12 team playoff
- Thread starter MaroonSadness99
- Start date
Off the top of my head.
1. It should make for better games. Instead of top players sitting out their bowls, they may play knowing there is a shot at a title.
2. More good games with the best teams instead of just a bowl and done for another 8 teams.
3. Smaller (less blueblood) schools with a good record/team/season should at least get a chance now.
4. Makes it like almost every other sport on the planet with a more real playoff at the end of the season.
It absolutely improves the game overall. More teams are now in play. That increases interest. It’s one of the reasons why the NFL, NBA and MLB have expanded their playoff. It’s why college basketball and baseball have gone through expansions. Money is also a factor but you need fan interest.
I am all for it. So far, there has not been much variety In the final 4. There have been teams that have done all they could do, but due to schedule (ie weak conference) have been left out while other teams have been selected in part because of the name on the front of the jersey.
Having a broader array of teams will drive interest from those that think there is an sec bias, deserved or not. The Cinderella angle always plays well too.
That being said, I don’t want to see 64 teams like BB. There is a huge difference between the top 20 and and bottom 20 (out of 64 teams) in football compared to basketball.
Having a broader array of teams will drive interest from those that think there is an sec bias, deserved or not. The Cinderella angle always plays well too.
That being said, I don’t want to see 64 teams like BB. There is a huge difference between the top 20 and and bottom 20 (out of 64 teams) in football compared to basketball.
Why not? There obviously would be a place where you get diminishing returns, but in general the more participation the better. You’re more than likely going to end up with some combo of Bama, Georgia or Ohio state in the national championship but at least more teams have a shot.
Id say there is a real good chance the Super Bowl this year ends up being either Sam Francisco or Philadelphia vs chiefs or bengals but I don’t want them to not play the playoffs just because I feel confident those are the best 4 teams.
Id say there is a real good chance the Super Bowl this year ends up being either Sam Francisco or Philadelphia vs chiefs or bengals but I don’t want them to not play the playoffs just because I feel confident those are the best 4 teams.
I think I'd like it more if it were coupled with p5 schools no longer playing 1-AA teams (or whatever they call them now) at all. Those games are borderline disgraceful.
64 team, double elimination, round robin.
I would not be in favor of home (campus) games for the higher seeded teams. Just use the existing bowl system to make everything fair. It's one thing playing BAMA or UGA, but quite another feat to play them at their respective campuses only to have the refs intimidated to sway the borderline calls in their favor. And give each team the same amount of tickets with the same quality of view.
You will eliminate teams like UCF claiming NC after undefeated seasons. I think it should be 16 team. It still gives the top 4 a big advantage with the bye.
Hope sells and keeps more people interested in the sport for longer. There hasn’t been a West coast team in the Playoff since 2016. There is at least one P5 conference champion every year that doesn’t get in, the last few years it’s been two that don’t get in. There’s only been one G5 team in the Playoff ever. How many times has there been a team that felt like they got screwed and had to settle for a consolation bowl game instead of a chance to compete for a championship? The 13th team that misses out has less of a gripe than the 5th team in the current format.
Sure, the top 1-2 teams are still going to be heavy favorites most years. But it’s better for the sport to increase the number of games that have championship implications.
Sure, the top 1-2 teams are still going to be heavy favorites most years. But it’s better for the sport to increase the number of games that have championship implications.
Do more teams have a shot at a Natty in the 12-team? Yes. Case closed. Hope springs eternal
1. It won't make for better games. We're going to have some blowout quarterfinals with this format.
2. It'll be the same teams as always in the semifinals as we've had with the 4-team playoff.
3. They get to pretend they have a chance.
4. The bigger the playoff field, the more diluted and meaningless it is. NCAA baseball champion is almost random. Basketball champion isn't much better.
No, they are professionals now. We can have a 12 game regular season and a 12 game playoff. Earn that scholar…paycheck**
There's literally no reason at all to keep it at 4. It's been the worst era of college football in history as far as trajectory of fan interest.
But to answer your question, one word - HOPE.
L
I don’t really buy the argument that the regular season will become diluted. You’re still either going to be playing to win your conference championship, to earn a first round bye, or for seeding so that you don’t have to play a true road game.
I’ll use an NFL analogy too. I’m a Saints fan. I don’t think they have a prayer of winning the Super Bowl this year. But the NFC South really sucks and they could win that. And if they win that, they’ll have at least one home playoff game. That interests me.
College football was objectively better when the only great teams weren’t just in the SEC. The more SEC-centric it becomes, the worse other leagues will continue to get. This helps other leagues at least have a chance, and maybe in time it prompts them to step up their games and be more competitive.
The 4 team playoff era has been a disaster for the sport. When people think you’re worse than the BCS, you know you’ve done something wrong.
I don’t really buy the argument that the regular season will become diluted. You’re still either going to be playing to win your conference championship, to earn a first round bye, or for seeding so that you don’t have to play a true road game.
I’ll use an NFL analogy too. I’m a Saints fan. I don’t think they have a prayer of winning the Super Bowl this year. But the NFC South really sucks and they could win that. And if they win that, they’ll have at least one home playoff game. That interests me.
College football was objectively better when the only great teams weren’t just in the SEC. The more SEC-centric it becomes, the worse other leagues will continue to get. This helps other leagues at least have a chance, and maybe in time it prompts them to step up their games and be more competitive.
The 4 team playoff era has been a disaster for the sport. When people think you’re worse than the BCS, you know you’ve done something wrong.
I agree with the bigger / diluted statement in general... but I don't think 12 teams out of 130ish is diluting it. Wouldn't want to go to 32 but I think 12 is a good number.
I've always said, the point of a playoff isn't to determine the absolute best team. It's to crown a champion. Determine a way to get the best teams in, then let them play it out. This new format seems like a good step towards doing that.
I would have preferred 8. You can finish 3rd in the SEC or Big 10 and still make the playoffs as it is now. I'd take highest 6 rated conference champions plus 2 at-large teams. That's plenty to get a true champion and give everyone in the country a legitimate chance to make the playoffs. Only reason we have 12 is because the SEC and Big 10 are greedy.
But I do agree, the 12-team playoff at least gives a school like Mississippi State a slight thread of hope for a chance to make the playoffs.
My preference would have been to expand to an 8 team playoff with the first round at the home site of the top 4 seeds. That way you could have gotten all P5 conference champions in plus 3 at large teams. I would also be fine with a 16 team playoff but I am totally against 12 just because I'm against the precedent of giving byes in college playoffs. No other college sport of note (basketball (men or women), baseball, softball, etc) byes anyone through a round of competition so why should football? It takes the same number of weeks to do 12 as it does 16 so why didn't they just go to 16?
Best reason to expand is to help level the playing field a bit in recruiting. Right now a lot of top recruits know there are only about maybe 7 or 8 schools they can go to and have much of any chance for playing for a NC with only 4 teams getting in. College football is the least competitive major sport out there and will continue to be until somebody can get the scholarship count reduced. But, with the expanded playoff, it at least helps recruits feel they can get into the playoffs at other schools although the final 4 are still likely to come out of the same small set of teams. But in a one game playoff setting there certainly will be the random upset.
I was always told the argument against a playoff (and playoff expansion) is that it makes the regular season meaningless. The opposite is true. The more teams in the playoff, the more teams that have meaningful games late in the season.
Now, a second loss eliminates you from CFP contention. Every game after your second loss, you are playing for something other than the CFP.
In the 12-team playoff era, you are not eliminated until you lose a 4th game. That means more teams playing for the CFP in November, more exciting games, better ratings, etc. That's good for college football.
Now, a second loss eliminates you from CFP contention. Every game after your second loss, you are playing for something other than the CFP.
In the 12-team playoff era, you are not eliminated until you lose a 4th game. That means more teams playing for the CFP in November, more exciting games, better ratings, etc. That's good for college football.
Why does any of this matter? While they might be true, I don't see any of them as a downside.
And also, the basketball champion is nearly (or slightly more) exclusive than the football champion. I'm talking champion here, not final four appearances, etc. Friend of mine showed me the numbers a few years ago, it'll wake you up to that fact. Agree on baseball though, although I'd say it's more due to the committee than it is actual randomness.
I think baseball is more due to the format of the tournament. We'd get a better champion if it was 6 rounds of best 2-of-3 series, rather than alternating 4-team double elimination tournaments with best 2-of-3 series.
Under the current 4 team system, the playoff teams can almost be selected before the season even starts. Only about 6 teams even have a chance. Everyone else is just playing to play. Zero hope. No wonder attendance is slipping everywhere. A 12 team playoff let’s a lot of teams have hope and generates interest. In the SEC pretty much everyone not named Vandy will think they have a chance most years to start the season. Several teams will go into November still having a chance. What’s not to like?
College football has become boring. I'm at the point that any big change is good change. Shake things up a bit to make it feel different.
THIS. What we had made the college football regular season the most interesting in US sports.
Agreed. There isn’t much that’s more meaningless right now than being an MSU football fan and realizing that your ceiling is a Gator bowl every damn year. Does the expanded CFP mean that State suddenly has a legit shot at a title? No, but it gives us hope that an occasional 10-2 year could at least get us invited to the party.
I like the format: Top 6 champions and the 6 at large schools with the top 4 champions getting the bye.
1. Rewards conference champions.
2. Rewards teams that went undefeated in the regular season, but may have stumbled in their conference championship.
3. Doesn't end a power conference team's season after 1 or 2 losses.
4. Traditionally, there has been a formula of 3 of Alabama/Georgia/Ohio State/Clemson and one rando. This breaks that formula open and gives more access.
5. We're 100% going to see some upsets in these games and that's going to be fun.
6. Mississippi State's best chance at a 4 team playoff was 2014 and, as we are want to do, we blew it. We likely weren't going to get into the 4 team playoff in my lifetime, but we could get into a 12 team playoff once every 10-15 years.
1. Rewards conference champions.
2. Rewards teams that went undefeated in the regular season, but may have stumbled in their conference championship.
3. Doesn't end a power conference team's season after 1 or 2 losses.
4. Traditionally, there has been a formula of 3 of Alabama/Georgia/Ohio State/Clemson and one rando. This breaks that formula open and gives more access.
5. We're 100% going to see some upsets in these games and that's going to be fun.
6. Mississippi State's best chance at a 4 team playoff was 2014 and, as we are want to do, we blew it. We likely weren't going to get into the 4 team playoff in my lifetime, but we could get into a 12 team playoff once every 10-15 years.
The 4-team playoff, and thus the lessening of the bowls, killed this aspect. Now that the toothpaste is out of the tube, there's no going back, you have to expand the playoff to save the game.
I tend to agree with you though, the BCS era was my favorite era of college football. It didn't always get it right, but it got it close. And if we'd have just applied some common sense to the mix, we wouldn't have had travesties like the 2011 LSU/Bama rematch. That game should have absolutely been LSU vs. Oklahoma State and everybody knew it.
The bowls mattered back then. If you went 8-4 and went to the Cotton Bowl, you cared. Players didn't sit out. I think Jadaveon Clowney was when that first became a possibility around 2012 or so, but in his case it was about missing the entire year, not just the bowl (of course, we could fix a lot if the NFL would let them go pro after 2 years rather than 3 - and THAT would increase parity). But once the playoff started and bowl importance tanked, it was over. All good things must come to an end.
Expanded playoff is our only option, from this point in time. The bowls are done, they are scrimmages meant to fill TV slots. But back to the regular season.....for a lot of teams, it'll become much more important. For the teams who are eliminated from contention, yeah, it'll be hard to motivate them. I guess the unimportant bowls are still there, that's SOMETHING, I suppose.
I don't think conference champions should play into it at all. All conferences are not created equally....much more starting next year.
I view it that they made the price of poker more transparent. It's not really changing nor going to change the pecking order in college football. The same handful of programs will get the best talent. Then the next tier with slightly lesser talent...an so on. Something does need to be done about ease of transfers - I don't think it's good for the the average college football program supporter to have to keep up with so much change every year. It's going to wear attention spans out and folks will tune out.
It improves it by adding more college football games. Giving 8 other teams a glimmer of hope and giving you hope if your team loses two games early.
I don’t think it will add potential National Champions because playing 3 games against the best teams will weed out any Cindarellas. I also think it takes away from the impact of an upset. If a top 4 team loses unexpectedly in October to an inferior opponent or their rival in the last game they are in trouble and those stakes add to the drama with a 12 team playoff they are still in.
I honestly think if they reinstated the rule that transfers have to sit for a year, that would solve a lot of the problems with recruiting off of other rosters.
A million times yes. Not really following the "most interesting regular season argument". I can go ahead and guess our record for the next decade +/- 1 game and probably pencil in the CFP slots and have a nice batting average without looking at anything but program names. It's all so predictable and boring.
An expanded playoff throws more variability into and could possibly influence top talent to expand their school list to combo both playing time and a championship chance. If you are talented enough to play for a national champion quality team AND you place high value on championship odds, you're likely picking from 4-5 schools that I bet you can guess the name of. Making a championship more accessible could even out the talent some over the long haul which makes for more competitive regular and post seasons.
I get what you're saying, but I think winning your league should be rewarded with something more than a bowl berth. No, conferences are not created equally, but that's where limiting it to 6 (which I think will go down to 5 eventually) champions and the 'at-large' comes in. If the SEC and Big Ten each eat up 2-3 at-large spots, then I feel like they've probably both included their 'best' teams. The top team in the ACC, Pac-12, and Big 12 is normally as good as the 4th team in the SEC or Big Ten, so I don't think you're going to shaft any deserving SEC or Big Ten teams.
Plus, this gets you buy-in from all of the conferences and ensures you have at least one SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Pac, and G5 team in the mix, which expands the potential footprint and interest. If you put 5 SEC and 5 Big Ten teams in every playoff and one or two sacrificial randos, that's going to get stale pretty quickly.
Fair enough. At 12, you know the best couple of teams will be included. Just roll with the rest.
One concession.....I wish the top 4 were the top 4, not the top 4 champions. But it is what it is.
The current format of the 12-team format is only for the first couple of years. With the SEC and Big 10 expansions, I fully expect only 4 auto bids for champions and no requirement that only champions get the bye, starting in 2026.
Exactly, just put 16 teams in to give more teams meaningful games and forget the byes. Heck, if we win the SEC in baseball I want a bye into the Super Regionals!
It gives MSU a real chance to make the playoff.
And it will make more games BIG GAMES in the regular season. now as the season ends, only teams in the top 6, and usually only the ones ranked 3-6 really matter.
With 12 teams, teams in the Top 20 all have a shot until week 10, and games with teams 3-16 all really matter. All are huge games.
The top 4 getting a bye week is a big deal that late in the season, and could mean getting key players more healthy. So any game with one of them is a Big Game.
The 5-8 teams getting home field is a Huge deal. ( As a fan having a home playoff game would be more fun than the bye)
The 9-12 teams are playing to stay in, or move up.
The 13-16 teams are playing to get in.
I think the 12 team is better in every way.
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