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re: Is the Playoff ruining CFB or is it a symptom of a bigger problem?
Posted on 12/21/20 at 10:43 am to mikehoncho69
Posted on 12/21/20 at 10:43 am to mikehoncho69
The root cause is national championship obsession. The primary ill-effect that has is the degradation of the regular season.
If you make it 8 teams or 16 teams playoffs, then how many games are Bama/Clemson/OSU allowed to lose while still inevitably "getting in"?
The beauty of the BCS/pre-BCS era was that teams could ill-afford to lose a single game. It wasn't perfect - timing of your loss mattered, but it was way better than now. Now you have non-conference champs getting in on the regular.
Why was it so important to have that "can't lose a game" quality? Because it made it much more enthralling for the fans of both the contending teams and the spoiler teams.
The ACC & SEC championship games literally didn't matter this weekend. If Bama had lost they still would have gotten in (more debatable if Florida), and we saw a one-sided affair in ACC championship and both teams are in. How is that anything but bad for the in-game drama and experience? Expanding it to 8/16 teams only makes things worse.
While I hate to say it, group of 5 needs its own championship, league and goals. They are the only compelling reason for expanding the playoffs but it just isn't worth it with all of the faults national-championship obsession has created.
TLDR
The "cause" is a misguided obsession with crowning a NC out of 130 teams
The first symptom which made things worse was putting a playoff together with a committee that has demonstrated for all to see they are about ratings
The worse thing you could do is throw more logs in that fire.
If you make it 8 teams or 16 teams playoffs, then how many games are Bama/Clemson/OSU allowed to lose while still inevitably "getting in"?
The beauty of the BCS/pre-BCS era was that teams could ill-afford to lose a single game. It wasn't perfect - timing of your loss mattered, but it was way better than now. Now you have non-conference champs getting in on the regular.
Why was it so important to have that "can't lose a game" quality? Because it made it much more enthralling for the fans of both the contending teams and the spoiler teams.
The ACC & SEC championship games literally didn't matter this weekend. If Bama had lost they still would have gotten in (more debatable if Florida), and we saw a one-sided affair in ACC championship and both teams are in. How is that anything but bad for the in-game drama and experience? Expanding it to 8/16 teams only makes things worse.
While I hate to say it, group of 5 needs its own championship, league and goals. They are the only compelling reason for expanding the playoffs but it just isn't worth it with all of the faults national-championship obsession has created.
TLDR
The "cause" is a misguided obsession with crowning a NC out of 130 teams
The first symptom which made things worse was putting a playoff together with a committee that has demonstrated for all to see they are about ratings
The worse thing you could do is throw more logs in that fire.
This post was edited on 12/21/20 at 10:46 am
1
Posted on 12/21/20 at 12:29 pm to Swoopin
quote:
If you make it 8 teams or 16 teams playoffs, then how many games are Bama/Clemson/OSU allowed to lose while still inevitably "getting in"?
I've often said that all these people wanting 16 will be pissed when they see Alabama get in 20 years in a row. They'll be pissed when a #15 Alabama wins it all.
quote:
The "cause" is a misguided obsession with crowning a NC out of 130 teams
The misguided obsession is with several of those schools who used to be FCS or what was Division II but made the jump to chase those dollars. Appy State, Troy, Ga State, Ga Southern, Liberty, etc, etc. They could have all chosen to stay right where they were.
This post was edited on 12/21/20 at 12:33 pm
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