A Radical Idea Leading to a 32 team Playoff

ChosenChildren

ChosenChildren

Well-Known Member
Currently, college football games are 60 minutes. For a team to reach the playoff final, they play 12 games, a conference championship game and then two playoff games. That is 15 games or 900 minutes of competition.

Shorten the games to 45 minutes (3 11 minute quarters and a 12 minute 4th quarter). 13 games takes you to 585 minutes.

A 32 team playoff means you must win 5 games. That is another 225 minutes of competition.

Bottom line, a team must play 18 games in a 32 team playoff. with 45 minute games, that is 810 minutes of competition.

You play more games but the total minutes of competition are less, thus reducing the physical wear and tear on the players.

I don't buy the argument that they are out of school too much with an 18 game schedule; other divisions of the NCAA already have 32 team playoffs.

Does this make sense?
 
I think this would lower scoring. That makes for boring football and main stream fans turning off their TVs.

Money is king. As soon as the NCAA and Universities see how much more money they make off the backs of student-athletes, a 32 team play off will happen. Probably in 40 years.
 
It does nothing to address the additional weeks' worth of pract8ce this would add. The additional time demands on the "student" athletes. The disruption that this could have on finals.

And for the other 80+ teams that don't make the 32 team playoff, that is an aweful loss of game time for those kids.
 
ChosenChildren said:
Currently, college football games are 60 minutes. For a team to reach the playoff final, they play 12 games, a conference championship game and then two playoff games. That is 15 games or 900 minutes of competition.

Shorten the games to 45 minutes (3 11 minute quarters and a 12 minute 4th quarter). 13 games takes you to 585 minutes.

A 32 team playoff means you must win 5 games. That is another 225 minutes of competition.

Bottom line, a team must play 18 games in a 32 team playoff. with 45 minute games, that is 810 minutes of competition.

You play more games but the total minutes of competition are less, thus reducing the physical wear and tear on the players.

I don't buy the argument that they are out of school too much with an 18 game schedule; other divisions of the NCAA already have 32 team playoffs.

Does this make sense?
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No this does not make sense for so many reasons. One, you are messing with the forever long history of the game. Two, who wants to see #1 seeded Bama or LSU or Clemson or whoever play a 32 seeded team that is like a 32 ranked team. That would be like #1 bama playing a less than average Iowa team, a 7-5 Iowa team.

Three, how about we just try out an 8 team playoff for a couple of years. Four teams has been pretty good, some blowouts in there, but usually pretty good. I think an 8 or 12 team playoff is about the limit of having pretty decent competition levels. Bama crushed MSU in the 2015 playoffs after Iowa's 12-0 season so you can imagine what bama would to a 12th ranked team that year.

I think an 8 team is about enough teams, the 5 P5 Conf champs and 3 at large teams.
 
uihawk82 said:
No this does not make sense for so many reasons. One, you are messing with the forever long history of the game. Two, who wants to see #1 seeded Bama or LSU or Clemson or whoever play a 32 seeded team that is like a 32 ranked team. That would be like #1 bama playing a less than average Iowa team, a 7-5 Iowa team.

Three, how about we just try out an 8 team playoff for a couple of years. Four teams has been pretty good, some blowouts in there, but usually pretty good. I think an 8 or 12 team playoff is about the limit of having pretty decent competition levels. Bama crushed MSU in the 2015 playoffs after Iowa's 12-0 season so you can imagine what bama would to a 12th ranked team that year.

I think an 8 team is about enough teams, the 5 P5 Conf champs and 3 at large teams.
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I could see 16, but no more. Many teams start out slow for various reasons, put it together, and by the end of the year are pretty damn good teams (Iowa, 6-2). I don't think too many teams wanted to play us at the end of the year and we would have represented ourselves well in a 16 team play-off.
 
Or how bout an 8 team playoff that includes all P5 champs and 3 at large bids defined before the season?

Why the hell would you add a ridiculous amount of complexity and change the length of games that’s been the same for generations?

There’s zero need to reinvent the wheel.
 
Luftgekuehlt67 said:
I like your idea and agree, but a serious follow up: how would you suggest the 3 at large bids be defined?
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Top non-P5 school, assuming they have at least "x" wins or fewer than "x" losses.
2 P5 schools that either won their regular season championship or their CCG.
If you don't have your extra 3 teams yet, have a committee choose a random team not named Notre Dame.
 
How about each Big school divided into weight classes and field four teams all of which play a regular conference schedule. This would put more student into football and let many more players play. I would bet the lightest weight class would play some pretty interesting football. You might shorten the game lengths so that all four would play on the same day.
 
8 feels right to me. 5 x P5 champs is a no brainer. It's those 3 "at large" that give me pause. Among other things, you're asking for ND to schedule in such a way that they are almost always a 1-loss-or-fewer team.

I thinking finding 3 playoff worthy teams that didn't win a P5 championship is a doable task, but I want some good definition around it. I really doubt it's ever going to be so boldly self-evident so as to not generate significant butthurt factor.

In practical terms, the 3 at larges will be:

1. Notre Dame
2. Whoever lost to Alabama in the SEC championship game
3. Wildcard

That's fine, I would just like to have well defined and hard-to-game criteria for how that's being arrived at.
 
Luftgekuehlt67 said:
8 feels right to me. 5 x P5 champs is a no brainer. It's those 3 "at large" that give me pause. Among other things, you're asking for ND to schedule in such a way that they are almost always a 1-loss-or-fewer team.

I thinking finding 3 playoff worthy teams that didn't win a P5 championship is a doable task, but I want some good definition around it. I really doubt it's ever going to be so boldly self-evident so as to not generate significant butthurt factor.

In practical terms, the 3 at larges will be:

1. Notre Dame
2. Whoever lost to Alabama in the SEC championship game
3. Wildcard

That's fine, I would just like to have well defined and hard-to-game criteria for how that's being arrived at.
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They also need a rule requiring 10 or more P5 games to be eligible unless you are the chosen one from the lesser conferences. You have to assign them a slot as well.
 
I am opposed to anything in the playoff world that detracts from the importance of the regular season BT championship. The local fans of BT football are focused on watching the conference drama unfold week by week. I can tolerate our East/West divisions and a BT championship game, but just barely. I want the regular season champs to be the sole winner of the title. Play everybody. chips fall.

Distractions by the media and too many fans place the bulk of the attention on the playoffs. Frankly, I would not care if we got rid of the whole playoff system. If we have to have playoffs, then establish 4-6 bowl games over New Years week featuring the top 8-12 teams. Pick opponents using the existing system. Gee. That would really be great for the fans. Who knew?
 
HuckFinn said:
I am opposed to anything in the playoff world that detracts from the importance of the regular season BT championship. The local fans of BT football are focused on watching the conference drama unfold week by week. I can tolerate our East/West divisions and a BT championship game, but just barely. I want the regular season champs to be the sole winner of the title. Play everybody. chips fall.

Distractions by the media and too many fans place the bulk of the attention on the playoffs. Frankly, I would not care if we got rid of the whole playoff system. If we have to have playoffs, then establish 4-6 bowl games over New Years week featuring the top 8-12 teams. Pick opponents using the existing system. Gee. That would really be great for the fans. Who knew?
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The problem with the play everyone argument is that alone would take 13 weeks. No non-con games. Second, it opens up the potential for a scenario where you have three good teams and say OSU beat Iowa, Michigan beat OSU, Iowa beat Michigan, but they all three otherwise won their games. Who the hell is the champ in that scenario? It happened in the Big 8 recently.
 
What about increasing the mandatory number of conference games in the Power 5 conferences by a game or two, lets just say, 9 or 10 and at the same time decreasing the number of OOC games played by the non Power 5 programs. That could potentially free up two weeks at the end of the season for those conferences that are not considered Power 5. Move up the conference championships for those conferences and then by random drawing, match them up with another non P5 conference champion as a sort of play in game. The following week match them up with another non P5 champ and then incorporate those winners into an 8 or 16 team playoff with the Power 5 champs and in a 16 team tournament fill the remainder of the field with at large bids based on rankings of some sort.
 
okeefe4prez said:
The problem with the play everyone argument is that alone would take 13 weeks. No non-con games. Second, it opens up the potential for a scenario where you have three good teams and say OSU beat Iowa, Michigan beat OSU, Iowa beat Michigan, but they all three otherwise won their games. Who the hell is the champ in that scenario? It happened in the Big 8 recently.
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Had not thought about that scenario, which could certainly happen. Maybe rely on official rankings?
 
kicker22 said:
What about increasing the mandatory number of conference games in the Power 5 conferences by a game or two, lets just say, 9 or 10 and at the same time decreasing the number of OOC games played by the non Power 5 programs. That could potentially free up two weeks at the end of the season for those conferences that are not considered Power 5. Move up the conference championships for those conferences and then by random drawing, match them up with another non P5 conference champion as a sort of play in game. The following week match them up with another non P5 champ and then incorporate those winners into an 8 or 16 team playoff with the Power 5 champs and in a 16 team tournament fill the remainder of the field with at large bids based on rankings of some sort.
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Like you said it does make a lot of sense to increase the number of conference games even by 1 a year. That change would statistically make the regular season more meaningful in the conference.

But sooooo many non P5 teams make a lot of their budget by playing two or three P5 teams a year on the road to get mostly butt whoopings but big paychecks. This is what keeps college football going for many schools and their fans. The fact that TV is showing more of the non P5 games each week is also helping these teams.

Ten conference games a year for the P5 is an upper limit on a 12 game schedule.
 
uihawk82 said:
Like you said it does make a lot of sense to increase the number of conference games even by 1 a year. That change would statistically make the regular season more meaningful in the conference.

But sooooo many non P5 teams make a lot of their budget by playing two or three P5 teams a year on the road to get mostly butt whoopings but big paychecks. This is what keeps college football going for many schools and their fans. The fact that TV is showing more of the non P5 games each week is also helping these teams.

Ten conference games a year for the P5 is an upper limit on a 12 game schedule.
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I do really like the current system that helps non power five schools from a financial standpoint. I have two grandsons who play for lower division schools.
 
uihawk82 said:
Like you said it does make a lot of sense to increase the number of conference games even by 1 a year. That change would statistically make the regular season more meaningful in the conference.

But sooooo many non P5 teams make a lot of their budget by playing two or three P5 teams a year on the road to get mostly butt whoopings but big paychecks. This is what keeps college football going for many schools and their fans. The fact that TV is showing more of the non P5 games each week is also helping these teams.

Ten conference games a year for the P5 is an upper limit on a 12 game schedule.
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I totally agree with where your coming from and took that into consideration. Unfortunately the only way I see non P5 programs getting into the playoffs on a consistent basis would be doing something similar to this. Unfortunately, I think its as you pointed out, where the non P5 conferences would be sacrificing revenue for a chance to compete.
 
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