Obama to push for NCAAF play-off

Does he really think he can pull this off?

I still like my system better.

 

No efficient way to determine the absolute best with that many teams involved. He should stick to the economy.

 

I didn't read the article, but is Obama really serious about trying to affect NCAA policy on this? I know Mike Golic interviewed him and he tongue-in-cheek said he was for a playoff system and would do what he could as President to get it implemented. At least, I thought it was tongue-in-cheek, like if I'm President I will have much weightier matters to address. But now it sounds like he is serious? It's stuff like this that warrants the label "messiah complex" to be attached to him, when he thinks his view of college football postseason should matter one iota.

 

How many votes does he really expect that to get him in 2012?

 

Bravado aside, what do you all think of his plan?

Let's stick to the sports facet of it.

 

The best proposal I've seen, and I don't know if Obama even has a specific proposal, has the following elements.

1) Eight seeded teams. 16 is too many, 4 isn't enough.

2) 6 "power" conferences receive automatic bids. I assume these would be the Big 10, Pac 10, Big 12, SEC, Big East and ACC, though one would be hard pressed to say the Big East and ACC are power conferences in football.

3) Remaining 2 teams and seeding determined by committee. If only a model existed for how this would work.

4) In order to be eligible, you must win your conference championship.

 

What is your system?

I don't see a way to make Obama suggestion fair. It would mean mediocre schools would make the playoffs because they have an easy division while good schools will watch the play off's on TV because they have a tough conference.

 

That's why I questioned whether Obama is serious about trying to affect NCAA policy on this - is he? My comments were no different than when some people chastised Congress for meddling in the baseball steroids issue. I think it is profound arrogance for any President to think his opinions on a college football playoff should have any bearing at all on the matter. But again - is he serious about this or is it more tongue-in-cheek like in his interview with Mike & Mike?

 

All hail the mighty BO who will save college football!!! :laugh:
Anyway, here is my idea for fixing the BCS: scrap the championship game and keep the 4 majors (Sugar, Rose, Fiesta and Orange) and then add 2 other traditionally big games from the past to the mix...like Cotton for example. Take the winners of the 6 games, seed them 1-6 based on polls and bowl wins, top two get a bye week, bottom 4 go head to head and those winners play the bye teams, followed by a championship game.
You still have the bowl match ups and you can get a playoff system.

Of course i expect this to work about as well as me telling my 11 year daughter not to be emotional when i fuss at her. :thumbs:

 

My plan is this:

11 game season with one bye week. But two is doable. We seem to be getting away with it lately, even if we do have to start a little earlier. You still get your conference championship game for the real conferences out there 12 reg season games is too many.

Then, take the top 8, top 10 (top 6 get a bye) or top 12 (with the top four getting a bye) teams from the BCS. I'm flexible there on the number but prefer 8. No automatic bids, but conf champs get home field. Play on Saturdays until you have two left. The top two play for the title, while the losers along the way get spots in the bigger bowls. You can keep conf tie-ins so The Rose can still have the Big Ten/Pac Ten champ and the SEC champ still can get into the Sugar. You still get all the bowls and the beauty of a playoff, while only extending the season by one or two games max for a team who plays in a conference title game.

Why do I say no auto bids? Last year, Tennessee would've been one TD away from playing for the national championship. They didn't deserve it. Plus, sometimes you have more than one qualified team from a subdivision (Big 12 South this year, SEC East in years past). Last year, GA could've won the national title, but couldn't get to Atlanta since they lost at Tennessee.

If you must give auto bids, give the big six reps a bye in the top ten format listed above.

This in no way makes the regular season mean one iota less. In fact, every week counts because you still have to shoot for all the goals you normally do.

What about Ball State, someone cries. Well, let Ball State play a decent schedule and win out. Do this, and you're probably going to be in. If you can't do this, you don't deserve to be in. I'm all for the Ball States and Boise States getting their shot if they earn it. Then and only then should they get a chance to prove they can beat the big boys. Boise St did it a couple of years ago. Why not let them run the table and see if they can go toe-to-toe?

Division FCS, II, III, NAIA all have similar methods. If it works there, it can work on the FBS level.

 

I don't get how Tennessee didn't deserve it. They won the games they had to win to get into that position, didn't they? Winning games is what makes you deserving, and they won games.

Maybe, but they didn't do the one thing that's required to win a national title, which is win the games they had to win.

With that said, I propose we nominate TomVols as College Football Czar and have him institute his playoff system. :thumbs:

 

Tom, I could be wrong but I think bowl play would go the way of the runner game in the NFL and the runner up game in NCAA basketball before the final two played. They are gone.

If we need to copy basketball lets cut back to 10 games, no championship game in the conf. Do as a coach said about 15 years ago all schools play as independent and take the top 8 or 16 at end of year and have play off.

 

I would have a hard time putting a team with a win pct in the 700s into a national football playoff that is also unranked. That was UT last year in the east. They won the east with two losses. Does anyone really think UT was one of the eight or ten best teams in America last year? I appreciate your position, but I just don't think Tennessee was national championship caliber last year.

As for GA not doing what they needed to do to win the national title, well, who says? Nebraska did not play for or win their conf title in 2001, yet got an invite to play for the title (Ironically, only because Tennessee lost to LSU in the SEC title game). So the #2 team in America goes home because of one bad game. Of course, all Tenn had to do was win that game and this is all moot.

Remember, this is not the NCAA tournament. You don't get four games to prove you can play with the big boys so Cinderella can try on a glass slipper or for someone to get hot. My format rewards teams who have the best overall regular season body of work. If we had an expanded field (12-16, then I say take the conference champs). But most of the time, Goliath kicks David's butt. Notre Dame got auto bids to Alliance bowls and got crushed. UT got manhandled by Nebraska in 1997 due to the auto Alliance bid. Oregon stomped Colorado thanks to the BCS auto bid in 2001. But we forget about these because Boise St makes good press. And that goes to my point: should Boise St get a chance to play with the big boys? We'll never know. At best, they get one shot. Why not give them a playoff to determine if they can beat them? All they have to do is build a reg season resume.

I gladly accept your nomination and ask you to be my vice-czar :thumbs:

 

1. Big Bowls are too lucrative. Why not give a team a chance to cap off an impressive run in the playoffs with a bowl trip? The only flaw to my plan is people ask "would a consolation prize" get people to travel? since the game is meaningless. Well, the games are ALREADY meaningless. I find it hard to believe that you can't get big program donors/fans to go to Miami, LA, or sunny Arizona in the dead of winter around New Year's. (2) Little bowls are under pressure now. Economics is pressing these bowls. We now have more teams going to bowls now than go to March madness. Does anyone watch the bowls that pit two 6-6 Central somewhere vs Middle someplace that are sponsored by a company with four employees?

You cannot make everyone independent. Too much conference tradition. 11 games is a minimum because schools lose much needed revenue and football feeds most all other sports at most all schools. Even the schools that have a 16 team playoff have conferences. Costs mandate such, so you don't have to travel all across the country trying to play people, and makes scheduling easier. The numbers of independents are shrinking constantly, because it's just not feasible for schools not named Notre Dame. And you can't go strictly to a playoff because the big bowls do make a small profit and feed much $$$ back to the conferences and schools. So that coach's idea just dies a thousand deaths.

 

You hit it!!! In Columbia,SC a few weeks ago there wasn't as many UT fans as they have had. Why? Game had little meaning. If the teams don't travel well, their isn't going to be a bowl game. When the local businesses don't pull it out, it isn't going to sell. Many a company is pulling there money back from this type of thing today due to how tight things are. Look at the Gator bowl, they will pick the teams to play on who will bring the most, the locals aren't running down to buy a ticket. They couldn't even sell the ACC championship game to the locals, they were not buying it.

I didn't make my self clear on this, SEC teams would play there schools but only the top 8 or 16 teams would get into the playoff was what he was talking about. You were looking as an independent as far as you were on the national scale, if not in the top 8 or 16 you are out. lets say there were 6 teams from the Big 12 and and one each from the Big 10 and ACC in the top 8 and that is what you were going with there wouldn't be a SEC team or any other in the 8 team playoff. That is what he was talking about when he said independent. But again we are into national rankings, which will give us a lot to fuss over.

 

Bob, I hate to break it to you, but bowls ALWAYS pick on who they think will bring the best crowd. There have been some curious slots attached to SEC #4 and so on. Why do you think UK gets bowl invites to Nashville? Because UK fans don't travel. UT has played quite a bit in the Peach Bowl because Atlanta has the highest concentration of alums than any city not within TN borders (Cincinnati, OH is second). Check out many of the lower and mid tier bowls. Empty seats galore.

And the reason you didn't have as much orange in Columbia is you had a floundering team at best. I don't think that's a fair comparison to a team that might be 10-3 under my scenario.

I'm still not quite clear. At any rate, if, as you describe, out of the top 16 teams in the nation, 6 are legitimately from the Big 12, so be it. Who's to say that in a given year, the 6th best team in conference X isn't better than the champ in conference Z?

 

Tom, I understand you 100 percent. In a play off if you aren't in it, there isn't much of a reward to go to a bowl, you are out, it would be looked at as a loser bowl. There would be more empty seats and the more empty seats, the bowls would be a thing of the past.

You hit it again!!! If a team is out of the picture, there would be less folks going to a bowl because all you would hear is the play off going on and there would be less interest in the bowl games. Less people going would put an end to the bowl games, it is hard enough today for a lot of the bowels.

He was just making a point that a conference champ could mean very little, where in roundball they would get in by winning their conference. In time national ranking would mean everything, where in roundball, many times there has been teams like NC State coming out of no where to win it all and teams like number one Virginia not making it or any other number one or two or three. Most fan like to see the underdog do well as many have enjoyed TT this year till last night.

In time a play off will be done due to the money, when these schools believe there is more money in a playoff for a play off there will be one. I could be wrong but I think if they could change the minds of the Big 10 and Pack 10 there would be one today.

Most people mind set on this goes to where they started watching college ball. When they played with students, schools like Army had teams that were at the top of the hill at time, but today many schools like Florida play with a lot of kids who maybe should not be in college, they are there just to play ball and leave in a few years with out an education.

But I think this should be left in the hands of the schools and not in Washington DC, no matter who the president is but his view is as good as yours or mine.

 

How is that any different than the sacred system of today? Only one game has participants that have any shot. The other thirty three bowls (Yes, 33) have teams that have no shot at a title. I'm sure that maybe some bowls could go by the wayside, but I'm not the only one who thinks that is not a bad thing. I couldn't care less about two 6-6 schools playing in front of a half empty 40,000 seat stadium in some outpost.

We have the same thing going on now. People are talking all about the BCS and the title game, and we're seeing more bowl games. MORE.

I get that. However, basketball is more conducive to this. Texas Tech is a bit out of the norm, but I wouldn't call them a Cinderella story. They have two legit Heisman candidates and a rising star in the coaching ranks. Even Utah and Boise St have some tradition going for them. March Madness cannot be replicated and the NCAA people should not try in football.

I have said for years that, the nanosecond the $$$ is right, there will be a playoff, and not a moment before. And the Big Ten/Pac Ten isn't the only elephant in the room. A team in South Bend controls a lot of chips even though they are nowhere near being on the radar screen. Must be nice to lose 60 pct of your games and still be considered a player to the extent that you can muck up pretty much whatever you want to muck up.

You're half right. I think it's not Washington's business, and agree with you. But I think our views are probably better :laugh: