Why Iowa Fans Shouldn't Care about a CFB Playoff.....

[JHHawk]

Have you ever watched a high school football game? How about Division III or FCS? Did you watch the Iowa-Minnesota game last year?

It turns out players like to win. They don't need made up bowl games to motivate them. If you need the possibility of a trip to the Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl to get motivated to play, find a different sport. The same goes for fans-- I'll watch every Iowa game regardless of what's on the line, because it's fun, and I want to beat whoever we play. To be honest, if more of the talk was about what actually happens on the field, and less was about which bowl reps were seen at which stadium and who has the better "resume," I'd probably be pretty damn excited.

This is my point. Why do some fans seem to need this playoff to stamp games as ''truly meaningful''?
That implies that any games played by teams that are out of the hunt for the ''playoff'' are not meaningful. Or that the bowl games are meaningless.
As for the bowls, I guess I do like that there is a bit of a reward of sorts for having a winning season..for the players and fans. Sure,the cutoff is pretty soft,with 7 win teams getting in, but it can leave more teams and fanbases feeling ok about their program,rather than just 8 or just 16 out of 120. The new standard would quickly be established...if you make the playoffs,good season,otherwise,disaster. Coaches would be fired if they failed to make the playoffs in 3 straight seasons. It will become a clone of the NFL...not my preference.

 

[JonDMiller]

Here's why this doesn't bother me, provided it's done right: The NCAA basketball selection committee spends a couple of days working on selecting a field. There are athletic directors, SIDs, conference commissioners, and all other sorts of folks who you could accuse of being biased involved. And some of their decisions prove to be hugely controversial, especially determining the last few spots in the field and some seeding for smaller conference schools.

But when was the last time you saw a huge controversy about the #1 seeds? More often than not, four teams separate themselves from the rest of the field pretty cleanly. Maybe, at most, there are six teams under consideration, but you can always point to something that one of those teams didn't do to lock up a spot. If the field expands to eight, I think it's even clearer-- you might have some questions about the seventh and eighth team, but you have no doubt you got the five or six teams that should contend for a title in there.

I just don't think it's going to be that hard to choose four teams. Last year's selection committee would have needed about five seconds to come up with LSU, Alabama, OK State, and Stanford.

College hoops teams play 30+ games...the more games, the more separation. So I don't know that I can hold hands with you on this all the way.

Here is something I wrote last month, or part of it...and you can see the debates that would have arisen in some of the recent years:

Here is what the best four teams might have looked like in recent years, following the regular season, in my opinion. I will include the Top Six of the final BCS poll of each year and then pick four teams.

2011
1. LSU
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma State
4. Stanford
5. Oregon
6. Arkansas

LSU and Alabama would have made the field, as would have Oregon, who smoked Stanford on the field. I think you throw in Oklahoma State in there, too. Not too much debate would have ensued with those four teams.

2010
1. Auburn
2. Oregon
3. TCU
4. Stanford
5. Wisconsin
6. Ohio State

Auburn and Oregon were no brainers here. I would have included Stanford as well, as it was just a dominant season for the most part for The Cardinal in Jim Harbaugh’s last season as their head coach. The last spot? It would have created debate and I suspect a committee would have gone with TCU as they were 12-0. I would have gone with Wisconsin, a team who ended that season on an historic tear and looked as good as anyone in the nation. I realize that TCU beat them in the Rose Bowl, but we aren’t talking about that; this is about the best teams at the end of the regular season. TCU had an impressive 47-7 win against Utah late in that season and the Utes were ranked #5 at that time. Ohio State was also 11-1 but they were not as impressive as Wisconsin in my opinion.

2009
1. Alabama
2. Texas
3. Cincinnati
4. TCU
5. Florida
6. Boise State

Alabama and Texas are again easy picks here as they were both 13-0, but then things get crazy. Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State had perfect records and Florida was 12-1. I think Florida would have gotten one of the final two spots and then Cincinnati with the fourth slot in Brian Kelly’s last year as coach. They did some remarkable things that year, including a change at quarterback at halftime in one game due to injury, and running vastly different plays in the second half without skipping a beat. Once again, Boise State gets left behind.

2008
1. Oklahoma
2. Florida
3. Texas
4. Alabama
5. USC
6. Utah

Oklahoma and Florida played for the title that year and would make this list. I suspect it would have probably gone to order with Texas and Alabama rounding out the top four. No room for a ‘buster’ here, even with Utah sitting there at 12-0.

2007
1. Ohio State
2. LSU
3. Virginia Tech
4. Oklahoma
5. Georgia
6. Missouri

Not as easy as it looks. Ohio State was the lone one-loss team with the other five all having two losses. But Missouri is out as they lost to Oklahoma in the Big 12 title game. I think its a safe pick to go conference champs here and stay 1-2-3-4.

2006
1. Ohio State
2. Florida
3. Michigan
4. LSU
5. USC
6. Louisville

Easy pickings 1-2-3. Michigan lost by three to Ohio State in a 1 v 2 end of season game that was a shootout. I felt they were the best two teams in the nation but I am probably biased there. Florida won the SEC, so they are in. Then it comes down to 10-2 LSU and 10-2 USC. The Trojans won their league…I think in a selection committee set up, that is going to factor into the mix quite a bit.

One more here, skipping down to 2002:

1. Miami
2. Ohio State
3. Georgia
4. USC
5. Iowa
6. Washington State

Miami and Ohio State were undefeated, so they make it. Georgia was 12-1 and won the SEC and I would put them in, too. However, USC was 10-2 and Iowa 11-1. Iowa rolled through their final six games like a hot knife through butter and ended the regular season on a nine-game winning streak. USC ended that year on a seven game win streak. Iowa might have gotten the nod here with a selection committee due to their perfect 8-0 record in the Big Ten.

 

[silvanthalas]

"Why Iowa Fans Shouldn't Care about a CFB Playoff....."

Short answer: "We're just Iowa, so we should just be happy if we make any bowl game", right? "We're just Iowa, we should never dare to dream."

Maybe that's not how you intended to come across, Jon, but that's certainly how it reads.

And many of the bowls are toilet bowls that need flushing.

 

[olivecourt]

If you like High school, Division III, and FCS football so much, you should watch those games.

I do. What's interesting about them is that people actually talk about what happens on the field, rather than what hypothetically might happen if Ohio State beats Michigan but loses to Wisconsin and then the Rose Bowl jumps a spot in the priority list and then TCU falls to the Fiesta and nobody wants Penn State so the CapitalOne bowl grabs Wisconsin and Georgia Tech was just at the Orange Bowl last year so they take South Carolina and then maybe Iowa can sneak back into the Outback Bowl because January bowls are better but not really all January bowls only bowls on January 1st unless January 1st is a Sunday and then it's January 2nd but really Iowa probably just needs to win out and then we're going to the Alamo Bowl. Maybe.

Really, really riveting stuff you miss out on at those levels.

 

[IowaFan81]

Here's why this doesn't bother me, provided it's done right: The NCAA basketball selection committee spends a couple of days working on selecting a field. There are athletic directors, SIDs, conference commissioners, and all other sorts of folks who you could accuse of being biased involved. And some of their decisions prove to be hugely controversial, especially determining the last few spots in the field and some seeding for smaller conference schools.

But when was the last time you saw a huge controversy about the #1 seeds? More often than not, four teams separate themselves from the rest of the field pretty cleanly. Maybe, at most, there are six teams under consideration, but you can always point to something that one of those teams didn't do to lock up a spot. If the field expands to eight, I think it's even clearer-- you might have some questions about the seventh and eighth team, but you have no doubt you got the five or six teams that should contend for a title in there.

I just don't think it's going to be that hard to choose four teams. Last year's selection committee would have needed about five seconds to come up with LSU, Alabama, OK State, and Stanford.

Stanford? What about Oregon who pounded Stanford at Stanford and won the PAC 12? What seed is Bama, better not be #2 even though ranked #2, didn't win their conference.

 

[treychase]

[/B]


1. Delany is letting the Rose Bowl go away from the Big Ten 50% of the time under this proposal,and the other 50%,it might not feature the winnners of the Big Ten and Pac 10. And in the years the Rose Bowl is not a semi-final, will the attention on it be the same? No way. It becomes a bit player to the sacred ''playoff game'' in the Orange and Fiesta/Sugar.
The Rose Bowl-Big Ten relationship has been eroded by the BCS,we all know that, but this is a chance to reclaim it,with the Plus One system. Every Big Ten player,coach and fan will know exactly what they are playing for each year...that bid to the Rose Bowl. If they win that,maybe something good will happen and they get the bid to the title game,but the goal will remain the same every year...get to the Rose Bowl.

2. You prefer degrading the regular season,like in college bb? Me, I prefer a strong Sept-December, vs two weeks of artificial frenzy as we watch SEC and Big 12 superprograms square off every year. Yea,gators and tide!
Who is laughing about the current postseason? The Media,who stand to profit from a playoff. ESPN. NFL fans like Dan Wetzel.

Why has college football become popular at all if it has such a laughable postseason? Why were ratings for the Insight Bowl up 34% last year?
Because fans really relished the prospect of OK vs Iowa,I guess.
If you really like watching college football,why do bowl matchups like this not spark your interest? As has been said a million times,the controversy related to not having a 120 team playoff that only could determine the
blessed ''true champion'' has always kept college football stoked, the debates hot, the game on the front page. Silence all that, and you have what? Not much.

What do you propose Jim Delany do?
Put his foot down and say no to the playoff? lol
Take his teams out of the playoff, rendering them pointless and forgotten? lol

I too would prefer a Plus One, but you act as if Jim Delany is the only one making decisions.
He has a big role in this but even his role is diminished because the B1G has sucked so profoundly athletically the past decade. So, in my opinion, if you want to complain, look at the coaches, players and AD's & University presidents that hamper the coaches & players with higher academic standards etc.

I'm a B1G fan, but I don't think they have crap to stand on. They don't win anything. They're irrelevant in the casual fan's mind. People on this very site, talk about how Notre Dame is irrelevant. That's pot meet kettle stuff right there.

 

[Scorpio79]

March Madness is great, but not as great as real college football. Not even close. Unfortunately, they're going to water down football, so it'll be close soon.

OK, OK! I'll get off your lawn now, crabby old man. Sheesh.

 

[DwayneTwill]

I do. What's interesting about them is that people actually talk about what happens on the field, rather than what hypothetically might happen if Ohio State beats Michigan but loses to Wisconsin and then the Rose Bowl jumps a spot in the priority list and then TCU falls to the Fiesta and nobody wants Penn State so the CapitalOne bowl grabs Wisconsin and Georgia Tech was just at the Orange Bowl last year so they take South Carolina and then maybe Iowa can sneak back into the Outback Bowl because January bowls are better but not really all January bowls only bowls on January 1st unless January 1st is a Sunday and then it's January 2nd but really Iowa probably just needs to win out and then we're going to the Alamo Bowl. Maybe.

Really, really riveting stuff you miss out on at those levels.

That's because no one really gives a rats arse at those levels. I know a lot of UNI fans, they talk about UNI and their games on the field because they only know about five other teams and none of their games are ever on TV.

 

[silvanthalas]

Not to mention, D1-A college football is the ONLY sport at any level where a playoff or tournament is not used to determine the champion. A playoff is used in all major sports.

Get. Over. It.

 

[Scorpio79]

"Why Iowa Fans Shouldn't Care about a CFB Playoff....."

Short answer: "We're just Iowa, so we should just be happy if we make any bowl game", right? "We're just Iowa, we should never dare to dream."

Maybe that's not how you intended to come across, Jon, but that's certainly how it reads.

And many of the bowls are toilet bowls that need flushing.

I don't think that's what Jon is saying, sil.
But I do think it is reality. Iowa FB is not an elite program - that's a reality supported by ample evidence and fact.

None of us are Iowa fans because Iowa wins titles and is always at the top (of the B1G and nationally). We're Iowa fans because we were born that way or became that way from association with the school and/or the team.
Frontrunners we're not!

 

[JonDMiller]

"Why Iowa Fans Shouldn't Care about a CFB Playoff....."

Short answer: "We're just Iowa, so we should just be happy if we make any bowl game", right? "We're just Iowa, we should never dare to dream."

Maybe that's not how you intended to come across, Jon, but that's certainly how it reads.

And many of the bowls are toilet bowls that need flushing.

I think everybody 'dreams'. However, there is also the reality of the situation. I am not saying people shouldn't hope for things, but when that hope turns into unrealistic expectations, given that this sport is not played in a vacuum, that's the side of it I see on the boards at times.

The statistical reality from the last 52 years is that Iowa will be in the discussion once every quarter century.

However, they have qualified for bowl games the vast majority of the time since 1981. That's the reality, and why I don't think for a second the bowl games are meaningless.

Maybe I should could have titled the thread differently...maybe, 'Why Iowa Fans Shouldn't Care So Much about a CFB Playoff'

 

[TritonHawkeye]

A bit surprised by this post by you Jon. To be honest it seems like a Clone mentality. Basing your opinion of what is best simply based on how it affects your team? I find it to be akin to them saying that Iowa was responsible for trying to force the B10 to let ISU into the B10 when the Big 12 was crumbling. Crowning a true champion is the right thing to do because....it's the right thing to do, regardless of how it affects Iowa. This isn't little league. Not everybody's kid gets to play shortstop. This is college football. Determining a champion of such a major sport on a piece of paper is absolutely ludacris. The bowl system is a complete joke outside of maybe 6-8 bowls. My hope is this is only the beginning and that it expands to either an 8 or 16 team playoff.

Terrible post. The idiotic "not everybody's kid gets to play shortstop" argument should be made against your stupid 16-team playoff. The best team in the country is not the 16th best team in the country. Why should they get a shot at the championship? Fortunately, more teams will get participation ribbons in your scenario.Also laughable is your "This is college football" line. It *was* college football, but ADHD fans want to turn it into something else. Unfortunately, they've succeeded. Hopefully it stays at four teams, and isn't ruined further by expanding to eight or 16.

Dwayne, your argument has more holes in it than Swiss Cheese.

It is easier to clone a sheep and name it Dolly than to try and figure out who are the two best college football teams in this country. In any given year there is argument that 5-7 teams could be those top teams.

Right now we subjectively decide who are those teams by asking sports writers, media and coaches to rank them. Oh, they use methods to come to those conclusions based on the conference a teams plays in, who played who and where, even when. Then all of this data is ran through computer software to decide the top 2 teams. Ugh... It is all subjective!

I say put all 16 in a ring until only one stands! The Romans had this one right...

 

[olivecourt]

This is my point. Why do some fans seem to need this playoff to stamp games as ''truly meaningful''?
That implies that any games played by teams that are out of the hunt for the ''playoff'' are not meaningful. Or that the bowl games are meaningless.

I can only speak for myself here, JHHawk, but I'm not making that argument, and I haven't really read anyone else making it. What I'm saying is that if we're going to pretend to crown a real national champion, do it in the fairest way possible. Of course the other games mean something. I always want to beat Minnesota and Iowa State and Northwestern, no matter what, and losing to Minnesota and ISU last year didn't render the win over Northwestern meaningless.

What feels meaningless is when you have teams in strong conferences beat everyone on their schedule, and yet they don't get to play for a national title, and a team that doesn't even win their own conference does. It makes it feel like the whole thing is rigged, that the preseason polls matter more than what happens on the field, and that there is nothing you can do to earn your way to a shot at the title, no matter how good you are, if other teams with stronger traditions have great years. This is a sport that lets it own coaches rank teams, and then uses those rankings to determine a championship game! Any step away from that is a step towards legitimacy and fairness. Otherwise, there is little to separate college football and professional boxing-- both are much more about money and scheduling than about what happens in the competition itself.

 

[ssckelley]

A four-team playoff won't kill the bowls.

It will eventually, because it will not stop at 4. The 5th team getting left out that finished undefeated or just had 1 loss will start the process all over again, then the 6th place team so on and so forth. Either they need to get rid of the bowl system, which I think is a big mistake, or keep the BCS the way it is and go to a plus one.

 

[ssckelley]

Dwayne, your argument has more holes in it than Swiss Cheese.

It is easier to clone a sheep and name it Dolly than to try and figure out who are the two best college football teams in this country. In any given year there is argument that 5-7 teams could be those top teams.

Right now we subjectively decide who are those teams by asking sports writers, media and coaches to rank them. Oh, they use methods to come to those conclusions based on the conference a teams plays in, who played who and where, even when. Then all of this data is ran through computer software to decide the top 2 teams. Ugh... It is all subjective!

I say put all 16 in a ring until only one stands! The Romans had this one right...

Why stop at 16? Add a few play in games so 20 can play.

The bowl system works, makes everyone a ton of money and has made major college football unique, so time to scrap it.

 

[olivecourt]

Stanford? What about Oregon who pounded Stanford at Stanford and won the PAC 12? What seed is Bama, better not be #2 even though ranked #2, didn't win their conference.

That's a brainfart on my part, as I forgot who won the PAC-12. I'm editing my post. The point's the same, though-- it's a pretty easy top 4. And I agree with all of Jon's selections in his long post as well. You go from a situation in which 10-12 undefeated teams never got a chance to play for a title over the course of a decade to one where two or three get left out in the same span. Seems like a huge improvement to me.

 

[DwayneTwill]

It will eventually, because it will not stop at 4.

Right, but it'll be an 8- or 16-team playoff at that point.

 

[DwayneTwill]

Not to mention, D1-A college football is the ONLY sport at any level where a playoff or tournament is not used to determine the champion. A playoff is used in all major sports.

Get. Over. It.

How many of those other sports have been around as long as college football has?

 

[JonDMiller]

The thing I am most intrigued by in all of this playoff talk is the how and who as it relates to a selection committee...that has always been the most challenging piece..finding a committee who will be as unbiased as possible to make these selections.

We are talking about multiple million dollar decisions here...which means there will be opportunities for bias and perhaps corruption.

 

[TritonHawkeye]

Dwayne, your argument has more holes in it than Swiss Cheese. It is easier to clone a sheep and name it Dolly than to try and figure out who are the two best college football teams in this country. In any given year there is argument that 5-7 teams could be those top teams.Right now we subjectively decide who are those teams by asking sports writers, media and coaches to rank them. Oh, they use methods to come to those conclusions based on the conference a teams plays in, who played who and where, even when. Then all of this data is ran through computer software to decide the top 2 teams. Ugh... It is all subjective!I say put all 16 in a ring until only one stands! The Romans had this one right...

Why stop at 16? Add a few play in games so 20 can play.The bowl system works, makes everyone a ton of money and has made major college football unique, so time to scrap it.

My thought at 16 you should have the top 2 covered.

By all means if you think the 2nd best team could be in that 17-20 range then add them.