This football season has potential to be a mess. Bear with me lifelong Big 12/SW conference fans, because I come from an SEC background and we all are very well acquainted with the Bama media bias.
So, a 1-loss LSU team plays Bama on 11/3 at Tiger stadium. If this game were to be played in bama, I'd say 100% Bama win. But things could get interesting in the real Death Valley (sorry clemson).
This CFP process will be very interesting and heated if LSU comes out with the W. That means it would likely be an LSU/UGA rematch for the conference title. In that scenario, does last year just repeat with Bama getting to bypass the championship (which would be a very lose-able game) and secure a spot in the playoffs?

I know this is layered in hypotheticals, but I really hate the favor that Bama gets based on talent of years past. In my mind, the current season should be the only factor in determining playoff bids. One may think that bama is the best team in the nation (which they may be, I am not denying that) but if they cannot make it to their conference championship, then they should not be given one of the four playoff spots.

I think one of two things possible changes should be made to make the playoff selection rely less on bias and more on defined guidelines:
1) If we stick to a 4-team playoff, establish a rule for only conference champions to be allowed. This allows more inter-conference matchups which helps eliminate conference bias. If you don't make it to the conference championship, then sorry and good luck next year. You know what is expected to get there, and you have to win in that manner to get there. This also would help the CFP committee in two ways: They don't become the hated target (except for deciding which conference is left out) because everyone is on the same page for requirements, and it decreases any possible outsider influence. While the BCS was a very imperfect system, everyone was at least aware of how teams were selected.

2) Expand to 8-team playoff system where every power 5 champ gets an autobid, and then the media can have all the bias they want in the 3 at-large spots. At that point I don't even care which conference gets favored so long as there are opportunities for teams from other conferences to earn their spot for the national title.


Thoughts?


Edit: Just thought of a third option.
3) 6 playoff bids with autobid to power 5 champs (no co-champs @BobBowlsby), with #1 and #2 ranked teams getting a bye week. They will then match up with the winners of #3 vs #6 and #4 vs #5 respectively.

Completely agree. Great thoughts

The only correct answer is 8 teams. P5 auto bid to champion (however they decide it). Highest rated non-P5. 2 at large.
I could even live with 6 team minus at larges with top 2 having byes.
Or if you really want to get crazy. 12 team. ALL conference champs auto bid, 1 at large, top 4 get byes.

Agree with conference champs from 5 power conferences

Sixth pick the highest rated conference champ in top 25 from non power 5 conference.

Final two at discretion of playoff selection as last two highest rated teams regardless of conference, to include Norte Dame.

I'd be surprised if LSU even gives Bama a game. The Tide has never had a problem winning in Baton Rouge. Anything can happen but the odds tilt heavily in favor of the coach and the talent. I hope I'm wrong. I'd have never thought Purdue would upend tOSU but Bama coasts.

And agree with those who say an 8 team playoff is best.

I personally disagree. In recent years Bama has definitely had the edge, but in 2014 they only won in OT at LSU. 2012, only won 21-17 at LSU. Back it up a few more years and LSU had five consecutive wins from 2003-2007 and also in 2010 and 2011.

If only going by the past 3 years, yeah bama has won convincingly against the tigers regardless of venue, but only one of those games was played in Death Valley.
This team seems to have a special energy this year and the environment that night will be crazy. I'm expecting a bama win, but am hoping for LSU to make things interesting this year and push for a CFP change.

I agree with Dilly and LT, good posts.

5 conference champs, 1 slot for too ND/G5 team. #1 and #2 have a bye week then face 3/4/5 or 6 the following week after the quarter finals.

People are going to complain their team got snubbed no matter the number of slots

CFP?

I though you meant Coach Fatty Patterson

I prefer to not talk about Fatty Patty more than necessary

LTbear said:

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I say this every time the issue comes up, but I want 8 teams because it would make the regular season better. Stick with me.

1) With auto bids for the P5 champs, teams are more incentivized to schedule tough opponents in the OOC. As is, if you're already a playoff favorite, one loss in the OOC can doom you. Get that one extra loss in conference and you're done. If you know a P5 champ earns a bid, then there's no risk to playing the big time matachup OOC, plus you know it will bring in money. Additionally, if you're a fringe playoff hopeful, you schedule that big game to hope it helps you get an at large bid.

2) With P5 champs getting auto bids, winning your conference becomes the big goal each year, like it used to be in college football. Nowadays the talk is all playoff all the time, everyone wondering if a non champ will get in and conference championships becoming diminished in prestige. Get college football back to talking about the conference races all year, and let the talking heads yabber about who's going to get the at large bids if they want.

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Hammer meet nail.

I agree with everything you just posted. And with an eight-team playoff, you could even reserve one spot for the best G5 team (assuming they meet a certain criteria for inclusion). Eight makes so much sense. Unfortunately change in college football comes at a glacial pace.

8 10 team conferences so everyone goes round robin.

8 champs get into the playoffs. No CCGs.

Each team must schedule one game each season with a team from another of the major conferences.

Coaches must be terminated by Nov 1, or the school must wait until 3 days after the NC game. No contact between agents and schools during dead time. Harsh penalties apply.

No coin flips - ball is placed at the 50 and each team chooses their fastest player to lineup at the goal line to go get it. Guy who gets it chooses.

At the beginning and end of every season Gary Patterson is publicly humiliated in new and twisted ways.

Dillydilly1845 said:

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I personally disagree. In recent years Bama has definitely had the edge, but in 2014 they only won in OT at LSU. 2012, only won 21-17 at LSU. Back it up a few more years and LSU had five consecutive wins from 2003-2007 and also in 2010 and 2011.

If only going by the past 3 years, yeah bama has won convincingly against the tigers regardless of venue, but only one of those games was played in Death Valley.
This team seems to have a special energy this year and the environment that night will be crazy. I'm expecting a bama win, but am hoping for LSU to make things interesting this year and push for a CFP change.

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In the last 10 years the series record is Bama 8 wins LSU 2. Only one LSU win happened in Baton Rouge, 2010.
Bama owns Baton Rouge sadly.

What was Saban's record against Bama when he was at LSU?

In win total, they have won 80% of the games. So you're right if you're only going by that. But you're neglecting to look at the final scores. bama doesn't "own" baton rouge. Two of those games could have gone either direction, one being won in OT and the other only being won by 4 points. Had those gone the other direction, which could have very well happened, it's almost an even 50/50. So no, bama doesn't own death valley.

Plus, LSU will be the first test of bama's cupcake schedule so far. Again, I'm still expecting a bama win, but not sold on it yet. I'll gladly eat my crow in two saturdays if they blow out LSU.

PartyBear said:

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What was Saban's record against Bama when he was at LSU?

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2-1 . Those were not the best Bama teams. Bear rarely, rarely lost at Baton Rouge but the myth continues.

LSU 4-1 from 2000-2004

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alabama%E2%80%93LSU_football_rivalry

Dillydilly1845 said:

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In win total, they have won 80% of the games. So you're right if you're only going by that. But you're neglecting to look at the final scores. bama doesn't "own" baton rouge. Two of those games could have gone either direction, one being won in OT and the other only being won by 4 points. Had those gone the other direction, which could have very well happened, it's almost an even 50/50. So no, bama doesn't own death valley.

Plus, LSU will be the first test of bama's cupcake schedule so far. Again, I'm still expecting a bama win, but not sold on it yet. I'll gladly eat my crow in two saturdays if they blow out LSU.

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Don't get me wrong. I hope LSU wins by 100. Always have and always will. I'm just trying to point out that Bama isn't afraid of Tiger Stadium sadly.

Right, agreed. They will walk in confidently. Not an easy place to play, though, especially with a likely full stadium. From what I've read I've seen that resale value of the tickets are already in the thousands

LTbear said:

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I say this every time the issue comes up, but I want 8 teams because it would make the regular season better. Stick with me.

1) With auto bids for the P5 champs, teams are more incentivized to schedule tough opponents in the OOC. As is, if you're already a playoff favorite, one loss in the OOC can doom you. Get that one extra loss in conference and you're done. If you know a P5 champ earns a bid, then there's no risk to playing the big time matachup OOC, plus you know it will bring in money. Additionally, if you're a fringe playoff hopeful, you schedule that big game to hope it helps you get an at large bid.

2) With P5 champs getting auto bids, winning your conference becomes the big goal each year, like it used to be in college football. Nowadays the talk is all playoff all the time, everyone wondering if a non champ will get in and conference championships becoming diminished in prestige. Get college football back to talking about the conference races all year, and let the talking heads yabber about who's going to get the at large bids if they want.

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This is honestly the best solution, and I 100% agree with everything you said. I would add the rule under this scenario that a conference can only get 1 at-large bid, and maybe a ranking threshold (if needed) to get in one of the non-power 5 conferences so teams like UCF can still get a shot.

That's the thing I love a lot about college basketball. You get so many great early season tournament and OOC matchups, because one loss doesn't kill you at all. More games played of course, but still. And SOS plays a big role come tournament selection time.

I'd give all the ESPN talking heads a pop quiz with this one question:

"Do the economic policies suggested by Bernie Sanders sound reasonable?"


The ones that answer yes, get the firing squad.

Eliminate it until you have a field of clear conference champions that win the right to play on the field, not in polls. And until then, bring the bowl system back and make college bowl season great again.

PartyBear said:

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5 P5 Champs and 3 at large. This give G5 teams doing well a shot at the play off.

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It also puts the too large conferences at risk. I want an 8 team playoffs with 5 auto bids + 3 at large. With that scenario, doesn't it make more sense for Nebraska to come back home? Possibly Arkansas, too?

Being in a too big non regional conference is unattractive at that point. (I actually like the big12 as it is).

Assuming you can't change the conferences:

There needs to be a 12 team playoff with all conference champs guaranteed a place. (you could do essentially a play in for the bottom four G5 conferences but that just adds a round that isn't needed). That only leaves 2 at larges, but hey, win your dang conference and stop griping.

Make it clear that priority for the two at large positions will go to teams with impressive OOC wins. That will encourage a better OOC scheduling.

I hear the whining now--but the 3rd place team in our conference is better than the champ of the MAC. Fine. Kick the MAC out of D1-A, but remember that means you don't get to play those teams anymore. If a team is in D1-A, they ought to have a legitimate chance at a title.

End it altogether and go back to the BCS formula. It is sickening to see 6 weeks of committee thought.

8-team playoff. Conference champs & 3 at large with the provisio that no conference gets more than 2 in. (After all, the media would otherwise try to make it 4 SEC teams each year.)

GrowlTowel said:

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End it altogether and go back to the BCS formula. It is sickening to see 6 weeks of committee thought.

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The current committee format reminds us why we originally thought the BCS was a good idea.

The BCS as garbage.

Anything based on polls is garbage.

LTbear said:

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I say this every time the issue comes up, but I want 8 teams because it would make the regular season better. Stick with me.

1) With auto bids for the P5 champs, teams are more incentivized to schedule tough opponents in the OOC. As is, if you're already a playoff favorite, one loss in the OOC can doom you. Get that one extra loss in conference and you're done. If you know a P5 champ earns a bid, then there's no risk to playing the big time matachup OOC, plus you know it will bring in money. Additionally, if you're a fringe playoff hopeful, you schedule that big game to hope it helps you get an at large bid.

2) With P5 champs getting auto bids, winning your conference becomes the big goal each year, like it used to be in college football. Nowadays the talk is all playoff all the time, everyone wondering if a non champ will get in and conference championships becoming diminished in prestige. Get college football back to talking about the conference races all year, and let the talking heads yabber about who's going to get the at large bids if they want.

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Perfect. 8 is enough, if all P5 champs are included.

Dia del DougO said:

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The BCS as garbage.

Anything based on polls is garbage.

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Agreed to a certain extent since there is no way to fully remove preseason/recruiting bias.

The CFP has honestly been the closest thing to an objective evaluation of teams, as the CFP has established a hierarchy so far:
1. 13-0 w/conference title
2. 12-1 w/conference title
3. 11-1
4. ? (possibly 12-1 w/o conference title)
That provides a clear picture as to what a team needs to achieve in order to make the final four. Basically, if a team is not 13-0, whether or not they get in depends on what happens with other teams.

I would argue that the CFP is anything but objective. The Big 12 implemented a championship game after 2014 because we were essentially told that title matters. Well then comes 2016 and 2017 where one of four teams in each year was not a conference champion. They seem, in my opinion, to be very inconsistent with what matters and what doesn't. A system like the BCS doesn't include brand bias. The actual calculations may include bias from conference strength multipliers, etc, but my worry is that the CFP committee gives value to brand. If 2016 and 2017 weren't tOSU and Bama, I'd argue that they wouldn't have gotten a bid. But because it's bama and Ohio State, and they in the past have proven to be powerhouse teams, the committee is more willing to forgive a "fluke" game. That's ridiculous to me.

Take Bama 2017: Why did they get a bid without being conference champion? By three measures that the CFP comm has mentioned, they were inferior in strength of schedule, head to head, and conference title. Their best win was against an 8-4 LSU team, and they lost to Auburn. Now don't get me wrong, I love LSU, but they were a significantly worse team last year. I just don't see what else you can see in that comparison besides past season success in the decision to include them as the fourth team last year and meanwhile leaving out two other p5 conference teams, plus an undefeated UCF.

I still like the playoff system over BCS, but honestly would rather it be determined by a consistent algorithm rather than biased, opinion-shifting committee members.

You're probably going to have to have some kind of opinion group decide at-large participants in order to prevent the thing from being just a total big conference thing with no hope of nontraditional outsiders getting in. But it should never be influenced by anyone which has a direct interest in supporting particular teams/conferences because they benefit from affiliation either directly or indirectly.

Frankly, I still prefer the old bowl system, because I'm far more interested in seeing a bunch of great bowl games with interesting matchups than I am seeing one game in a big bloated billion $ production and probably ends up being a ****ty game.

A fair playoff system with a rational ressolution would be nice, but probably not remotely possible in top dog college football, at least in our lifetimes, because it's impossible for big time college football to be run like a pro league.

Let's face reality here. The March madness basketball playoff system has been the only thing that saved college basketball from total irrelevancy and has turned the game from a financial disaster for most schools into one that can at least be viable. Same goes for Women's basketball and lets face it College baseball would be a joke without the college world series . All have one thing in common, you have to win your way to the top, and even small schools have a shot. The football playoff on the other hand is a joke ! The media created this fiasco with one thing in mind, making sure the finals is between two teams with large followings to assure high ratings and maximum revenue to the networks. Common sense would indicate a playoff system with each P-5 conference champ and three at large spots [ have to make sure Notre Dame is covered ] to at least make it a competitive system and assure some of the smaller schools have at least a shot. Unless the networks are convinced they can make at least as much money as they are making under the current system, it is going to be hard to change.