2009 NCAA Football Thread: Revenge of the Computer Polls

[El_Citrus]

College Football can't afford for a potential BCS playoff to be any more than 8 teams. 4 teams might honestly be the most ideal.

College Football has the most compelling, most exciting regular season in major sports. The reason is because every game matters. Losing just one games puts your ability to make the championship game in major risk. If you allow a 10 team playoff, you start allowing 2 and 3 loss teams a chance to win it all, destroying the best aspect of College Football.

True, but some of the regular season is already thrown out of whack with some teams playing an extra game that they could potentially lose even though they're better than an Ohio State team. The regular season is also flawed in that it's not about if you lose, it's when. Florida lost their game early and charged up the polls after that, whereas a team like USC can go into the final game of their season undefeated, lose, and drop out of title contention even if it was against a strong opponent. Granted, they wouldn't drop out of the top eight, but we'll still hear teams complaining and moaning about being shafted out of the playoffs.

I would eliminate the idea of BCS conferences.

The Mountain West conference last year was stronger than many BCS conferences.

In 2007, the WAC was stronger than the ACC.

I agree completely. Utah and Boise State are handicapped before the season even begins because they're not viewed as a big name conference. I would get rid of the BCS rankings all together, although it's hard to find a way of ranking the teams in an unbiased manner.

So how about a 12 team playoff, with the conference winners of each of the 11 conferences, plus one of the independents with the best record?

If you do that, teams will be scheduling the weakest out of conference schedules possible to beef up their records.

 

[Addendum]

Some schools already do that

 

[Arc-Light]

If you do that, teams will be scheduling the weakest out of conference schedules possible to beef up their records.

Ahh a lot of teams already do that...and have been doing that for years. i would use the NFL system.....well as close to it as possible.

 

[StorminNorman]

True, but some of the regular season is already thrown out of whack with some teams playing an extra game that they could potentially lose even though they're better than an Ohio State team. The regular season is also flawed in that it's not about if you lose, it's when. Florida lost their game early and charged up the polls after that, whereas a team like USC can go into the final game of their season undefeated, lose, and drop out of title contention even if it was against a strong opponent. Granted, they wouldn't drop out of the top eight, but we'll still hear teams complaining and moaning about being shafted out of the playoffs.

I don't buy that. Oklahoma lost in the Big 12 Championship and still made the big game over USC that lost much earlier.

Florida was in the National Championship because they lost one game while playing in the best conference in the country. It had nothing to do with when they lost.

I agree completely. Utah and Boise State are handicapped before the season even begins because they're not viewed as a big name conference. I would get rid of the BCS rankings all together, although it's hard to find a way of ranking the teams in an unbiased manner.

The BCS ratings are fine. Far better than the Coaches Poll.

 

[El_Citrus]

I don't buy that. Oklahoma lost in the Big 12 Championship and still made the big game over USC that lost much earlier.

Florida was in the National Championship because they lost one game while playing in the best conference in the country. It had nothing to do with when they lost.

True, but Oklahoma was hailed as one of the "Greatest College Football Teams of All Time" before choking to Kansas State, and the powers that be weren't about to let one blip affect their potential ratings monster. I do see your point though, as mine's not a strong one at all.

The BCS ratings are fine. Far better than the Coaches Poll.

The BCS uses the coaches poll in it's calculations, along with the AP poll, which is not immune to biased writers from time to time.

Ahh a lot of teams already do that...and have been doing that for years. i would use the NFL system.....well as close to it as possible.

A lot of teams do that already, but are often punished or scrutinized for their weak schedule. If it's only about winning the conference, then we would almost never see some of the big out of conference games. Plus, you'd be giving a playoff spot to a weaker team playing in a weaker conference compared to a team being left out with only one loss to their conference champion.

 

[Addendum]

The teams that are part of Division 1 or FBS that aren't in BCS conferences deserve to compete for the national championship if they have a good enough record.

You don't see the NFL excluding 2 divisions from their playoffs because those 2 happen to be weaker than the other 4.

Besides, constantly excluding them never allows them to get better and stronger, and thereby improving the strength of their conference.

 

[El_Citrus]

The teams that are part of Division 1 or FBS that aren't in BCS conferences deserve to compete for the national championship if they have a good enough record.

You don't see the NFL excluding 2 divisions from their playoffs because those 2 happen to be weaker than the other 4.

Besides, constantly excluding them never allows them to get better and stronger, and thereby improving the strength of their conference.

The NFL also doesn't have 11/12 divisions. The NFL also rewards a great team in a great conference by giving them a wild card spot if they don't win the division yet are better than most other teams. I understand that if they don't get exposure, those teams suffer, but so does a strong team like Texas Tech, or even Texas, if they don't win their conference and are left out, thus a guy like Crabtree or McCoy wouldn't be screwed out of their chance for a title (If this proposed playoff system were in place last year). There are so many more teams in college football that people are going to get screwed out of national titles no matter what system is in place, thus it should be about the best teams making the playoffs.

 

[Addendum]

I never said that the NFL has 11 or 12 divisions. They have 6. All 6 division winners can compete in the NFL playoffs. They don't say tell 2 of them to sit out because they were from a weaker division. Which is precisely what happens with teams that aren't in "BCS conferences" but win their conference.

With a playoff format that includes all the division winners, you get the best from each conference to get the champion. And I consider the conference champ to be the best, not a team that couldn't win it.

 

[El_Citrus]

I never said that the NFL has 11 or 12 divisions. They have 6. All 6 division winners can compete in the NFL playoffs. They don't say tell 2 of them to sit out because they were from a weaker division. Which is precisely what happens with teams that aren't in "BCS conferences" but win their conference.

With a playoff format that includes all the division winners, you get the best from each conference to get the champion. And I consider the conference champ to be the best, not a team that couldn't win it.

They have 8 actually.

I also didn't say the NFL has 11 division, but the NCAA basically does, not including the independents, that includes over 100 different teams.

You also don't see the NFL constantly punishing a team with a good record by not giving them a playoff spot, which the proposed system would do. Yes, the Patriots had an 11-5 record and missed the playoffs, but the NFL doesn't screw over every team with a good/great record that doesn't win their division. I'd rather see Texas and Oklahoma have a rematch than to see Texas vs the Conference USA champ.

If the six non BSC conferences could have their own sub division, I think it could be great, although you have teams like Utah and Boise State that are awesome and deserve a shot at a national title. I don't think there's anyway to fully cure Division-1 controversy without sacrificing the excitement of the regular season, but at least an 8 team playoff is a start.

 

[Addendum]

Why should a team be rewarded for second place?

 

[El_Citrus]

Why should a team be rewarded for second place?

Ask the 2005 Steelers...

 

[StorminNorman]

True, but Oklahoma was hailed as one of the "Greatest College Football Teams of All Time" before choking to Kansas State, and the powers that be weren't about to let one blip affect their potential ratings monster. I do see your point though, as mine's not a strong one at all.

The BCS uses the coaches poll in it's calculations, along with the AP poll, which is not immune to biased writers from time to time.

And deluded with a computer poll.

 

[Addendum]

I honestly think out of 100 teams, the best would be the division winners. Would that be a permanent rule? Probably not as time goes on. But the main focus should be on the conference winners, and then consider adding teams.

That playoff format could still fit into the same time frame that exists for the bowl games, if not shorter.

When the NFL did their realignment, they still kept the main focus on the division winners, by taking away 2 of the wild cards in favor of 2 more division winners.

And even before the addition of wild cards to playoffs in pro sports, the playoffs were mainly for the division winners. As they went on, a couple wild cards were added.

 

[El_Citrus]

And deluded with a computer poll.

The biased Coaches Poll and painfully unbiased Computer Poll cancel each other out basically, leaving only the AP Poll, which isn't immune to bias. It's bad enough the Coaches Poll even has a 33% influence on the rankings.

 

[StorminNorman]

The biased Coaches Poll and painfully unbiased Computer Poll cancel each other out basically, leaving only the AP Poll, which isn't immune to bias. It's bad enough the Coaches Poll even has a 33% influence on the rankings.

I wouldn't consider the polls to knock each other out.

The Coaches Poll, while flawed and...well stupid, isn't as bad as you make it out to be. The majority of these coaches have little to gain from influencing them, so they are not all that much worse than the AP Poll - which is privy to the same human biases.

My father, for example, had an AP vote one week. He voted Georgia (at the time nothing special at all) number one. He was never asked to vote in the poll again.

 

[El_Citrus]

I honestly think out of 100 teams, the best would be the division winners. Would that be a permanent rule? Probably not as time goes on. But the main focus should be on the conference winners, and then consider adding teams.

That playoff format could still fit into the same time frame that exists for the bowl games, if not shorter.

When the NFL did their realignment, they still kept the main focus on the division winners, by taking away 2 of the wild cards in favor of 2 more division winners.

And even before the addition of wild cards to playoffs in pro sports, the playoffs were mainly for the division winners. As they went on, a couple wild cards were added.

Yes, but the NFL only has 32 teams to sort out who's the best, in college football there are over 100 which is a totally different animal. The best teams are the division winners? So a 6-1 Troy, who won the Sun Belt Conference last year and would receive a playoff bid under this system, is better than Texas, or Penn State or Ohio State? It would take decades of this playoff system for a team like Buffalo or Troy to even get a respectable team past the first rounds of the playoffs. Give me the big matchups.

 

[Addendum]

I'll take the NFL over any "big matchup" in college.

 

[El_Citrus]

I wouldn't consider the polls to knock each other out.

The Coaches Poll, while flawed and...well stupid, isn't as bad as you make it out to be. The majority of these coaches have little to gain from influencing them, so they are not all that much worse than the AP Poll - which is privy to the same human biases.

My father, for example, had an AP vote one week. He voted Georgia (at the time nothing special at all) number one. He was never asked to vote in the poll again.

I agree that right now there really isn't anything better out there right now, and the only unbiased way would be to decide it on the field with division winners, but again, I've been arguing my point on how that wouldn't work, so we're stuck with what we have, playoffs or not. I know the six "Lower conferences" wouldn't go for it, but I would make them their own sub division and separate national title, leaving the "Big 6" to fight it out with two "wild card" spots, creating a top eight. You could even have the winners of both sub divisions play in a "National Title Game" even though it would be anticlimactic with the exception of the occasional and very rare shocking upset from a Utah or Boise State.

 

[El_Citrus]

I'll take the NFL over any "big matchup" in college.

The NFL doesn't have to deal with 12 "divisions" (including the independents) spanning 100 teams, some of whom only play 7 or 8 games in their season while others play up to 11. College football is a completely different animal from the NFL and has to be treated as such.

 

[Addendum]

Funny, cause I can look at the standings for this past season on ESPN's website

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/standings

and I see schools that have seasons with 12 games. The only part with 7 or 8 are the conference games.

A playoff format could work in college football. However, everyone involved is too damn scared and prefers the cluster**** with polls, computers, and excluding conferences from winning the title in the division they play in.

I'm glad I quit watching that crap.

Besides, you don't hear the division 2 or division 3 schools that play football complain about the playoff format

 

[FaT_tONle]

Many times there are five teams at the end of the year that have a legitimate case... unless you scrap the undefeated mid-major. Last year you had potentially six teams if not seven teams. That's why 8 teams is ideal. But the scheduling is still difficult. It's hard having three travel weekends crammed into that Holiday break. I still think it's doable though. Especially IF/when the NFL expands to 18 games... you can play the first round the first week of January in the BCS bowl slots.... final four would take place on what used to be Wild Card Weekend... Championship game on what used to be Divisional weekend. Or that Monday following week 19 of the NFL. It's still three travel weekends and I don't know how they'd decide the venues... but I think that is very doable.

 

[RAMORE]

So how about a 12 team playoff, with the conference winners of each of the 11 conferences, plus one of the independents with the best record?

I like this idea but feel it's too much. There should be a BCS type system that ranks all teams in the country regardless of conference and the top 8 at the end of the year are in the playoffs. That's 6 games and then the championship. 4 games one weekend then 2 the next weekend and then wait two weeks and have the championship.

 

[RAMORE]

Also I know the bowl people get mad but you have 6 opportunities to host a bowl each playoff game could be hosted by a bowl on a neutral site, they could bid on who get's to host the championship. The smaller bowls might get mad but they suck anyways.

 

[El_Citrus]

Funny, cause I can look at the standings for this past season on ESPN's website

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/standings

and I see schools that have seasons with 12 games. The only part with 7 or 8 are the conference games.

A playoff format could work in college football. However, everyone involved is too damn scared and prefers the cluster**** with polls, computers, and excluding conferences from winning the title in the division they play in.

I'm glad I quit watching that crap.

Besides, you don't hear the division 2 or division 3 schools that play football complain about the playoff format

Damn wiki only providing the conference records, but anyway.

I agree a playoff format would work much better than what we have now, but look at what Division 2 has, with 16 teams, 16! That's the only way having every conference champion would work, since there plenty of "second place" teams in various conferences who are much more worthy of a playoff spot than some conference champions. If that were to happen, the regular season in college football would become truly meaningless, with teams blatantly trying to schedule the easiest out of conference teams possible, which doesn't happen as often right now.

I agree we need a playoff system, but having only the conference champions would screw plenty of great teams out of a chance for a title.

 

[El_Citrus]

I like this idea but feel it's too much. There should be a BCS type system that ranks all teams in the country regardless of conference and the top 8 at the end of the year are in the playoffs. That's 6 games and then the championship. 4 games one weekend then 2 the next weekend and then wait two weeks and have the championship.

I think that this is the only system that could work with the least controversy.