re: Do you prefer BCS or 4 team playoff system?

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-killed the stupid "BCS Bowl" concept, Hell it killed the value of bowls completely and exposed them as the exhibition games they have really been for decades

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This is what they originally were, and especially so in the 40s-60s

Then people whined when titles were awarded prior to bowl games, and coaches had to change from not really preparing for them (they were much more like vacations for players) and spend most of that time practicing.

4 teams is better than 2. The only thing is that soon 4 will be come 8 and then 8 will be come 16. It should stay at 4, and it should never go higher than 6. Ever.

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Why does everyone always fault LSU? Oklahoma had just gotten blown out by Kansas St. in their conference championship. Your statement should read, Oklahoma got in over USC.

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This Oklahoma got their doors blown off 35-7 in the Big 12 championship game against Kansas State. They were the team that didn't deserve to get it. Honestly, it sucked not getting to see the USC/LSU matchup, but at the end of the day, a split champion was probably the best outcome of that gaffe by the BCS. I feel like 2003 was the year the "quality win" metric was removed. The human polls both had Oklahoma at #3 after the conference championship games

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This is what they originally were, and especially so in the 40s-60s

Then people whined when titles were awarded prior to bowl games, and coaches had to change from not really preparing for them (they were much more like vacations for players) and spend most of that time practicing.

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The real problem is the leaders of the sport have different priorities than fans of the sport. Therefore in each era when the leaders of the sport enacted changes those changes had unintended consequences (for them) due to how their priorities differed from fan priorities:

-Fans of the sport want clear winners with real rewards. They want the regular season to feed into some sort of setup (BCS, playoffs, etc.) to declare undebatable winners so they can brag about it and so it's easy to tell if their program had a "great" season or not.

-Leaders of the sport want more nebulous rewards and debatable winners. They don't mind sharing national titles or going to theoretically worthless bowls because that lowers the bar for a successful season (and therefore makes their life easier).

When leaders rolled out bowl games, as you said it was seen as a vacation and a reward for a great regular season. But fans wanted more, so over time the bowls split into tiers (so we can tell who had the better season compared to someone else's good season) and eventually they became the point of the season. The leaders never wanted that, but that is what they got and by the time the BCS rolled around those tiers became officialized. Suddenly we had three bowl tiers- normal, BCS and national title- which is far beyond the original intent for the bowls.

When the leaders gave us the playoffs their intention was to expand the tier of "great" bowls to try and undo the effect the BCS system had on bowls (where only the BCS bowls were respected). They expected the creation of four bowl tiers- normal, non-playoff playoff games (basically what BCS bowls were), playoff games, and the national title. But what happened was as soon as we had the playoffs ALL bowls not part of that system became worth less to fans and we fell back into three tiers (normal, playoff and national title). It was obvious as a fan that was going to happen but they couldn't see it.

If the leaders ever go to 8 playoff games they will do so to try one last time to get into a four tier system (normal, semi-finals, quarter-finals, national title) because that lowers the bar for what is a successful season. What we have today is the exact opposite of what the leaders wanted from the playoff system, because now only 4 teams can have a great season. At the end of the BCS 10 teams had a "great" season, so the numbers of possible great seasons have been cut by more than half in the playoff system. That is a disaster for the leaders of the sport, because fans of teams that don't have a great season might demand they be fired for their program not reaching that higher bar.

If we get an 8 game playoff it won't because that is the most fair system or some BS like that, it will be because 8 games means that the number of possible great season per year doubles which means the leaders don't have to work as hard to cash their fat paychecks.

tl:dr - the leaders of the sport are incredibly myopic and fans make them soon regret changes to the format

Consolidate the Power 5 conferences into four super conferences with 16 teams each. Each conference has a championship game at the end of the season. Each champion goes to a 4 team play-off against the other conference champs. That's the ideal way to do it. There's no human judgement involved and each champ earned it on the field.

Will it ever happen? I doubt it for two reasons:

1) Mid-major schools (Boise States of the world) will bitch since it's unlikely they would be a member of one of the four conferences.

2) They're going to do whatever makes ESPN and CBS the most money. That means the play-off committee wants to pick the games that will get the highest RATINGS and not necessarily what is fair.

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Do you prefer BCS or 4 team playoff system? by TeLeFaWx 12 Team playoff. Byes for the top 4. Autobids for the top 2 conferences to the byes. Autobids for top 6 conferences overall. 5 highest ranked power 5 at large team and highest ranked at large group of 5 team.

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There's no way that bracket would work. 6 seed has to play the 7 but the 9 gets to play the 12?

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Scrap this whole "committee" BS.

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Committee has had some wonky rankings in between, but they have nailed the final 4 both years so far.

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BCS system with a 4 team playoff


Scrap this whole "committee" BS. Let the computers pick the top 4 for the playoffs

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Nailed it.

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I don't think LSU and Bama play for the natty in 2011 if there was a committee

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They do. Both make the playoff. LSU is 1. OkSU and Bama are 2 or 3, the order of those two comes into question when trying to determine what the committee would do. But if Bama beats OkSU you get LSU vs. Bama.

eta - The uproar was that Bama got a shot at LSU automatically over other teams. If Bama was one of the 4 teams in a playoff, and beats OkSU in a semifinal to play their way into the final, no uproar.

4 team