Here’s a really good way to kick this off:
The NFL has a structure, as does the FCS that works like a charm and has already wrapped up this week prior to a semifinal game for the BCS teams. Games are played on the higher ranked team’s campus until the championship, which has traditionally been held in Nashville. Ditto NFL, with the Super Bowl being hosted by another team’s city on a rotating selection basis.
Two years in, and the highest four seeds are 1-7, and you now have three teams that have never won a National Championship playing for it starting today. Some say that’s the model working as it was supposed to. Some say that makes the regular season near irrelevant, along with the conference championship games. Some say we had it right with the four team model, until 2023 when it seemed we didn’t.
So, given the second round of this bullshit, what would you do to fix it? Adopt the FCs model or parent back down (that ain’t happening).
Discuss.
More than half of the FCS field (13) is made up of at-large selections by a committee. I’m sure teams 25-30 get mighty salty, it’s just that nobody pays attention to their whining the way we do for teams like BYU and Texas who failed to win games during the regular season.
And the answer is go back to the BCS. Absent that, go back to 4. Absent that, go to 8 and play the semifinals on NYD every year. Absent that…I don’t know. This bye system doesn’t work but we clearly didn’t need Vanderbilt in this tournament this year and the byes are a problem. This is exactly what many of us said we’re going to happen when they started going down this road.
Well said. I normally save “Post of the day!” for some good snark or something that makes me LMAO. You get it for nail/head.
I like Dan Lanning’s comments toward letting CFP own December and play the National Championship game the following Monday after New Years Day. It’s complete bullshit that we have semifinal playoff games on a Thursday/Friday this week. Play the Conference Championship games, rank the teams 1-12, and then the 4 best conference Champs will likely get a well deserved bye week ahead of the quarterfinals and let the higher ranked team host the quarterfinal game too. If you’re going to get a bye, it should mean something, which it clearly does not given the 1-7 record of bye teams. Let them get a bye + a home game. Semis and Champ can be at traditional NYE 6 bowls stadiums.
I think its a crime that the quarterfinal games can be held at stadiums that are half full like the Orange Bowl was this year. That’s not college football. I also think its a crime that fans would have to make massive travel plans to 3 destinations to see their team play under current system.
Our Overlords at ESPN would never allow this. Just as they will keep a show for weeks in advance covering the Committees meeting that are useless. Have one damn meeting at the end of the Conference Championships and pick them.
The FCS playoff is an NCAA event, as is the baseball tournament, tennis tournament, et al.
The College Football Playoff is not an NCAA event. It is a for profit enterprise stuck onto the end of the NCAA season.
The FCS selection process is designed to put that year’s best teams into the tournament. The CFP was created by a television company to create programming and ratings. Its selection process has to consider the lifeblood of a broadcasting company; that is, participants that casual fans would be interested enough in to watch.
The NCAA sets the FCS season and time lines for events ( such as recruiting periods, portal periods and the beginning and end dates of the season and playoffs. ) The 6 bowls are a part of the CFP . Since it is not an NCAA event the CFP schedules around the bowls’ schedules and television programming opportunites without coordination with NCAA schedules. That results in coaches’ frustrations with portal deadlines, job openings and hiring and recruiting all happening during the ESPN Invitational.
The 350 or so member institutions of NCAA division one have no incentive to vote for changes in the NCAA calendars that have served them well. Unlike the revenue from NCAA playoffs the ESPN Invitational money goes to just 5 conferences (power 4 plus usually 1 group of 5) plus one independent (Notre Dame.) The NCAA gets the same size payment that I, Gaskilldawg, get. Montana State gets the same size payment from the CFP as I get.I understand why the vast majority of D1 schools are not sympathetic with SEC and Big Ten problems.
ESPN sends its influences out pleading for an NCAA calendar change but ESPN’s own product is the problem.
Gaskilldawg.
The NFL, FBS, and FCS are even remotely comparable. The problem with the FBS is there is too much money involved. You can’t have teams in contention for the same goal with such widely diverging finances and a rules system that lacks enforceable rules. This is likely the only sport in the world at any level that has unlimited transfers (NCAA basketball is probably the exception), “nudge-nudge” anti-poaching rules that are widely ignored, no salary cap, and spending variance ranging from all of the Big Oil in Texas at the top down to some Group of Five teams that probably spend less on their entire roster than Ohio State spends on it’s WRs. Then there’s the TV money that’s encouraging this madness. Those are the folks who will keep games from moving to campuses and enforce this asinine calendar so they can get more eyeballs on the games.
The NFL has 32 teams that all operate on a level playing field with regards to salary caps and player movement. The FCS doesn’t have that much money involved. Sure maybe teams like those powerhouses in the Dakotas are spending money to poach players from the likes of Savannah State, but not on the level we’re seeing at the FBS.
The way FBS operates is similar to if we combined the NFL, Canadian Football League, XFL/USFL/WhateverFL, and NFL Europe under one umbrella with no commissioner and didn’t standardize the rules. Absolute chaos. The only way to fix this mess is to burn it all down and rebuild it with a more consistent set of rules. And I just don’t see that ever happening unless Mickey and the other players want it done to make more money.
Overall I’m not sure anything can be done. I liked 4 or maybe 6 teams, but that ain’t happened. My tweak to the new 12 team model would be having the first round games sooner and in the bowl games. Let the top 4 seeds host the second round on campus. Why are we rewarding teams 5-8 with a home game? Especially when this year two of the games were basically preseason Cupcake tune up games for Ole Miss and Oregon?
Reward the best 4 teams with the home game and move the games up so the time off isn’t so long. Start the damn thing the weekend after the conference championships which are now pointless and a penalty to the two teams playing in them. The quarter final games can be two weeks after the conference championships.
With cfp committee involved, there exists the platform for double speak to any and all questions involving their sausage making thought process and potentially shields Mickeys fingerprint$ of malignant deci$ion making…as you can $ee with Mickeys current football programming, top shelf college football gets the thursday night treatment and the league gets next level time slots (on fucking saturday, mind you), understanding the nfl is the largest singular gateway to commercial $$$$$$$$$$$$$….GO DAWGS!!
If we aren’t going to go back to the four team model, and we aren’t, then yes, adopt something like what I-AA (FBS and FCS seems like PC pussy mouthing to me).
We can have the college football we want but not enough people will demand it. If they lost viewers they might unfuck themselves. Then again, NASCAR teaches a different lesson where the people in charge decided they knew what was best and the fans were irrelevant and if they had lose a big chunk of their audience because those people weren’t smart enough to see the gift they were being given then so be it.
I don’t want to lose college football. But the folks at the top seem determined to totally wreck it. And they LOVE that there are a bunch if teams that don’t belong there still in. “Don’t you live feel good underdog stories?” Meh, I love good football a lot more. I hope Indiana wins absolutely dick. They have become the avatar for the nu college football to me.
I’m going to go ahead and make the prediction that the semifinal and final ratings are absolutely abysmal this year. So maybe there’s some hope that folks realize Cinderella isn’t a good investment?
Not that ESPN cares, but I’m not sure the Fiesta Bowl will even sell out. I’ve been sitting on three tickets all week and even at fire sale prices (well below face value) they aren’t moving. Lots of tickets available.
Getting stuck with tix was a big part of my decision. Came sooooo close to buying two to the FB weeks back. Changed my mind seconds before hitting that purchase button. Doing a snowbird trip instead!
I feel the same but they’re not up against any counter programming. Soccer moms, gambling degenerates and office pool workers will tune in along with regular CFB fans.
“So maybe there’s some hope that folks realize Cinderella isn’t a good investment?”
“There’s something about the underdog that inspires the mediocre.” – Bob Kazimackus
The CFP is designed for the non fans and Cinderella lovers. If viewership declines, remember it’s our fault for not watching not the lame product they manufactured.
My problem is the regular season should mean something. Take the conference champions and runner-up and put them in brackets against other conference champions and runner -ups or hell, just the conference champions bracketed against other conf. champions and let the FCS have a play-in game. The old GHSA model. Top two go. everybody else stays home. Showing my age.
This would be the model I would support if the Power 4 broke away from the NCAA for everything.
BYU Twitter/X is one of the dumbest places in the CFB online world.
On the question at hand, they aren’t going to contract. Therefore, given the challenges associated with the current environment, the only thing to do is expand to 16 and play on campus until the championship. The NY6 can continue to exist outside the playoff structure.
The playoff with its current structure is rendering the regular season meaningless. Yes,
I understand going to 16 makes it worse.
For this season and I don’t go back past seasons: Miami got in over Notre Dame so the bare minimum of the regular season matters. Sadly, Ol Miss (a one loss team that claimed we lost in the 4th qtr on the road) got their revenge so giving them a chance in the post season matters. There will never be contraction (although an implosion of the whole damn thing is always on the table) so go to sixteen with no byes. The problem is the #17 team’s crying gets traction. At some point you tell your toddler no, but I reckon that only happens in the home.
F%@k it. Blow it up. Separate P4 from G5. No Conference Championship games. 11 games season, 8 conference games. 16 team playoff. Top 8 get home games. 2nd round top 4 get home games. Semis in bowl games, Championship rotating sites.
Let the G5 have their own tournament with 16 teams in similar format to FCS.
Man, you absolutely nailed it. It’s been shot to hell already so they might as well go ahead and finish the job.
Nukes? Missiles? Supernova? Whatever it takes.
The fact we’ve destroyed the sport because on rare occasions we couldn’t decide who was the best team that year is really depressing.
The obvious next step is implied by the snarky and sarcastic author (I hope he’s put in his place for that! Who’s on it?) of the tweet:
A NFL-lite structure with objective standards to qualify for the post-season.
The old bowl system was superior to every subsequent iteration. I’d rather suffer BYU winning it than watching LSU have to beat bama twice. I’d rather see tech win a share at the citrus bowl than watch herbie fuck us on tv in 2007 after taking the opposite position in 2006. I’s rather suffer a split decision between Michigan and Nebraska than watch these assholes fuck an undefeated fsu team so they can try and get one more natty for their employee in waiting.
Burn the crops. Salt the fields. Make a desert. Cathargo delenda est.
And by the way, who can I sue for having to listen to these morons rotate between “best” and “deserving” interchangeably depending upon which word best suited their preferred outcome.
Bama over FSU because we all know “best” is what matters.
LSU over UGA because we all know that “deserve” is what really matters.
Same assholes. Same system. Different words to suit the outcomes they want at any given moment.
Fuck them all to death.
college football is in turn 4 and headed down the nascar straight – a – way at a more alarming pace than originally thought. running it straight into nothingness
SEC becomes its own league…
SEC adding 8 more teams and saying fuck off to all else for a total of 24 teams.
East Division
3 four team sub division
West Division
3 four team sub division
Playoffs
each division has 2 wild card teams + 3 sub champs
wild card winner plays top seed in sub division
other sub divisons champs play each other
winner of those games play each other for Division champ
then division champs play for sec super bowl
…and we are just like NFL…sigh
… and then this sets up Greg Sankey ultimate goal to have a college football version of a « champions league » so that each conference sends their champ to a super super bowl
If it feeds Sankey’s ego, I would not rule it out as a possibility…..
Gaskilldawg nailed it above. There is not a central decision making authority although many believe it is the NCAA. The conferences have way too much power, influence and control that counters the NCAA. Two conferences in particular have too much weight. Too many of the 350 smaller member institutions of the NCAA have too much weight. Plus Disney and Notre Dame.
The only solution will come from the courts or Congress. A separate authority with a commissioner and select members…thus a mini-NFL. Such a structure, however, would then be able to put together 3-4 different participation levels that equalize the rules and schedules for each along with centralized contract negotiations with TV/ Streaming and a player CBA. Rules would be more clear, consistent and strictly enforced with financial penalties that have bite vs waiving wins in a record book. This solution needs Congressional approval and legal protections as schools and States will sue plus the Power 4 (really 2) need to be obliterated. Ultimately it’s just a multi-tiered NFL structure but there’s a reason that works and at this point the sooner it happens the better. I would expect a lost season or two, however, while the court challenges all the way up to SCOTUS play out. That’s what killing any attempt at reform right now.
1. Go back the the 4 team playoff.
2. 4 conferences of 16 teams split into 4 divisions. Division winners start the playoffs with home games and then a conference championship final, then the 4 conference champions play the national playoff to determine the national championship.
3. Keep the same format but the 1st round starts the week after the conference championships and the 1 – 4 get a bye and then a home game.
Kdawg05
Doing what’s objectively (if that could ever be agreed upon) best for the sport and the youngsters just isn’t part of the program. What we have now is a frankenstein- hybrid thing that built a playoff on top of what remains of the traditional NY6 bowl games. It’s a farce. It’s got Ole Miss and Miami flying to Arizona, while Indiana and Oregon travel to Atlanta (I’m an ex-transportation dude so this type of inefficiency drives me nuts). I don’t know what we can do about the calendar, but 3 things would go a long way towards fixing this—A) Get Rid of G-5 teams B) Eliminate byes that cause more than 14 days of no play/inactivity C) Eliminate neutral site games until at least semifinal level–I would prefer that done all the way to the final, but the Bowls have too much sway in the college game–no way that happens.
The Oregon fan’s 30-day schedule:
Dec 20th, Eugene, OR
Jan 1st Miami, FL
Jan 9th Atlanta, GA
Jan 19th Miami, FL
You might as well rent a trailer for the month in Hahira.
That would be an upgrade for many Oregon fans who are the Handbags of the west.
The whole system is a joke. How to fix it? That’s an exercise in futility. The train has long left the station. Ain’t no fixing this mess. Mickey’s goal was always to turn CFB into NFL-lite which if any true CFB fan wanted the NFL… they would’ve watched the fucking NFL.
Congrats Carson. That was a heck of a game. Is it just me or does Miami look a lot like us with more speed?
And much better lines of scrimmage. They’re who Kirby wants us to be.