College Playoffs

Alabama is a 15 point favorite over Washington
Penn state a7'point underdog to USC (not even in the distant mix).
Maybe there are really only 3 teams and a blank space to fill in a 4th team. Doesn't appear there is a valid 4th team.

 

No so sure there's even a valid 2nd team!

 

I was trying to build up the dramatic effect. But you could be correct.

 

Penn State and USC are not in the playoffs.

I think Alabama and USC will cover these two spreads handily. I think USC is the second or third best team in the country right now, but they had a rough start. Penn State? Do not like.

 

That was kind of my point. Penn state was being touted as conference champ and also beat Ohio state. Yet they r underdogs to a team not under consideration. How does division II do it week after week.? Not just 4. Oh well.

 

Yeah. I'd love to see 8 (or better yet, 16). Not that I think anyone has anything for the Tide this year, but it would be interesting to see if USC, Mich, PSU or OU could make any noise.

 

I think we'll see 8 ... perhaps in the not so distant future. They're still working out the kinks (though it does provide entertainment & buzz) in the four format.

 

8 would be nice, but any more, and it gets too watered down. Look at all these shitty bowl games they throw at us now. "The Pete's Plumbing 6-6 Bowl".

If you can make a case for 3 teams to be number 4, you will have 15 teams claiming they should be the 8th one in!

 

Simple. With 8 teams, you take the top 5-6 conference champions from all the conferences with 2-3 "wild card" teams. At least this way teams like Western Michigan have a chance to be relevant even of getting obliterated by a power conference team

 

With eight team playoff wouldn't that push the season out at least a couple more weeks and in to the next semester/ quarter for the student athletes ? Not sure that would make a difference, as it would only affect a couple teams, but I see the interruption to the class schedules being tough on the kids on the team that have no chance of going pro.

Or......am I just being really dumb and naive about college football ?

 

I think you could look at the lower tier bowls and make them relevant. First round playoff bowls if you will. Watch how little the camera pans the stands during these first bowls. There is little interest to spend the coin to watch what many times is unwatchable. And 8 teams extends the season 1 week. After week 1 you are down to 4 teams.
It can't be that easy but I think it is possible to expand a bit without ruining the concept. And if the number 10 team is arguing the fact they are #8, it is more easily dismissed than #5 lobbying for #4.
But extend the season for the student athlete to the point of academic harm, not so much. IMO.

 

Going from 4 to 8 team playoff would only add one round of games, which equals one week. And there's absolutely no reason that week couldn't be played in the current space between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs, which is about a month.

 

You could also go back to an 11 game regular season, which was the norm for about 50 years until recently.

 

If this year doesn't show the need for an 8 team instead of a 4 team playoff, no year will ever do it. 1 more round of games and there would be no room for bitching by the teams that really have a reason to bitch. Granted, there will be some years when its pretty clear who the best 4 teams are, but its far more likely that you'll have 5 or 6 teams that fit in the mix year in and year out.
JW

 

OSU gets smoked because they are a pretender and really, the top 4 doesn't matter because they are just waiting to get their a$$ kicked by the Tide. Wish it wasn't so but it seems it is. Like USE in the Rose Bowl. Home court should be enough to get them by a good PSU team.

 

Alabama vs Wisconsin
Clemson vs Okl
Clemson vs Mich
Washington vs PSU

They would start this weekend, right? That's a lot of games for 18-20 year olds to be playing in a season.

 

That would be about right, other than my Badgers. They shouldn't have made it unless they would have shown up for the 2nd half of the Big X championship game. One of the other 2 loss teams or Western Michigan would be in their place. Could start that process 1 week sooner than they do now. Its a lot of games, for the finalists. For half of that field, no more games than now.

JW

 

I don't think that the FCS schools play the same amount of regular season games...ten to twelve maybe? The NCAA FCS playoff brackets look like this:

FCS (D1) 24 teams with 8 first round byes
Div II 28 teams with 4 first round byes
Div III 32 teams with 0 first round byes

If you think about it....there is indeed an awful lot of college football played every autumn.

 

It's right because it's this years top 8.

 

The current 4 team playoff begins on Dec 31st; what makes you assume that an 8 team playoff (one additional round/week of games) would start this weekend?

Also Clemson would not play two games in the same round, OSU and UM would rematch in the first round in a hypothetical 8 team playoff this year.