re: 12 Team Playoff

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I’m curious how far you extend this. This seems inconsistent with your staunch defense of the MLS, one of the only closed leagues in the world, on the soccer board.

Do you think each European teams should get only one Champions League qualifier or that the Cyprus league champions should qualify straight to the group stage? Do you think a USL champion should have a shot over a MLS third place team?

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His model might be the only way the US qualifies for the WC in the near future

In the end money will prevail and it will not be about the best in the sport being crowned.

Expand it to whatever you want but I am never going to watch BYU or some G5 team play OSU in some opening bracket game. I could care less.

I do not care how good a G5 champ may look but they play a JV schedule during the season. And the same could be said for some P5 teams. Not all are equal.

The 4 team playoff has showed us that usually there are 3 worthy and we need a 4th team to fill the 4th slot and nothing more.

As long as conference tie-ins guarantee a team in, the playoff system will be crap.

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No, they have to go through the qualifying rounds, which to a lesser extent could be viewed as not getting a bye in this 12 team playoff.

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But your argument is an 8-5 G5 conference champion deserves preference over any non-champion from a better conference. So how are you okay with the third place Premiership team being preferred to a Cyprus champion?

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I think we can agree that the 10th place EPL team is likely better than the 1st place team in Cyprus. Are you suggesting that the EPL should get 10 teams in Champions League before Cyprus gets one?

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I didn’t say anything about who was better. I think a 10-2 P5 team is more deserving than a 8-5 G5 champion who just pulled in an upset in a conference title game. I also think an 11-1 American or MW team or undefeated Belt team is more deserving than a 9-3 P5 team despite probably being less talented.

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In what competition?

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They should all be allowed to join MLS under your premise that every conference champion deserves to go to a playoff. How can you support an open competition in one and not the other?

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In this scenario, MLS is FBS, and USL is FCS/D2.

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This is a terrible comparison. The FBS is open to any team that can meet the criteria to join which are pretty easy to meet. The MLS excludes anyone who won’t pony up the laughable expansion fee, so it can balance the books.

I think the only aspect of this I truly hate is the home games for the bottom 8 teams only.

The entire "wild card" and 2nd ound should be on campus. Do that and I think I'm ok with all this.

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You're essentially arguing over who the 12th team is. I'm definitely taking the conference champ over the 3rd place in the division.

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If the team that won their conference also lost to 2 middle of the pack Power 5 teams and lost 2 games in their league then it's resonable to argue they don't deserve to be in a playoff for the national championship.

I like the idea of creating a path to a national title for a G5 team in the Top 10 or something (Cincy, BYU, UCF in 2017).... but every G5 conference champ doesn't need to be in a tournament. Their requirement is to win all their games, not just their conference. I think that's pretty fair. 1-2 G5 teams a year, generally probably a AAC team and then whichever other G5 team had an incredible year (Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, Boise, BYU, etc all examples from prior years). They'd then go play a road game at a 10-2 Florida or something for their first game.

If you are Miami (OH) and you lose to 7-5 Purdue by 24 and 6-6 Michigan State by 14 along with a loss to Kent State and Central Michigan then I don't think you deserve to be in the national championship playoff. But if that same Miami (OH) team beat Purdue and Michigan State and went 8-0 in the MAC and 13-0 overall? Put them in.

The main thing that is good, to be, is that every school can reasonably go into the season saying "we control our own destiny". I don't like having all these schools in the same division because it's silly, but if we're going to have everyone there then I do think everyone deserves a shot (as narrow as it may be) to feel reasonably sure there is an actual path to win a national title

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I don't like having all these schools in the same division because it's silly, but if we're going to have everyone there then I do think everyone deserves a shot (as narrow as it may be) to feel reasonably sure there is an actual path to win a national title

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Yes I think with the consolation prize of a major bowl becoming insignificant this had to happen. The dream would be a promotion relegation system whereby every team could earn their way into a major conference, but I’m not naive enough to believe that will ever happen.

I don’t really think the P5 will ever just be able to “split off” either. It’d end up in an antitrust lawsuit they’d probably lose because government entities excluding other government entities arbitrarily is questionable at best, and even the NFL technically lost an antitrust suit.

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You just listed 2 leagues with certain requirements to join

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You’re being intentionally obtuse here and didn’t answer any of the questions. There’s no comparison between a set of perfectly reasonable requirements and an entry process like the MLS.

Anyone who can field a football team with a modicum of support can get in FBS. Even if a city like Birmingham went to MLS with $300M, they aren’t letting in the Legion.

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like the idea of creating a path to a national title for a G5 team in the Top 10 or something (Cincy, BYU, UCF in 2017).... but every G5 conference champ doesn't need to be in a tournament. Their requirement is to win all their games, not just their conference. I think that's pretty fair. 1-2 G5 teams a year, generally probably a AAC team and then whichever other G5 team had an incredible year (Western Michigan, Northern Illinois, Boise, BYU, etc all examples from prior years). They'd then go play a road game at a 10-2 Florida or something for their first game.

If you are Miami (OH) and you lose to 7-5 Purdue by 24 and 6-6 Michigan State by 14 along with a loss to Kent State and Central Michigan then I don't think you deserve to be in the national championship playoff. But if that same Miami (OH) team beat Purdue and Michigan State and went 8-0 in the MAC and 13-0 overall? Put them in.

The main thing that is good, to be, is that every school can reasonably go into the season saying "we control our own destiny". I don't like having all these schools in the same division because it's silly, but if we're going to have everyone there then I do think everyone deserves a shot (as narrow as it may be) to feel reasonably sure there is an actual path to win a national title

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The problem as you pointed out not all things are equal and since the decision to expend will be totally based on TV money we will not see system that rewards the best teams in the end.

I would no issue if we found a similar way to rank teams like the old BCS system. Give weight to P5 teams who play a tougher schedule do to conference games. Also devalue any P5 team that plays a FBS game. I mean I do not care what a G5 team did including going undefeated in the regular season and winning their CCG. In the end they will still not play any game near as tough as the SEC CG. So a loss in the SEC title game probably should hold more value then a win in a G5 CG.

In the end add weight where needed and the top 8 teams(or 12) get in based on what they did the whole season. The whole concept of the playoff committee is suppose to be what a team did over the course of the whole season not the last game in the conference championship. Just because a teams gets an upset in the CG their 8-5 overall record should not be ignored.

So if a conference has 4 teams in the top whatever they get 4 teams. In the end you will probably still have the possibility of a P5 being left out. If a G5 wants in they have to finish in top 8 or 12 as well and if that meant more than 1 so be it.

To make games mean something I would love to see higher seeds home field advantage. Forget these neutral site games. Leave the money in the towns that support the program all year. At least thru the semis.

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Let's go over the 2 requirements you mentioned.

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Are there criteria to join FBS and MLS? Yes. The difference is FBS has a set criteria that anyone can reach. MLS has a criteria where the league can pick out who it wants regardless of what a team or set fans do.

It’s like at Alabama I was given a specific scholarship for being a national merit scholar. At Vanderbilt, the scholarship was variable based on things like interviews, extracurriculars, race, gender, first generation college student, etc.

One is set and anyone can, in theory, attain - although intelligence is largely out of a person’s control. One is unclear and may be unattainable.

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How are you still trying to compare college to pro sports? They are completely different animals.

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The point, which you continuously refuse to explain, is that on one hand you’re supporting an open system for CFB - Every conference champion should make it regardless of conference strength, general strength of schedule, talent, etc.

And on the other hand endorsing a system in MLS or any US professional league that excludes almost everyone based on things that don’t even happen on the field.

Personally, I don’t like the format of any US professional league. I think every league and CFB should work like soccer leagues where any city/university that wants to field a team can, and if they field the best team, they earn their way into the top level. I understand that won’t happen, so I believe G5 teams deserve some realistic chance to compete for a national title now that there isn’t a valued consolation.

That’s a consistent viewpoint. Being critical of CFB for not allowing every conference champion into a playoff, but not being critical of MLS or any other league for not allowing teams to even join the league based on unset criteria, does not make sense to me.