12-Team Playoff On the Way; 14-Team to Follow

BigRedBuster said:
I agree it's overkill.  But, I've always thought the "the kids can't play that many games" was a pretty piss poor argument when other levels of football play that many with no problem.

I still maintain, like you, that 8 is the perfect number.  Use CCGs to figure out who goes.
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I didn't list all of the reasons that I am not a fan but as knapple pointed out especially in today's world of big time contracts for rookies and the player opt outs.  Just seems like a possibility of holdouts with the added 3-4 games for guys who are looking at getting drafted really high.  That and I am not a fan of having the top 4 teams automatically receiving a bye.  So in other words your Alabama's especially, Clemson's, Oklahoma's.  Everyone already knows how great you are so lets just give you a first round bye.  With 8 teams there are no bye's so as I have mentioned here previously to me 8 is that sweet spot.  12 is too much for more than 1 reason.

 
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suh_fan93 said:
I didn't list all of the reasons that I am not a fan but as knapple pointed out especially in today's world of big time contracts for rookies and the player opt outs.  Just seems like a possibility of holdouts with the added 3-4 games for guys who are looking at getting drafted really high.  That and I am not a fan of having the top 4 teams automatically receiving a bye.  So in other words your Alabama's especially, Clemson's, Oklahoma's.  Everyone already knows how great you are so lets just give you a first round bye.  With 8 teams there are no bye's so as I have mentioned here previously to me 8 is that sweet spot.  12 is too much.
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Agree!!!

 
I am for 12 over 4 easily. I think no playoff was better than 4 for multiple reasons - one being the bowl games still had meaning. 8 was probably better, but 12 is still fine with me. A few things they will need to have discussions on...

  1. Let's say Nebraska made the playoff and hosted a playoff game. I'm going. 100%. BUT how many would go to the 2nd game knowing there is a chance of a 3rd game? For money reasons that will impact a lot of fans decisions. 
  2. Teams like UCF, Cincinnati, and Boise St now have the upper hand over middle tier P5 teams, yes even Nebraska at this point. They have a big advantage over their conferences at this time, and it could snowball being they will make the playoffs regularly. 
  3. I assume bowl games will even have a lesser meaning. Maybe they need a version of the basketball NIT tournament? 
 
BIG ERN said:
I am for 12 over 4 easily. I think no playoff was better than 4 for multiple reasons - one being the bowl games still had meaning. 8 was probably better, but 12 is still fine with me. A few things they will need to have discussions on...

  1. Let's say Nebraska made the playoff and hosted a playoff game. I'm going. 100%. BUT how many would go to the 2nd game knowing there is a chance of a 3rd game? For money reasons that will impact a lot of fans decisions. 
  2. Teams like UCF, Cincinnati, and Boise St now have the upper hand over middle tier P5 teams, yes even Nebraska at this point. They have a big advantage over their conferences at this time, and it could snowball being they will make the playoffs regularly. 
  3. I assume bowl games will even have a lesser meaning. Maybe they need a version of the basketball NIT tournament? 
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I've been seeing "Actually the playoff is bad!" pop up recently with the expansion talk, which is absolutely wild to me. I don't remember a single college football fan I knew in the 2000s who didn't completely LOATHE the BCS. Four teams isn't great, but a flawed playoff is a lot better than what we had. If you have concerns about parity or cheapening of the regular season with the playoff system I can buy that (personally I think that's a lot of handwringing about things that have always existed in the sport, but to each their own), but I absolutely do not understand people who are suddenly revisionist history-ing the BCS. We all hated it! 

 
I think the more formulaic and definitional ways to enter the playoff are more important than the number. 

   1. Did you win you conference?

   2. Did you beat more teams automatically in the playoffs and how many opportunities did you have?

   3. Have you already lost to a playoff team?

I would honestly like to see some flexibility in the parameters to allow up to 12, but also limit, to say 6, when certain criteria are met or not. Have 7 undefeated teams? That seems like a good place to stop. Have a gobble of 2 loss teams that doesn't make sense? Shove them in and let the dice roll.

 
J-MAGIC said:
I've been seeing "Actually the playoff is bad!" pop up recently with the expansion talk, which is absolutely wild to me. I don't remember a single college football fan I knew in the 2000s who didn't completely LOATHE the BCS. Four teams isn't great, but a flawed playoff is a lot better than what we had. If you have concerns about parity or cheapening of the regular season with the playoff system I can buy that (personally I think that's a lot of handwringing about things that have always existed in the sport, but to each their own), but I absolutely do not understand people who are suddenly revisionist history-ing the BCS. We all hated it! 
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The BCS is a playoff, just only consisting of 2 teams. I was in favor of going back to the old bowl system over the BCS setup, and I still think the old bowl system was better than the current 4 team playoff. I'm open to seeing if 8 or 12 teams makes it better but the old bowl system was a lot of fun.

 
J-MAGIC said:
I've been seeing "Actually the playoff is bad!" pop up recently with the expansion talk, which is absolutely wild to me. I don't remember a single college football fan I knew in the 2000s who didn't completely LOATHE the BCS. Four teams isn't great, but a flawed playoff is a lot better than what we had. If you have concerns about parity or cheapening of the regular season with the playoff system I can buy that (personally I think that's a lot of handwringing about things that have always existed in the sport, but to each their own), but I absolutely do not understand people who are suddenly revisionist history-ing the BCS. We all hated it! 
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I think the 4 team only benefited the top 6 teams in the country as we saw. So yes, when we were great then it would have been a luxury. For everyone else though it was horrible. No one cared about even the old "BCS" bowls like they used to. And to me the last 7 years has been a snowball effect for teams like Bama, Clemson, Ohio St. Recruiting even more easy, better chance at winning a natty for them etc. 

 
BIG ERN said:
I think the 4 team only benefited the top 6 teams in the country as we saw. So yes, when we were great then it would have been a luxury. For everyone else though it was horrible. No one cared about even the old "BCS" bowls like they used to. And to me the last 7 years has been a snowball effect for teams like Bama, Clemson, Ohio St. Recruiting even more easy, better chance at winning a natty for them etc. 
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I'm not trying to single you out or put words in your mouth; I guess I'm just responding to a general sentiment I've seen. I just feel like during the BCS days everyone said, "This sucks because we can't be sure the best teams are playing!" Now that we have a system that more fairly determines the best teams, people say "Well only the best teams are benefitting from this!"

I get Alabama-Clemson fatigue, but there have always been elite programs that dominated stretches of the sport no matter the postseason format. And I'd much rather the actual best teams play each other and settle it on the field than say, have a B+ Notre Dame team squeak through an easy schedule undefeated and get a title shot like what was happening under the BCS or the bowls. I think expansion will alleviate a lot of your issues, too. 

 
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Why do people have an attachment to the old bowl system? With the time off between the regular season and the bowl season it didn't provide you with a true continuation of the season. It had this odd gap between games that hurt some teams and helped others get healthy. It is such an odd way to play out a football season and it doesn't exists at any other level. 

Expand the playoff and shorten the regular season by one game. It would be great if there was an actual limit on conference size so everyone would play each other within their conference every year. 

 
jaws said:
Why do people have an attachment to the old bowl system? With the time off between the regular season and the bowl season it didn't provide you with a true continuation of the season. It had this odd gap between games that hurt some teams and helped others get healthy. It is such an odd way to play out a football season and it doesn't exists at any other level. 
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It was just a bonus at the end of the season. Got lots of memorable games. Not everything has to be about finding the "one true champion".

 
RedDenver said:
It was just a bonus at the end of the season. Got lots of memorable games. Not everything has to be about finding the "one true champion".
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I have been around playoff games at other levels of the NCAA and there were still memorable games. However, at the end they had nation champion (non mythical). I bet you would have loved to see Nebraska play Michigan for the 1997 NC. I also bet you would have loved for Nebraska to have a shot in 1996 for a NC. It would have been awesome to see OSU play Nebraska in a playoff game that year. 

 
jaws said:
I have been around playoff games at other levels of the NCAA and there were still memorable games. However, at the end they had nation champion (non mythical). I bet you would have loved to see Nebraska play Michigan for the 1997 NC. I also bet you would have loved for Nebraska to have a shot in 1996 for a NC. It would have been awesome to see OSU play Nebraska in a playoff game that year. 
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Sure, that would be fun for me as a Nebraska fan.

But I used to watch as many of the bowl games as I could under the old system and as much of the regular season as I could. I rarely watch regular season games in sports with big playoffs at the end because the stakes just don't really matter all that much. And I now barely watch college football games other than Nebraska. I watch a few bowl games but rarely watch the playoffs because I haven't followed the teams during the season and generally don't care who wins. I think overall the old bowl system was better for the sport as a whole. The playoff just attempts to limit the debate over who was best that year but doesn't really add anything IMO.

 
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