Effed up playoff system

[smhawk]

With the current bowl system completely not mattering any longer, it only makes sense to increase at minimum to 16 but maybe even 18-22 teams and potentially utilize double byes for top teams.


If we want to have any connection with bowl games still, just reward the invited program with the bowl game to start the first game of the year, on the year following. Teams that don't get invited can just schedule a team for that week in January every year. Graduated players and transfers may lose out, but there name can be read of as honor at least.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

I do agree that they became watered down to the point that probably led to the demise of the bowl system as we knew it.

But there are students, schools, coaches, athletes, and fans that must care about these games or they wouldn't find sponsors or TV deals to keep them running.

I think you have it the other way around. I think the cities and sponsors seek out the bowls and they search for the teams to play in them. That's why there have been so many bowl games added thru the years and teams with losing records have been playing in them the past couple years. It's not the schools asking for more bowl games, it's greedy corporations/individuals setting up bowl games to line their pockets with $$$$$.

It's just now all coming to a head.

 

[CP87]

My response to the, "Nobody is making you watch bowls," crowd is that everyone here will be watching the Hawkeyes play in a bowl and rooting like crazy. Watching Hawkeye FB is always better than not watching Hawkeye FB.

But the big issue is that many here (me included) feel that the non-Iowa bowls are not personally compelling and will spend no time watching them. And that should greatly concern those that are trying to sell the product that is CFB, There is an opportunity cost associated with trotting out this mangled system year after year, just because that is the way it has been. So the question you ask yourself should NOT be...

Do I want to watch football on New Year's Day or NOT watch football on New Year's Day?

The question you should be asking is...

Can the experience of watching partial teams compete in front of partially full stadiums with no real stakes on the line be improved upon? (I strawmanned that argument a bit for effect)

I say it is time for "no bad ideas in a brainstorm" with regard to figuring out how to make compelling FB games outside of the CFP. So, let's start hearing crazy ideas to make non-CFP post-season football more compelling!

 

[CP87]

Here is one such crazy idea...

First, here is the CFP plan...

Each P4 conference has a championship game that determines their entrant into the CFP.

The G6 conferences get 3 entrants (pair up conference champs during the same weekend that P4 conferences are having their championship games).

Notre Dame is SOL 'cause F' them. Join a conference, you big babies.

We now have 7 entrants into the CFP (highest ranked gets a bye) giving us 3 rounds of playoff FB. Let's plan for two weeks in-between semis and the championship game.

What do we do during that off-week between semis and championship? Clean the house? Hang out with our families? Hell no! We get to watch a massive inter-conference shootout!

Imagine this: the next 4 best teams in the B1G (excluding the 2 that were in the conference championship game) get matched up with the next 4 best teams in the SEC (I would be willing to extend to up to 8 teams, though then the cut of the prize money gets smaller).




(get rid of Georgia and Bama)


Put a game on Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and Saturday. Have a huge pot of money. If you win your game, all your players get $10,000. If your conference gets more wins, you get another $5,000 (match play). If your conference wins the overall point differential, you get another $5,000 (stroke play).

Do the same thing with Big 12 and ACC, and then break up the G6 to accomplish the same (MW, MAC, and Pac12 vs. CUSA, American, and Sunbelt). Maybe the G6 get smaller pools of money? It is a business, after all.


Do it on a rotating schedule year to year (B1G vs. SEC, B1G vs. ACC, B1G vs. Big 12, repeat). You could cluster the G6 schools differently from year to year.

Tell me you wouldn't pay attention to that?