TCU and Baylor out! Ohio State in!

Exactly! My girl is about a fast.

https://coedmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/hot-baylor-bears-superfans-5.jpg?w=650?w=300&h=175&crop=0

Reading Deficiency wrote:

EXCEPT....you forget that (as the poster clearly pointed out) the Conference championships are effectively quarterfinals....so, there is already an 8 team championship.

No they're not.

No one thinks that Missouri, Arizona, Georgia Tech, or Wisconsin would have made the playoff if they had won their conference title game.

This post right here. OSU and Urban Meyer have the stature that a team like TCU simply lacks. TCU was like 30 seconds from being undefeated this year. They also played in a tougher conference. The committee decided to wash it since Baylor sort of had an argument and beat TCU.

OSU survived many close games, including a Minnesota team that TCU crushed. Impressive that they have done it with three different QBs, but weakest loss (among the three) plus weak conference equals the committee lacked courage and was influenced by money.

An eight team playoff would be fine. Then you likely wouldn't have any major conferences getting shut out and nobody really would have a gripe. Under the current scenario, it's a shame they don't have two play-in games, FSU vs TCU and OSU vs Baylor.

Unfortunately, if OSU gets the tar kicked out of them by the SEC like they usually do, people are, rightfully, going to second guess it. My guess is TCU would've been a better match for Bama, though if nothing had changed, they'd be playing Oregon.

Reading Deficiency wrote:

Enough said, because the real problem for Baylor (and TCU) was the Big 12 in taking a big risk by not scheduling a real Conference championship. They could have been in had they gone undefeated (like FSU) but they tried to take the easy route by scheduling weak OOC, and then skipping a high risk championship game. The Committee did get it right, and a 4 team championship is the best blueprint.

Baylor and TCU didn't "skip" a high risk championship game. That wasn't their decision. And it wasn't the Big 12's decision either. After Colorado & Nebraska left, the conference was left with only 10 teams. When Missouri and A&M left, they were only able to add TCU and WV. The NCAA mandates 12 teams for there to be a conference title game. The next best thing for the Big 12 to do was to have all teams play each other so unlike the Big 12 and SEC, the Big 12 plays nine conference games in the regular season.

No they didn't skip it you are right. However, Baylor especially chose to schedule a TERRIBLE non-conference schedule with the full knowledge that they don't have a championship game at the end of the year to add another quality win. Look at their schedule for the next three years, their out of conference games are a JOKE. Just because someone didn't get in, doesn't mean the system is broken.

"No they're not.

No one thinks that Missouri, Arizona, Georgia Tech, or Wisconsin would have made the playoff if they had won their conference title game."

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So, you do get it now? These 4 conferences laid it on the line. Had the favorite (1 loss or no loss team) been beaten, these conferences would not have had an entry to the semi-final championships. In that event, teams like TCU, Baylor would have snuck into the semi-finals without the risk of a conference championship. And all the whining about not having the opportunity to have a championship (because the Big 12 has only 10 teams) is nothing more than whining. They could have petitioned, or they could have scheduled difficult OOC games....but no, they tried to take the easy way out and slip into the championships. You can bet that the Big 12 will change their ways in the near future. They will find at least two more teams to enter their conference, or they will quit scheduling soft OOC games (heaven knows they already have a few soft games within their conference).

dial it up wrote:

No they didn't skip it you are right. However, Baylor especially chose to schedule a TERRIBLE non-conference schedule with the full knowledge that they don't have a championship game at the end of the year to add another quality win. Look at their schedule for the next three years, their out of conference games are a JOKE. Just because someone didn't get in, doesn't mean the system is broken.

As opposed to who, Ohio State and their almighty OOC schedule? Well, they did schedule Va. Tech. Oh wait.

Baylor never should've been in the conversation to begin with. But you can't drop a TCU team three spots in the last week when they did nothing to deserve it. Recall that TCU beat 8-4 Minn 30-7.

Recall that the Big Ten and the Pac Ten didn't play a conference championship a few short years ago while the SEC and Big 12 did. Then, some of the Big 12 teams left to go to the SEC, and Mizzou, never really a contender for the Big 12 crown but for one year in the last two decades, is in the SEC championship game twice. Baylor played a soft OOC schedule, no question. So did OSU.

Huh? How are these conference title games the first round of the playoffs when only 1 team in them has anything at stake for the playoffs? In what other playoff system do you win and yet not advance? Missouri, Arizona, Georgia Tech, and Wisconsin would not have advanced by winning those title games on Saturday.

Rube wrote:

dial it up wrote:

No they didn't skip it you are right. However, Baylor especially chose to schedule a TERRIBLE non-conference schedule with the full knowledge that they don't have a championship game at the end of the year to add another quality win. Look at their schedule for the next three years, their out of conference games are a JOKE. Just because someone didn't get in, doesn't mean the system is broken.

As opposed to who, Ohio State and their almighty OOC schedule? Well, they did schedule Va. Tech. Oh wait.

Baylor never should've been in the conversation to begin with. But you can't drop a TCU team three spots in the last week when they did nothing to deserve it. Recall that TCU beat 8-4 Minn 30-7.

Not one single person here said OSU didn't play an easy non-conference schedule(most would argue an easy schedule period). But that doesn't matter, OSU isn't the one complaining. If OSU was on the outside looking in, they couldn't complain. Much in the same way Baylor and TCU can't complain. All three teams controlled their own destiny. None of them guaranteed themselves a spot by winning all of their games, so they left it up to someone else to decide.

Another false argument I've heard a lot is that "TCU was 3 so they shouldn't have dropped." Here is the deal, each week the committee does NOT take into account previous ranking. They meet every week and determine the rankings based on resume and how good they think the team is AT THAT TIME. TCU was ahead of Baylor BEFORE Baylor had beaten Kansas State because TCU already had that quality win over Kansas State factored into their resume while #3. Once Baylor had the same quality win, plus the head to head, Baylor moved to #5 and TCU down to #6. OSU posted the most quality win of the weekend and that bumped them from #5 to #4. Nobody 'jumped' anybody. The committee stated prior to all of this beginning that each weeks rankings will be new.

Huh? How are these conference title games the first round of the playoffs when only 1 team in them has anything at stake for the playoffs? In what other playoff system do you win and yet not advance? Missouri, Arizona, Georgia Tech, and Wisconsin would not have advanced by winning those title games on Saturday.[/quote]

You are likely correct, but that isn't and won't be the case each year. I don't subscribe to the fact that conference champs are the first round of the playoffs though. The playoffs are prestigious and hard to get into. Their should be discussion and debate. That is what makes it great.

dial it up wrote:

You are likely correct, but that isn't and won't be the case each year. I don't subscribe to the fact that conference champs are the first round of the playoffs though. The playoffs are prestigious and hard to get into. Their should be discussion and debate. That is what makes it great.

Do you enjoy March Madness? The equivalent to the current football system would be having 10 teams in the NCAA basketball tourney. Do you think this would be great and better than the 64/68 team system? People also debate the last teams in/out, although the implications of those subjective choices by a committee are far less meaningful to the tournament as teams virtually equivalent to the number one seeds aren't left out. And there are objective criteria for qualification. It appears to me that you would support a 10 team NCAA tourney since it would fit your definition of prestigious and hard to get into.

If you would not favor limiting the NCAA tourney to 10 teams (which would've left out 5 or 6 of the previous 10 teams in the final game and 2 of the champions) please explain why it is so great to do so in football.

dial it up wrote:

Their should be discussion and debate. That is what makes it great.

Debate and discussion is great for deciding a champion? Is this working so well that the NFL is considering going to committee selection of 4 teams for its playoffs? Or the NBA? Or MLB?

Champions should be decided on the field. Expand the college playoff to 16 teams.

Buckeye fan here. I would not have had an issue with TCU/Baylor making into this playoff ahead of OSU, though I feel quite certain that OSU beats either team 7 of 10 times on a neutral field. Why? Because in this ridiculous system that has a committee pick qualifiers, they had just as good arguments as OSU did, so we're just parsing here. I also have some sympathy for the fact that neither team is a "brand" and wonder if their bar is higher to get in, and related, how many chances will they have to be in this discussion? OSU on the other hand is only getting better, and if you're a hater now, you're really going to hate them the next few years, this team is well on it's way to be a juggernaut.

Side note: If OSU didn't make it Baylor had to be the choice, they beat TCU, no opinion necessary there.

WWRD wrote:

Buckeye fan here. ... OSU on the other hand is only getting better, and if you're a hater now, you're really going to hate them the next few years, this team is well on it's way to be a juggernaut.

Florida fan here. Get ready for that juggernaut to all come crumbling down when the team is full of criminals running rampant and the OSU police force and AD can no longer convince the Columbus police force to keep sweeping the crimes under the rug. Read up on the criminal record legacy of the UF players under Meyer.

Yeah, there was a hell of a lot of football talent in Gainesville. Enough to beat the hell out of Ohio State, for sure! (sorry, had to get that jab in). But for a guy who preached "character" as much as he did at Utah and then at Florida, he displayed a shocking lack of it and allowed a criminal lack of it to run rampant among the team.

16 > 8 > 4 wrote:

dial it up wrote:

Their should be discussion and debate. That is what makes it great.

Debate and discussion is great for deciding a champion? Is this working so well that the NFL is considering going to committee selection of 4 teams for its playoffs? Or the NBA? Or MLB?

Champions should be decided on the field. Expand the college playoff to 16 teams.

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I agree in part, but think the playoff should go to at least 32 teams, and maybe 64.

If it went only to 32 teams, we could use 16 of the top bowl games as qualifiers. Then with the 16 winners, we would have the "play-in games" to qualify for the quarterfinals. The quarterfinals would be the 8 best teams (4 games), then the semi's (2 games) and then the finals. Assuming a normal 12 game season, only two teams would play an extra 5 games.

If people are concerned that some teams would be playing 16 or 17 games going into February, the regular season could be shortened by having two games during a few of the weeks.

If it went to a playoff of the top 32 or 64 teams, there wouldn't be too much bitching about leaving out teams like TCU who think they have a chance to be national champions. At least with a 64 team playoff, we wouldn't have teams scheduling weak OOC games. The regular season could be used as kind of a "warm up" for the real season - the playoffs. To be fair, anyone with a winning record should be included in the playoff format.

16 is okay if the regular season is 11 or 12 games. With 32 games the regular season should be limited to 11 games.

With 16 teams there are 15 games, so 15 of the current bowls would host playoff games.

With 32 teams there are 31 games, so 31 of the current bowls would host playoff games. Only a couple of current bowls (the tidy bowl, etc.) would lose out.

I suppose I'd be ok with a 64 team format, but to deny a team with a losing, or even, record is unfair. Who can say that a late-blooming team can't win the championship? Let's say Maryland starts off with a team full of freshmen. They may lose most of their games while those freshmen mature, but by the end of the season they could be a great team. In order to allow late-blooming team an opportunity, a Committee should be formed to pick 8 or 16 late-bloomers, for a Play-in series. Theoretically, an 0-12 team could be selected to the Play-in and eventually win the NC. It is unfair to deny them that chance.

64 game format

There, amazingly, 128 FBS teams, the maths is perfect :-)

Every friggin' team makes the playoffs :0)

9-10 season games limit

teams with the best season records get to play bottom-dwellers in the first round

start the playoffs in December. End in mid Jan.