
Video-game football wouldn’t work against a powerhouse from the SEC, would it? No way said the experts! UCF’s players said in the days before the game that they had to tackle well and make sure that all gaps were covered to keep Johnson from cutting back and taking advantage of open spaces. UCF played with discipline. Johnson had the team’s longest run (14) and the Tigers finished with just 90 yards rushing on 44 carries. UCF’s offense totaled 411 yards against a SEC defense after averaging 540.4 during the season, but that was enough when Auburn should have been able to dominate the LOS on offense and defense. Quarterback McKenzie Milton, named the offensive MVP, was sacked only once and did enough with his arm (242 passing yards) and legs (116 rushing yards) to send coach Scott Frost to his new job at Nebraska with a school record for victories in a season and the gratification of rebuilding a program that finished 0-12 three years ago. I don't buy the argument that these schools from smaller conferences cannot compete with Power 5 conference teams because not only did the Knights hold up against the Tigers, they displayed more team speed than Auburn. While Auburn running back Kerryon Johnson had 71 rushing yards and a touchdown, he never had that big play and was limited to 3.2 yards per carry. If there are 129 FBS teams, then all 129 deserve the right to play for a national championship if they go undefeated. UCF was the last team standing and earned the right to be in the College Football Playoff. Auburn, which beat No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 Alabama when both teams were ranked No. 1 during the regular season, made it tough for the Knights, but UCF was the better team from start to finish. The margin could have been wider had UCF kicker Matthew Wright not missed a pair of field goals. Milton also overshot a wide-open receiver in the first half for what would have been a sure touchdown. This makes a mockery of the CFP system right now as the original proposal for a playoff was "8" teams and not "4" as was decided by the college football elites who desire to keep the gold for themselves. Don't forget that this wasn't just an upset by a team who may have wanted it more because UCF who was ranked 12th in the final College Football Playoff poll despite being unbeaten, were 10-point underdogs to the Tigers from the SEC and No. 7 Auburn was a national championship contender before its 28-7 loss to No. 3 Georgia in the SEC championship game. These schools like UCF are recruiting players in the state of Florida that can play at Power 5 schools.
What I see happening if the CFP does not expand is teams like this will move to a Power 5 conference in order to compete at the big dance and that will devastate the smaller conferences. In fact, it has already happened! Due to most of the conference's football-playing members leaving the WAC for other affiliations, the conference discontinued football as a sponsored sport after the 2012–13 season. The WAC's demise didn't occur in one fell swoop. Rather, its fall from grace began in 1999, when the WAC was a swollen 16-team conference. That year, eight teams split off to start the Mountain West Conference. Conference realignment and expansion remodeled the NCAA landscape forever. If your team is in a Power 5 conference--that's great--but the super conferences growing bigger means that the smaller conferences cannot compete. "Individual institutions chase more prestigious conferences, and there's a hierarchy that's always existed. WAC teams always wanted to elevate to the Mountain West because there's a perception that it's more prestigious. The club that they're currently in doesn't have the social status that perhaps another club has. As a result, they want to be part of this other club. ... That's just as important as money." "It's virtually impossible to generate any sponsorship dollars and any long-term television opportunities when you have a constant change in membership, and that goes back 15 years. "When you try to negotiate a better or new deal, the issue [with television providers] always is, 'What are we buying? What's the commitment on the part of the conference?'" Restructuring a media deal for the WAC was impossible because there was no idea what the conference membership would be. The WAC was able to live with its revolving door ethos for more than a decade, but universities are not a renewable resource, and the conference in the Intermountain West already had a shortage of programs from which to choose. After the Mountain West was established, the WAC had to expand its footprint from (https://www.si.com/college-football/team/louisiana)Louisiana to (https://www.si.com/college-football/team/hawaii)Hawaii. Even though the conference widened its swath, teams continued to leave, and the WAC pipeline of universities ran dry as there just aren't as many FBS or even FCS level institutions in the western third of the country as there are in the eastern third. I see a proliferation of smaller conferences going away as the super conferences take the best of those teams from those smaller conferences if the CFP doesn't expand.
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I'm making this argument on the Big Ten board so I'll be brief..
I'm glad you mentioned the WAC. Someone thought it was a good idea to make a 16 team conference almost 20 years ago.
History repeats itself. The "smart" people running these "conferences" with 14 schools don't remember.
It's not sustainable, and it's showing already.