A tournament is not needed. It would ruin college football.

College Bowls = $$$$$$$$

College playoffs = $$$


$$$$$$$$ > $$$

nuff said.

Not to mention that there's never more than three teams worthy enough of the title.

Ok, this college bowl vs playoff is going to have to be a new thread, because it's a whole other conversation. I'm splitting it all off.

Ok, first of all, I feel any playoff system would have to compliment the bowl system. Most bowls would still remain intact. They wouldn't mean anything, but what exactly do most of them offer in terms of meaning anyhow?

The playoff system would be some hybrid of the conference champions and the highest ranked teams in the BCS standings outside of the others. So the champions of the ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 10 plus the 10 other highest ranked teams. In the case of a team like Florida State who was out of the top 16, the worst ranked team outside of the 16 would be the 16th seed.

Look at the matchups you would have and tell me there isn't money in this:
USC v Florida State
Texas v Texas Tech
Penn St v TCU
Ohio State v Alabama
Oregon v LSU
Notre Dame v West Virginia
Georgia v Virginia Tech
Miami v Auburn

That's just the first round! The remaining 8 teams would be paired based on seeding again, like hockey playoffs. All of these teams played, obviously, in bowl games. Give it a second round, a semifinal and a final and you're looking at adding only 7 more games, but we're talking HUGE dollars. Teams in the final would only play 3 additional games. That's not a terrible load, especially considering the current bowl games are already spread out over 3 weeks or so and they're done in plenty of time before classes resume.

16 teams in a tournament? That is fucking crazy. There isn't even that many teams worthy enough to play for the title. Florida State is a four loss team for crying out loud, why do they deserve a spot?

And do you know how many games that is? That's a bloody NFL schedule.

Ok, first of all, I feel any playoff system would have to compliment the bowl system. Most bowls would still remain intact. They wouldn't mean anything, but what exactly do most of them offer in terms of meaning anyhow?

The playoff system would be some hybrid of the conference champions and the highest ranked teams in the BCS standings outside of the others. So the champions of the ACC, SEC, Big East, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 10 plus the 10 other highest ranked teams. In the case of a team like Florida State who was out of the top 16, the worst ranked team outside of the 16 would be the 16th seed.

Look at the matchups you would have and tell me there isn't money in this:
USC v Florida State
Texas v Texas Tech
Penn St v TCU
Ohio State v Alabama
Oregon v LSU
Notre Dame v West Virginia
Georgia v Virginia Tech
Miami v Auburn

That's just the first round! The remaining 8 teams would be paired based on seeding again, like hockey playoffs. All of these teams played, obviously, in bowl games. Give it a second round, a semifinal and a final and you're looking at adding only 7 more games, but we're talking HUGE dollars. Teams in the final would only play 3 additional games. That's not a terrible load, especially considering the current bowl games are already spread out over 3 weeks or so and they're done in plenty of time before classes resume.You really have a point there, the best teams in college football would have to play eachother a lot more often to see if they are really elite. I think a team like WVU would USC or Texas problems. People should want to see that matchup.

IMO, the college football national championship is just as "mythical" as the high school football and basketball national championships USA Today gives out every season. If your sport doesn't have a tournament, then your championship can't be considered anything but mythical. Texas is the best team in college football is an opinion, NOT a fact. IMO.

If a majority of the media members called it a "mythical" national championship, we'd have a tournament before you know it.

The only problem with college football playoff system would be where to play it. March Madness works because Regionals are set in single arenas, with each arena hosting two rounds of whatever bracket it's in. Logistics are preset, regardless of what team makes it.

If you have the lower bowls host the eight games, then smaller schools lose out, since the winners of these games will play in ANOTHER bowl.

If you begin with home field for the best teams, then these games compete with sponsored bowls for TV and media coverage. Bowls will fold.

You cannot regionalize the games, like in basketball, because (unlike courts) it would be dangerous to host two football games in one stadium on the same day.

It all comes down to this...$$$$. There is NO money in Div. II sports. That's why they have a football playoffs.

16 teams in a tournament? That is fucking crazy. There isn't even that many teams worthy enough to play for the title. Florida State is a four loss team for crying out loud, why do they deserve a spot?

And do you know how many games that is? That's a bloody NFL schedule.

And you think there really should be 65 teams in the basketball tournament? Come on.

As for how many games it is, every college team has gone to a 12 game schedule. Add a bowl game and you have 13. With a playoff, just drop the regular back to 11 - that's plenty. The final two teams would play a total of 4 extra games (for a sum of 15) which is only two more games. The 2 teams that lose in the semi's would play 14. All the rest would play the same or fewer. So that argument was shot to hell.

Perhaps some conferences can even do away with the conference championship game and declare their champion based on best conference record. Or perhaps the playoff format lets champions of both divisions in for the conferences with two divisions. I don't know, there would be so much more that would go into it, like any major championship has.
Bottom line is that we had a very clear championship game this year. It's rarely that cut and dry. Maybe Texas could have beaten USC last season. We'll never know between LSU and USC from the previous year. As much as this USC team was hyped, in a true playoff it's very possible that they might not have a single championship if we had a playoff the past three years.

I just think it's wrong for a team that losses 2 or 3 close games to have no shot at all, even of they're quite capable of beating the team that was GIVEN the championship.

And you think there really should be 65 teams in the basketball tournament? Come on.

That's a very poor comparison.


I just think it's wrong for a team that losses 2 or 3 close games to have no shot at all, even of they're quite capable of beating the team that was GIVEN the championship.

Fresno had a shot at beating USC! LETS PUT THEM IN A TOURNAMENT!
7-5 Michigan beat #3 PSU! LETS THROW THEM IN THERE!

First of all, how is that a poor comparison?

Second of all, I showed you what the matchups would have been and neither Fresno State nor Michigan were in there, so you're coming out of left field which does nothing for your argument.

Of all of the teams I mentioned, only one had more than 2 losses and that was Florida State who was in it by way of a conference championship and provided a historic 3OT BCS game against Penn State. Your argument losses ground by the second.

Of those 8 first round games, 2 would be horrible. Can the hoops tournament boast a better ratio? I highly doubt it.

First of all, how is that a poor comparison?

Because college basketball has more games, which means the regular season is not as valuable. College football has 11-12 games which means games are much more valuable.


Second of all, I showed you what the matchups would have been and neither Fresno State nor Michigan were in there, so you're coming out of left field which does nothing for your argument.

Actually, it's not out of left field. You put a bunch of 2-4 loss teams in the tournament because they had a "shot" at beating USC or Texas. Why not throw in Fresno State and Michigan since they've had shots at beating some of the upper tier teams?


Of all of the teams I mentioned, only one had more than 2 losses and that was Florida State who was in it by way of a conference championship and provided a historic 3OT BCS game against Penn State.

Which supports the argument for the BCS, since Florida State wouldn't be competing for anything if there was a REAL tournament in college football.

And of course the game was close. When two defensive oriented teams are going at it, the score will generally be low and close.



Of those 8 first round games, 2 would be horrible. Can the hoops tournament boast a better ratio? I highly doubt it.

Proof of a weak argument is comparing one sport to another. You can't compare two completely different sports. It's stupid.

Now lets be honest here. There are never more than tw-three teams in college football worthy enough to play for the title.

AP TOP 20

3. Penn State - lost to 7-5 Michigan(#3 in the country and losing to a five loss team?)
4. Ohio State - has already proven they don't earn a spot by losing to Texas at home and PSU.
5.WVU - Destoyed at home by Virginia Tech, who lost two games to Miami and FSU.
6. LSU - Didn't they lose to Tennessee? Isn't that team not in a bowl?
7. Virginia Tech - Didn't they get blew out by Miami, who got blew out by LSU, who lost to Tennessee? Didn't they also lose to a 5 loss Florida State team?
8. Alabama - Lost to LSU and a respectable Auburn team.
9. Notre Dame - Already proven they can't hang with the big boys by losing to USC and getting punked by OSU. Not to mention they lost at home to MSU. A national title contender? I think not.
10. Georgia - Losing at home to Auburn does not look good. Neither does losing to a weaker Florida team.
11. TCU - Mid-major who lost to SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY! WOW!
12. Florida - Lost to SCU and got blown to shreds by Alabama.
13. Oregon - Already lost to USC.
14. Auburn - Losing at home to Georgia Tech?
15. Wisconsin - Losing to Northwestern? Losing at home to Iowa?
16. UCLA - Got punked by USC and ARIZONA STATE!
17. Miami - Only put up 7 points in a loss against 5 loss FSU. Lost as home to Georgia Tech. Punked by LSU in the Peach Bowl.


Yeah, those teams sure do deserve a shot at the title. USC and Texas should be very scared of teams who lost to Georgia Tech, Michigan State, and Southern Methodist University.

Some years I would agree with G.W., others not so much. You can't tell me that Auburn didn't deserve a shot last year. You could even make an argument for Utah, they beat every Division I-A team put before them last year pretty convincingly. I'd just eliminate non-conference play, and have a maximum of 8 conference games. You could still have bowls, probably during the week leading up to the national championship. I feel that those 15 playoff games would be infinitely more exciting and fair(most of the time).

Let's be honest, even if TCU beats SMU(which they would 99 out of 100 times) and goes undefeated they're still not playing for the national title unless every other major conference team loses at least 2 games.

Your argument with college basketball is still very flawed. The fact that they have so many more games should actually do far more to help identify which teams are deserving of the tournament and which teams are not.

Seriously, you get teams in March Madness that are 18-12. They lost 40% of their games. And yet you're going to bash teams with 2 losses in 11 or 12 games of football?
Why does the tournament let all those teams in? They know that most of those teams have no shot whatsoever of winning the tourney. They put them in it for money. It sells. One conderella story for a round or two is great. People jump all over that. And how many teams has a team that wasn't a one seed won the thing? Plenty. But don't you think the 4 one seeds could have made the same argument before the tourney that they were clearly a class above, as you say USC and Texas are?

You talked mockingly about USC being afraid of teams that lost to Michigan State (and others). Was your head in your ass for the USC Notre Dame game? Instant classic. You cannot tell me more games like that at the end of the year wouldn't generate HUGE $$$$$ and make the college playoff the envy of all sports.