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Am I wrong in seeing some dissonance on the pro-more-playoff side here? On one hand, we want it to be "proven on the field", not left to subjective perception (i.e. polls, etc.); on the other hand, we want every team included that we subjectively perceive to be good, even if they didn't fully "prove it on the field."
 
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I posted this in the booger forum but it obviously fits much better here.

The only real way to make it fair and have it settle on the field is to have everyone band together in one big conference. Since travel means little you can just ignore location.

You have 128 teams in the FBS Division 1 program.

Make 14 Divisions that play a RR schedule for 8 games. And then everyone plays 2 "non-league games".

You take the 14 Division winners (the non-league games do not count) and play a tournament.

Then every game in league counts. And you also get to play a few traditional rivalry games. You balance the 14 divisions. Since the playoffs will be 4 games you only want 10-11 total games in regular season.

I guess my point is that by only taking 2 or 4 or 8 teams without some way to objective rate the teams is an useless endeavor and one that will always lead to people being unhappy and pissed.

And lets face it. Every fan base is going to twist the rules to better suit their team. I like the quote from Urban a fews years ago

"If you don't win your conference, you shouldn't be playing for a national championship"

I am pretty sure he would like to rethink that one.

I sometimes agree that they should just go back to the old bowl system and let the voters decided. Led to lots of discussion and frankly more teams being pissed and fan bases being upset. Which leads to more money being spent.
 
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No, I don't but that isn't the point.

The logic that expansion=blowouts just doesn't hold water because you've had a blowout in each of the first two seasons with the pool still at 4.
This is true; there will be major-bowl blowouts regardless whether the playoff is 0, 2, 4, 8, or any other number of teams. The only importance of the system for determining a national champion is the extent to which it shifts the focus of the college football season from the regional to the national, and from the early-mid season to the late season. Because the idea that it is possible to define, much less, determine, who is the "best" college football team has always been silly. We'll all be fine whatever path the evolution takes, because ultimately what matters is watching Ohio State win every game they play so that we can then go online and indulge in the misery of opposing fanbases.
 
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This is true; there will be major-bowl blowouts regardless whether the playoff is 0, 2, 4, 8, or any other number of teams. The only importance of the system for determining a national champion is the extent to which it shifts the focus of the college football season from the regional to the national, and from the early-mid season to the late season. Because the idea that it is possible to define, much less, determine, who is the "best" college football team has always been silly. We'll all be fine whatever path the evolution takes, because ultimately what matters is watching Ohio State win every game they play so that we can then go online and indulge in the misery of opposing fanbases.

completely agree

There is always a subjective element to it until you go the professional sports route and make some sort of league where everyone plays everyone, conference champs get auto bids and there are some wildcards. I don't think the 65 team size of the college power 5 will ever allow for that (at least I hope not). I was nervous about 2 expanding to 4 but it turns out to have been unfounded (at least imo). I do have reservations about a possible expansion to 6/8 but they are lessened by what I have seen from expanding so far.

At the end of the day however, the only perfect system will be the one in which the Buckeyes are crowned champions every year.
 
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completely agree

There is always a subjective element to it until you go the professional sports route and make some sort of league where everyone plays everyone, conference champs get auto bids and there are some wildcards. I don't think the 65 team size of the college power 5 will ever allow for that (at least I hope not). I was nervous about 2 expanding to 4 but it turns out to have been unfounded (at least imo). I do have reservations about a possible expansion to 6/8 but they are lessened by what I have seen from expanding so far.

At the end of the day however, the only perfect system will be the one in which the Buckeyes are crowned champions every year.
In my opinion, the size of the college football field is only one of the issues. Even with a smaller field (like pro sports), the main utility of championship tournaments is that they are fun and exciting. They do not reliably determine who is the "best" team. Or, as a said before, even define what it means to be the "best" team.

The following is a very imperfect analogy, because baseball series are very different from football games, but consider the 2001 World Series: Yankees vs. Diamondbacks. The Yankees probably had the better roster, top-to-bottom; but the Diamondbacks probably had the better roster for a 7-game, do-or-die series; because they had two dominant pitchers (Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling) they could ride hard for that series. The Diamondbacks won the series, based on 4 wins from Johnson and Schilling. Who had the better team? It probably depends at least in part on the format.

In all sports, the team that is hot at the end of the season may have been very mediocre earlier in the season. The 2007 NY Giants (2011 Giants can be mentioned, too), are an example of that, an example repeated many times in this thread. 2014 OSU was somewhat an example of that, too.

For these reasons, it doesn't matter from a fairness or accuracy standpoint, and there was really no problem with the original method of determining a national champion where people voted on the team they thought was best-ish after the regular season, and then they all went out and played a bowl exhibition game.

To your and my partly joking comment about the best system being the one that results in national championships for OSU; I wonder how much pro-playoff sentiment among OSU fans was increased by the result of the first 4-team playoff.
 
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To your and my partly joking comment about the best system being the one that results in national championships for OSU; I wonder how much pro-playoff sentiment among OSU fans was increased by the result of the first 4-team playoff.

If tOSU was left out for Baylor in 2014 and/or PoSU this year - both could've happened - this would be an entirely different thread.
 
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For these reasons, it doesn't matter from a fairness or accuracy standpoint, and there was really no problem with the original method of determining a national champion where people voted on the team they thought was best-ish after the regular season, and then they all went out and played a bowl exhibition game.

BYU won a NC by defeating a 6-6 tsun team under the purely subjective model, so I would say it was flawed. The evolution from pure vote of one team, to vote on a pool and let them play it off nets you a champion at the end of the year that is the right mix of subjective vote and factual on the field result imo.

I don't see a point in continuing to rehash that all a playoff does is award a championship to the team who plays the best at then end of the year. This is well known and accepted as the preferred way to crown a champion. Regular season does still matter in that it helps determine the "worthy of playoff" pool.

As with most things, an extreme version of either model is the least desirable. Some to-be-determined spot in the middle is best.
 
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If tOSU was left out for Baylor in 2014 and/or PoSU this year - both could've happened - this would be an entirely different thread.
Maybe. Maybe if OSU had beaten MSU last year and been in the playoff, there would be less "the playoff really needs to be expanded to 8 teams" sentiment. Not that it would matter, since an expansion is inevitable.
 
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BYU won a NC by defeating a 6-6 tsun team under the purely subjective model, so I would say it was flawed. The evolution from pure vote of one team, to vote on a pool and let them play it off nets you a champion at the end of the year that is the right mix of subjective vote and factual on the field result imo.

I don't see a point in continuing to rehash that all a playoff does is award a championship to the team who plays the best at then end of the year. This is well known and accepted as the preferred way to crown a champion. Regular season does still matter in that it helps determine the "worthy of playoff" pool.

As with most things, an extreme version of either model is the least desirable. Some to-be-determined spot in the middle is best.
To your first point, my reference was to the prior system that picked a champion prior to the bowls. But your point is relevant because, as I said, it doesn't matter. Every system is "flawed" in that it will, at least occasionally, crown a champion that was arguably not the "best" team, depending on your definition.

To your second point about the mootness of late season emphasis, my comment was not about what is better or well known and accepted. It was that changing the regional/temporal focus of the season is the effect of the playoff; and therefore this change in focus, moreso than a desire to crown a true champion or to remove unremovable "flaws", should be the basis for preferring or not preferring a playoff.

But an additional comment on your second point: the alleged well known acceptance of a system does not make it superior, per se. In 2002, I think it is entirely possible that USC was playing the best football at the end of the season. If there'd been a 4-team playoff, they may have been in it and may well have won it. Should they have had that opportunity, despite two regular season losses compared to Miami and OSU's zero? To put my comment on your second point a little more succinctly, I don't think appeals to anonymous authority are all that persuasive. Unless what you're saying is, "It's already decided, so there's no point in discussing it, regardless of the merits." In which case I would tend to agree with at least the first part.

To your third point, that is entirely subject to each person's view of what constitute extreme endpoints and middle ground, and so is virtually impossible to assess. Just in one limited example, your own views on what constitute extreme endpoints and reasonable middle ground have probably shifted in the past several years. NTTAWWT, but in an effort to avoid holding polls on who is the best team, should we hold annual polls on what constitutes reasonable middle ground for the championship system?
 
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SKULL SESSION: CARDALE JONES LIKES THE TRANSFER PORTAL, ATHLETIC DIRECTORS SUPPORT PLAYOFF EXPANSION AND THE SCHOTTENSTEIN CENTER IS NOT A TOUGH PLACE TO PLAY

EXPAND IT.
As we trudge through this sports desert together, I hope you can find some brief solace in the inevitability of the inevitable expansion of the playoff, because 88 percent of athletic directors are now on board.

A whopping 88 percent of Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) athletic directors want an expanded College Football Playoff when the current playoff contract ends after the 2025 regular season, according to a survey conducted by Stadium.

Of those athletic directors who favor an expanded playoff, 72 percent believe eight teams should qualify. Also, 66 percent of the ADs said the highest-ranked non-Power Five team should receive an automatic bid to an expanded playoff.

...

“More and more fans are only concerned with the playoffs,” a Power Five AD said. “That’s sad, but true, so we should expand the playoffs when possible. Even if that impacts the bowl system. We have to figure out a way.

I'm not too keen on the prospect of waiting another five years for something everyone should have known was inevitable five years ago, but hey, it's better than nothing.

Entire article: https://www.elevenwarriors.com/skul...c-directors-support-playoff-expansion-and-the
 
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