College Football - Postseason

[soccer10k]

10 minutes ago, bukie said:

What isn't working:

1. 4 byes for 4 conference champs. All 4 lost, 3 of them handily. Whether it was the long layoff or the seeding being messed up based on there being only 2 deserving conference champs, nobody was rewarded for winning their conference championship game. I'd propose expanding to 16 and inviting every conference champ, so the lower-tier conference championships at least have meaning. Then everyone gets a home game that is ranked high, and everyone is on a level playing field for the quarters.

So your solution to three of the four QF games not being close is to invite more undeserving teams? The solution is to just give the best four teams byes. I don’t think the long layoff had much to do with it  I think it was fluky in that the 3 and 4 seeds were huge underdogs, the 2 seed was playing its backup QB and the 1 seed got stuck playing a team that should have been seeded higher. Give the 5 conference champs auto bids but then seed them where they are among the 12 teams in the field. If that means they’re seeded 10-11-12 (not that they necessarily would have been this year) and they don’t get a home game, oh well.

Also, Clemson, ASU and Boise were certainly rewarded for winning their conference title games because none of those teams are in if they lose that game.

[bukie]

2 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

So your solution to three of the four QF games not being close is to invite more undeserving teams? The solution is to just give the best four teams byes. I don’t think the long layoff had much to do with it  I think it was fluky in that the 3 and 4 seeds were huge underdogs, the 2 seed was playing its backup QB and the 1 seed got stuck playing a team that should have been seeded higher. Give the 5 conference champs auto bids but then seed them where they are among the 12 teams in the field. If that means they’re seeded 10-11-12 (not that they necessarily would have been this year) and they don’t get a home game, oh well.

Also, Clemson, ASU and Boise were certainly rewarded for winning their conference title games because none of those teams are in if they lose that game.

The solution to all the bye teams having the doors blown off them in the first half would be to have them all play the same number of games so they aren't rusty, yes.

I agree Clemson, ASU and Boise were rewarded, and that it eventually worked out to have 5 auto bids because the gap between the top 5 conference champs and the other 4 was big enough this year. However, there will come a time where the difference between champ 5 and 6 is negligible, so why not just include every conference champ? Then at least every team has a theoretical shot at the title. It'll be similar to the 1-16/2-15/3-14/4-13 games in the basketball NCAA tournament, 90% of the time it'll be a blowout, but it will allow for infrequent crazy outcomes while still giving the top seeds a week of play to stay in rhythm with the rest.

[UMFan83]

31 minutes ago, bukie said:

This was the perfect year to expand, because a 4 team playoff would have been a disaster. Who would have been the 4 teams? Oregon, Georgia, Notre Dame, and then choose between Texas, PSU, OSU, Tennessee, Indiana, Boise State, Arizona State? Nobody would have been happy, and a team that will likely be in the national championship game wouldn't have had a shot.

I find it funny that the 4 team CFP almost certainly would have had their first 2 loss team(s) ever selected if the format didnt change to 12 teams.  And that only 1 of the 4 remaining teams has less than 2 losses.  And none of them won their conference championship.  

[Derwood]

I love that there is now criticism that this format "doesn't reward the best team, it just rewards the hottest team"

I guess these people have never watched March Madness?

[UMFan83]

17 minutes ago, bukie said:

The solution to all the bye teams having the doors blown off them in the first half would be to have them all play the same number of games so they aren't rusty, yes.

I agree Clemson, ASU and Boise were rewarded, and that it eventually worked out to have 5 auto bids because the gap between the top 5 conference champs and the other 4 was big enough this year. However, there will come a time where the difference between champ 5 and 6 is negligible, so why not just include every conference champ? Then at least every team has a theoretical shot at the title. It'll be similar to the 1-16/2-15/3-14/4-13 games in the basketball NCAA tournament, 90% of the time it'll be a blowout, but it will allow for infrequent crazy outcomes while still giving the top seeds a week of play to stay in rhythm with the rest.

As someone who has been fighting to ensure every team theoretically has a chance at winning a championship for years, I dont hate it.  Here is how the first round matchups would work out if every FBS conference champ made it and seeding was based on CFP ranking with no advantages for conference champs (outside of making the field if you wouldn't otherwise make it).  For teams that weren't ranked by the CFP, I based their seed on their SP+ ranking.  Jacksonville State, ranked 72nd in SP+, was the lowest seed.

16 Jacksonville St (Sun Belt) at 1 Oregon (Big Ten) - Eugene, OR

15 Ohio (MAC) at 2 Georgia (SEC) - Athens, GA

14 Marshall (CUSA) at 3 Texas (At Large 1) - Austin, TX

13 Army (AAC) at 4 Penn State (At Large 2) - University Park, PA

12 Clemson (ACC) at 5 Notre Dame (At Large 3) - South Bend, IN

11 Arizona St (Big 12) at 6 Ohio State (At Large 4) - Columbus, OH

10 SMU (At Large 7) at 7 Tennessee (At Large 5) - Knoxville, TN

9 Boise St (MWC) at 8 Indiana (At Large 6) - Bloomington, IN

 

I would then keep the QFs on campus.  If the higher seeds won...

8 Indiana at 1 Oregon - Eugene, OR

7 Tennessee at 2 Georgia - Athens, GA

6 Ohio State at 3 Texas - Austin, TX

5 Notre Dame at 4 Penn State - University Park, PA

Then make the semis and finals at neutral bowl sites.  I kind of like it and it almost seems like the format we currently have was made with expansion to 16 easy by adding the other G5 conferences.  If the trend continues where the teams with the bye struggle, they may just consider expanding to 16.  It doesn't really dilute the field as we're not adding any more mid at-large teams, we're basically giving the top team something to do to keep them busy before the quarterfinal round (and if one of those bottom 4 teams managed to upset a top seed - it would be a moment talked about forever)

[soccer10k]

1 hour ago, bukie said:

The solution to all the bye teams having the doors blown off them in the first half would be to have them all play the same number of games so they aren't rusty, yes.

I don’t agree at all that rust caused the four teams with byes to lose in the QF. Also, only 1 team for their doors blown off in the first half (Oregon).

Boise was down 10. They weee 11.5 point underdogs so you’d expect them to be down 6 at half. So is them being down 10 due to rust or were they just playing a better team?

Arizona St was down 17-3. They were 13.5 point underdogs so you’d expect them to be down 7. They also were only down 14 due to a punt return TD (fluky) and outgained Texas in the first half.

Georgia was down 13-3 solely due to Kirby Smart having his backup QB drop back from his own 25 with 33 seconds left and the result being a strip sack which led to a TD. So that was essentially a 6-3 halftime score.

I don’t know what happened to Oregon. Could it have been rust? Sure I suppose. But to say all the home teams got their doors blown off in the first half due to rust is just wrong and you’re likely overreacting to one years worth of results. Going back to the 2009 season (so the 2010 playoffs) NFL teams with a bye are 39-13. If it were that much of a disadvantage to have a bye, wouldn’t we have seen a trend in the NFL by now?

Keep it at 12, give the top 4 teams a bye regardless of whether or not they won their conference title, guarantee the top-5 conference champs a spot and let this play out for a couple years.

[Cubfanintheknow]

Feel sorry for Parker Jones. The kid got a little too excited and cost his team 15 yards. I don't believe it ultimately was a deciding factor in the game... but ESPN putting his face on TV meant his face got plastered all over the internet. 

Poor kid didn't even have a helmet to pull over his head. 

[soccer10k]

1. Oregon
2. Georgia
3. Texas
4. Penn St
5. Notre Dame vs. 12. Clemson
6. Ohio St vs. 11. Arizona St
7. Tennessee vs. 10. SMU
8. Indiana vs. 9. Boise St.

Only Ohio St is a favorite over Texas in all likelihood in the QF, which is better spread-wise than what we got. Oregon is a big favorite over Indiana/Boise, Georgia is favored, especially since we saw them beat Tennessee already this year. ND is -1.5 over Penn State for their upcoming game but that's a neutral site so PSU is probably favored in Happy Valley.

[bukie]

5 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

I don’t agree at all that rust caused the four teams with byes to lose in the QF. Also, only 1 team for their doors blown off in the first half (Oregon).

Boise was down 10. They weee 11.5 point underdogs so you’d expect them to be down 6 at half. So is them being down 10 due to rust or were they just playing a better team?

Arizona St was down 17-3. They were 13.5 point underdogs so you’d expect them to be down 7. They also were only down 14 due to a punt return TD (fluky) and outgained Texas in the first half.

Georgia was down 13-3 solely due to Kirby Smart having his backup QB drop back from his own 25 with 33 seconds left and the result being a strip sack which led to a TD. So that was essentially a 6-3 halftime score.

I don’t know what happened to Oregon. Could it have been rust? Sure I suppose. But to say all the home teams got their doors blown off in the first half due to rust is just wrong and you’re likely overreacting to one years worth of results. Going back to the 2009 season (so the 2010 playoffs) NFL teams with a bye are 39-13. If it were that much of a disadvantage to have a bye, wouldn’t we have seen a trend in the NFL by now?

Keep it at 12, give the top 4 teams a bye regardless of whether or not they won their conference title, guarantee the top-5 conference champs a spot and let this play out for a couple years.

The NFL is a completely different beast than the NCAA. The bye there is one week, while this year teams had 3 weeks of rest with the bye while the first round participants had 2 weeks of rest and then a game.

Calling the Georgia-ND game "essentially a 6-3 halftime score" while ignoring the 2 TDs spanning halftime that effectively iced the game is disingenuous at best.

Boise State started out the game throwing 3 picks and giving up 2 TDs before they settled down a bit, still down 10 at the half before briefly making it a game before losing by 17.

I personally just don't like this bye system with neutral sites. Back in the day, that's why they eventually expanded the NCAA tournament so everyone played every game, and adding the other 4 G5 winners solves two current minor issues while still reseeding them 1-16 without guaranteeing conference champs the top 4 seeds solves the most glaring issue from this iteration.

[bukie]

In addition, I'd probably move up the playoff one week so that the semifinals are Jan 1 with the quarters on Christmas weekend and first round the week before. That gives all teams a week off between regular season and playoffs for finals week, keeps everyone fresh, and doesn't drag the NCAA playoffs into NFL playoff time (granted, it still hasn't happened yet but this is going into late January now and they're holding the championship game on the 20th of January after two weeks of NFL playoffs).

[Andy]

Pretty much every possible complaint about this format can be solved by getting rid of the pointless conference championship games, which in case anyone needed a refresher were invented pretty much from nowhere by SEC commissioner Roy Kramer 30-odd years ago to make TV money. There was never a competitive reason for them to exist.

Getting rid of them enables the calendar to move up so the first round of the playoff can be the current CCG weekend (or the current Army-Navy weekend) and the second can be the one the first round was. That enables you to move both those rounds to campus sites and enables students to be on campus for them, which I view as a must. Then the semifinals can be at 2 cool bowl sites (presumably the Rose and Sugar) on New Year's, and the title game can be back where it was in the 4 team era. No need to fight with the NFL for time slots.

It also nukes any reason to reserve byes for anybody. No one is playing some made up "extra" game, so you can seed the bracket however you want without worrying about "devaluing" title games.

Would it be hard to determine conference champs this way? Sure. But 1) it wouldn't be so difficult if the conferences didn't expand beyond all reason*, and 2) who flipping cares who wins a conference in this sport now except as a means to get to the playoff? You think any Georgia fan will really care years from now that they were 2024 SEC champs when they lost a quarterfinal game? Determine the auto bids by tiebreaker or CFP rankings or whatever you want.

The problem is no one in any of the conferences has any incentive to do this, so we'll keep those games and whatever the next format is will be clunkier than this one because of it.

* Also, if the B1G and SEC didn't decide to mutilate other conferences for money right after this format was proposed, the byes would probably have been Oregon, Ohio State, Georgia and Texas and no one would've batted an eye.

Edited January 4, 2025 by Andy

[minnesotacubsfan]

I have no idea what Duke's Mayo is but glad we beat VT in it today,,,,i guess

 

 

[soccer10k]

6 hours ago, bukie said:

Calling the Georgia-ND game "essentially a 6-3 halftime score" while ignoring the 2 TDs spanning halftime that effectively iced the game is disingenuous at best.

Boise State started out the game throwing 3 picks and giving up 2 TDs before they settled down a bit, still down 10 at the half before briefly making it a game before losing by 17.

Well you said "doors blown off in the first half" and the second Notre Dame touchdown you refer to was in the second half. I'd add that is largely irrelevant anyway because it was a kickoff return touchdown which, like I said about the Texas one, is fluky. That's not one team outplaying another or coming out flat or being rusty. It's a fluky play. Georgia-Notre Dame was 6-3 with 30 seconds left and if Kirby Smart just kneels on the ball like he probably should have, that's the halftime score. So it's way more disingenuous to say Notre Dame blew the doors off Georgia in the first half. That's just flat out wrong.

As for Boise, again, were they flat or were they just not that good? They're 31st in Sagarin and 27th in Massey. Yes that comes after getting hammered by Penn State, but I doubt that one loss caused them to drop that much.

I mean, if you just want to look at the line score which shows halftime leads of 26, 14, 10 and 10 and use that to form your opinions while ignoring how the first half of the latter three games actually played out, well you do you.

[wekse]

9 hours ago, minnesotacubsfan said:

I have no idea what Duke's Mayo is but glad we beat VT in it today,,,,i guess

 

 

best goddamn mayo in the game, read a book.

[Brian707]

 

[UMFan83]

24 minutes ago, Brian707 said:

 

Oh man James Franklin's gonna make it to the title game without breaking his 'cant win a big game' stigma.

I'm mostly kidding, if they win tonight the monkey is off his back.  Getting to the championship game is very impressive even if their road up to this point was extremely easy.

[Derwood]

1 hour ago, UMFan83 said:

Oh man James Franklin's gonna make it to the title game without breaking his 'cant win a big game' stigma.

I'm mostly kidding, if they win tonight the monkey is off his back.  Getting to the championship game is very impressive even if their road up to this point was extremely easy.

It was the "easiest" path, but I wouldn't go "extremely". They still had to beat two conference champs to get here, and they beat them both pretty soundly.

[UMFan83]

5 hours ago, Derwood said:

It was the "easiest" path, but I wouldn't go "extremely". They still had to beat two conference champs to get here, and they beat them both pretty soundly.

Beating the SP+ number 14 team at home and the SP+ number 33 team on a neutral field is not really going to do much to convince the people that throw out stats like 'James Franklin is 4-19 against Top 10 teams' that he's suddenly learned how to win big games. 

Also SMU being conference champion is pretty iffy.  Yes they were the regular season conference champion, but they played the 2nd easiest P4 conference schedule in the country.  And then they lost to a 3 loss team in the conference title game.

Dammit I was trying to be somewhat cordial about Penn State and you ruined it lol

[Derwood]

Freeman with the better halftime adjustments so far. PSU won the first half, but ND is dominating the 3rd quarter

[Rex Buckingham]

How many OSU fans wish they had Freeman rather than Day?

[UMFan83]

27 minutes ago, Derwood said:

Freeman with the better halftime adjustments so far. PSU won the first half, but ND is dominating the 3rd quarter

Flipped on a dime and now PSU is sitting pretty.  Very fun game. @Andy and @Derwood should have made some sort of fun bet for this game 

Edited January 10, 2025 by UMFan83

[Derwood]

What a blown coverage, JFC

[soccer10k]

So your QB is 11-20 for 139 yards (before the interception) and rather than just go to OT, you choose to run the hurry up offense starting at your own 20 with less than a minute left? I mean I get you have 2 timeouts but in that scenario I think you're better off just going to OT.

[Derwood]

9 minutes ago, soccer10k said:

So your QB is 11-20 for 139 yards (before the interception) and rather than just go to OT, you choose to run the hurry up offense starting at your own 20 with less than a minute left? I mean I get you have 2 timeouts but in that scenario I think you're better off just going to OT.

Yep. That and a defender mysteriously falling down are what decided this game

[SpongeWorthy]

fantastic game

does freeman get an interview with the bears now lol