re: CFB is in serious need of more variety

Certain programs an administrations need to get better. I'm looking at you Florida State, USC, Nebraska, Texas, Florida, Penn State etc. Just 2 or 3 good programs kill interest in most parts of the country. Can't fault Alabama for being good every year as is Clemson and Ohio State. Get better Michigan.

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Everything was fine until Alabama started dominating.

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As always.

It's funny because so many rules have been made trying to hurt Alabama.

Take the whole bowl games argument in 1964.

Alabama won the national championship, then lost the bowl game. As a result, the AP changed it's format to after the bowl games.

But Alabama wasn't the first team to lose the bowl game after. Notre Dame didn't even play in bowl games. It was only a problem because Alabama got the benefit.

And the funniest part of it is, the very next year Alabama was not #1 going into the bowl game, then Alabama wins it's bowl game and ends up #1 for the 2nd year in a row.

All this is happening and the coaches poll is like, nah we gonna keep doing it before bowl games. Then in the early 70's, Alabama loses a bowl game after and suddenly the coaches poll has to change also. Again Alabama wasn't the first for this to happen with, but it was only a problem when Alabama does it.

Fast forward tot he early 90s. While the rule changes weren't because of Alabama, Alabama was the winner of the first SECCG, and then goes on to get the ball rolling with the bowl alliance and played #1 Miami to end the year. That set the BCS in motion.

Then we have the dark ages. The SEC during the BCS era was pushing for a +1(what we have now), but the other conferences, especially the Pac and Big10 are like NO. The ACC is the only conference to side with the SEC.

But then we get Alabama and LSU in 2011 and suddenly they want the playoffs to prevent things.

Playoffs come, Alabama still dominates and we get shitty threads and people saying this.

I guess some things will never change. They will never learn that it doesn't matter what format you have, the best teams are going to continue to be the best teams. Highs and lows will happen, but overall the top teams will remain the same.

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The other leagues traditional powers or at least schools that have histories of having a great team every 4-5 years are all just not even close to being good enough to do that.

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Eventually we need to realize we are now 21 years into the new millennium and these traditional powers, for the most part, haven't done shite for more than 2 decades now.

You could have made the playoffs a 16 team group and we would have ended with 3 of those 4 in the final 4. The ONLY change that would create true parity would be to limit scholarships to something like 70. This would spread out the talent and elevate middle class programs.

That’s never going to happen so just expand the playoffs to 8 so nobody can complain and get it over with.

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Agreed - but nobody has really stepped into their space.

The only "new" national powers since the early 1990s almost exclusively reside in the SEC - outside of maybe Oregon. Nobody in the B1G has risen to consistently be good. Nobody in the BXII. Nobody with maybe the exception of Oregon in the P12.

So the SEC has added LSU/Florida (with teams like Auburn/A&M also showing the ability) and the rest have just kind of been consolidated by the remaining old powers.

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The SEC really is the only conference advancing. Saban has been rising the tide which has made the rest of us have to be more competitive. We as a conference wouldn't be nearly where we are now if Saban didn't come to LSU, and then off to Alabama.

I was hoping for the good of the sport Clemsons rise would force the other ACC teams to get it together in the same way. We are seeing Miami start to get their shite together, UNC, but who else? And are these just flashes in the pan... meanwhile, the worst SEC teams will take games off the top dogs in the other conferences.

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College football has never had more "variety". It's always been cyclical between programs with the occasional teams like Clemson having brief stints at the top.

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Not true. If you go way back into the 1930s and 1940s, you had programs like Minnesota and Army winning multiple national titles. Texas A&M and TCU both won a title in the 1930s.

In the 1950s, Syracuse, UCLA, Maryland, Auburn, and LSU all won their only titles or their only title for the next 40+ years.

The 1960s-70s were the only time in which there was very little parity.

The 1980s and 1990s, power again was very spread out with a multitude of different programs winning either their first title or their first in several decades.

Now once again, we've returned to how it was in the 1960s and '70s in which the same handful of teams dominate every year. It's not "always been this way". It was this way in the 1960s and '70s only up until 2014... the same year we got the Playoff. What a coincidence.

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The problem is the young people seem to think only the playoffs are important.

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Apparently it's not just the young people. It's also the millions of people who used to annually watch the Title Game but have turned it off in recent years. It's also the players who are opting out of bowl games. These "young people" aren't just going to grow up and find a sudden appreciation for the Cheez-it bowl later in life. The sport has evolved to the point that no one cares to watch the same teams play in the Playoff, and the postseason games not apart of the Playoff are meaningless, so once again not many people care to watch.

It is what it is, and unless changes are made, it will continue to be this way.

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The bowl series ran a lot more years than that. Why the random 1984- and the 25 year gap from 90?

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Yes it did - because
(a) it lines up with the playoff timeline and the 1980s are thought of as the most variety of teams winning titles and
(b) I didn't want to count that much

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Starting in the 60's to end of bowl series would give a much more realistic picture and include several more SEC teams.

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Well, part of the discussion is that the scholarship reductions played a big part in starting the parity of the 1980s, so thats kind of why I started there.

The ACC has a major fan apathy problem. Too many private schools and metro schools with small, often disinterested fanbases. We have one Vandy. They have like 5.

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1984-1990 CFP Trips
Miami - 6
Oklahoma - 4
Penn State - 2
Colorado - 2
FSU - 2
Notre Dame - 2
Michigan - 1
BYU - 1
Florida - 1
Georgia Tech - 1
Texas - 1
WVU - 1
Iowa - 1
Syracuse - 1
Washington - 1


2014-2020 CFP Trips
Alabama - 6
Clemson - 6
Ohio State - 4
Oklahoma - 4
Notre Dame - 2
LSU - 1
Oregon - 1
Georgia - 1
Michigan St - 1
FSU - 1
Washington - 1

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Everyone wanted it to be #1 vs #2 and do away with the randomness of the bowls.

Then everyone wanted a 4 team playoff.

All that did was make for fewer unique titles, because as you said before - a lot of teams have won national championships in the past that would never have survived a playoff.

Hell, I can think of a few times when schools might very well have MORE titles if there had been.
1966 - Alabama definitely has a legit shot at winning a playoff.
1977 - Easily Alabama
1983 - Auburn probably wins one in a playoff

And so on. I doubt BYU or Colorado has a title to their name, probably sacrificed on the altar of Miami.

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So how did these same teams that are winning their conference every single year amass such an advantage over everyone else in their leagues?

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Not sure you can blame recruiting on all of this. Clemson started dominating the ACC well before they began dominating the ACC in recruiting. Up until about 3 years ago Clemson was not even recruiting at Florida State's level.

Ohio State clearly has the best talent in the B10, but whose fault is that? That hasn't always been the case. Michigan used to recruit at an elite level. Penn State recruits at a very high level. Those schools should be able, in the current system, to win conference titles every 3-4 years instead of Ohio State.

I'm not opposed to some sort of scholarship reduction (though it will never happen because the optics are AWFUL), but I'm not sure it's going to do a whole lot except make the SEC THAT much better. The last 7 guys in Alabama and Georgia's class are just going to go to Tennessee and Ole Miss. They aren't going to go to Virginia or Illinois. So, all this would do is strengthen/spread out the regional dominance of the South, IMHO.

And there is nothing you can do to change that, outside of forcing kids to go plays at places they don't want to play.