"The new format would have the highest ranked conference champions from the SEC, BIG10, BIGXII, PAC-12, ACC and Mountan West."
It's not specific conferences that get auto-bids, it's just the six highest-rated champs. And in recent years, more often than not that 6th spot would go to the American Athletic Conference, not the MWC.
I read that as the highest ranked (champ), of each conference listed, get's one of the auto bids. You're not going to get 3 from the SEC and none from the PAC12 or Mountain West.
Correct, the six highest-ranked teams that are also conference champions get auto-bids.
So almost always the champions of the Power 5 conferences will all get in, except for weird situations like the 2020 COVID year (Pac-12 would have been out). That leaves one more auto-bid for the champion of a Group of 5 conference. Just basing this off the Playoff Committee's rankings, I think every year since 2017 a bid would have gone to the American Conference champion.
You see, I read this as the highest ranked champion of each conference is in and then the at large invites would be for a situation like in the SEC or Big Ten where the runner up is still ranked in the top 6.
There will be 12 teams in the playoff. 6 will be conference champions and 6 will be at-large. They'll probably just fill them in by ranking, though the requirement is that the top 4 seeds with byes have to be conference champions.
Yes, it's good, but I read something that made me think differently and not sure where I read it. But my take was that the top ranked team/champ from each of these conferences automatically qualified: ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC12, and Mountain West. The other six were at large bids. I could be wrong, but that was the impression I received from what I read. The next part was that the top four ranked teams, irrespective of whether they are conference Champs or not, get a first round bye. So if the SEC or Big Ten has a second place team ranked in the top 4, they would get an at large bid and a first round bye. This now makes a repeat of the time that Bama lost to Georgia in the SEC championship but still made the final 4 (and won the Natty) a legitimate outcome. A number of Conference champs will not be ranked in the top 6. I could very easily see the Big 12, the PAC12 and the Mountain West have conference champs that are not top 6, but the only way they are getting those conferences to buy into this deal is if they each get at least one automatic berth, right? Why buy into a playoff scenario where your conference champion my never be ranked high enough to compete in the playoff? If it were just about rankings they would take teams ranked 1 thru 12. Remember Occam's razor.
I don't get why you keep insisting that the Mountain West has 1 of 6 auto bids. Nobody has said this, and even if there were 6 auto bids, it would be much more likely for the AAC to get it than the Mountain West.
This part is also wrong: "The next part was that the top four ranked teams, irrespective of whether they are conference Champs or not, get a first round bye", you must be a conference champ to get a first round bye.
I think you should attempt to track down who put this info out there, because they are spreading misinformation.
Hi Bob, I very well could have this wrong. I'm just posting what I read a while back on some sports page (Yahoo Sports I think). It could be incorrect or out of date at this point. But what I wrote is my takeaway from the article. And yes, the ACC would be a very logical conference to include.
Everything I'm reading says the six champions are merely the six highest ranked champions regardless of conference metrics. So the MWC certainly isn't guaranteed a spot, and neither is the PAC for that matter.
Going through the current CFP history, the PAC has averaged 1.5 teams per year that would make the new playoffs.
This is correct, no conference is "guaranteed" a spot, just the 6 highest-ranked champions. In recent years (besides the weird 2020 COVID year), that would basically mean all the Power 5 champions plus one G5 champion, and actually the American Athletic Conference would get that last spot more often than any other G5 conference.
Yes, but there are more than 6 conferences. So it's possible for any conference to have its champion ranked low enough to miss getting in the playoff (granted, a much lower chance for the Power 5 conferences).
The Power 5 conferences are probably confident that they'll pretty much always be able to produce a champion that's good enough to be in the Top 12 (which is generally true), and the Group of 5 conferences are happy to just get a foot in the door.
Having the players invested certainly strips away any pretense. Though we may see an equilibrium that looks like baseball with 2 "major league" conferences and a bunch of more traditional feeling "minor league" conferences.
Of course, we need major league money to finance the stadium debt.
I am nostalgic for the old way, no doubt. But I'll adapt as long as the California Golden Bears are playing.
Ding, ding, ding!! We have a winner! Cincinnati is now in the Big12 so it will be Boise State or SDSU as that sacrificial lamb.
Football has far fewer upsets than basketball.
This will be nothing more than the the SEC/Big10 tournament with a few little sisters of the poor to be slaughtered. This will be nothing like March Madness.
But all major conferences now have guaranteed post season revenue and visibility. That's step one, and then competing for the NC comes after with better recruiting as a result.
Think this might put a slight damper on the regular season, but more than likely reduces the number of bowl season “opt-outs”. Curious to see if it will be worth the trade-off.
Question: Does this mean that all schools will have to cut back on the number of regular season games? We are starting to creep towards NFL schedules in college football.
Are athletes opposed to longer schedules, especially with the recent changes? I'm sure some profs will be bent out of shape having to accommodate the players' travel schedule but I doubt their opinion carries much weight.
Agreed, at least for the ones getting paid. Presumably some NIL agreements may even have incentives for postseason appearances.
Not sure how things will shake out for the regulars who aren't getting a check. I'm guessing there's an effort to get them some remuneration as well so as to maintain some harmony.
I'm sure youll find a wide range of thoughts on this. From the Cal players ive interacted they would be fired up to play in this format since they are such big time competitors.
That is what I would expect. I think many athletes have felt that the jump from high school to college is a graduation from amateur to professional. With the system being less exploitative they're ready to build their careers (via NIL dollars or promotion by transfer).
nope this is supposed to start after the regular season. since there still needs to be a minimum for the rest of the teams. and we'll still have bowl games.
Why? If the PAC12 has a seat in the Playoffs every year and we don't have to beat OSU, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan St., Penn State, Iowa and more. Why would you want to turn college sports from a regional game, for all sports programs, to one where every athlete needs to take LONG roads trips and be away from class for potentially weeks at a time?
Plus not being relegated to a "minor league" conference means we can have a better shot at higher quality recruits and/or not so easily lose better performing players to the portal.
The American and Mountain West are the strongest G5 conferences, but never say never about the others. Check out 2016: Western Michigan of the MAC went undefeated and would likely have been selected to a 12-team field.
We've basically had a Power Five and a Group of Five since 2013, the first year after the Big East and WAC collapsed as football conferences and when the American Athletic Conference was formed.
As far as I can tell, the American would have gotten a berth 7 times (2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), the Mountain West once (2014), the MAC once (2016), and the Sun Belt once (2020). NOTE: 2020 would have been the only year when two G5 teams made the playoff, as the Pac-12 would not have had a qualifying team in its shortened season. That year is probably not representative of the norm.
Great news!!!
Should correct this part:
"The new format would have the highest ranked conference champions from the SEC, BIG10, BIGXII, PAC-12, ACC and Mountan West."
It's not specific conferences that get auto-bids, it's just the six highest-rated champs. And in recent years, more often than not that 6th spot would go to the American Athletic Conference, not the MWC.
I read that as the highest ranked (champ), of each conference listed, get's one of the auto bids. You're not going to get 3 from the SEC and none from the PAC12 or Mountain West.
Correct, the six highest-ranked teams that are also conference champions get auto-bids.
So almost always the champions of the Power 5 conferences will all get in, except for weird situations like the 2020 COVID year (Pac-12 would have been out). That leaves one more auto-bid for the champion of a Group of 5 conference. Just basing this off the Playoff Committee's rankings, I think every year since 2017 a bid would have gone to the American Conference champion.
2021 - Cincinnati (4 seed)
2020 - Cincinnati (8 seed)
2019 - Memphis (12 seed)
2018 - UCF (8 seed)
2017 - UCF (12 seed)
You see, I read this as the highest ranked champion of each conference is in and then the at large invites would be for a situation like in the SEC or Big Ten where the runner up is still ranked in the top 6.
There will be 12 teams in the playoff. 6 will be conference champions and 6 will be at-large. They'll probably just fill them in by ranking, though the requirement is that the top 4 seeds with byes have to be conference champions.
So if we go by last year's rankings: https://collegefootballplayoff.com/rankings.aspx
The tournament would look like this:
1 Alabama (12-1, SEC Champ) - bye
8 Ole Miss (10-2, at-large) vs. 9 Oklahoma State (11-2, at-large)
4 Baylor (11-2, Big 12 Champ) - bye
5 Georgia (12-1, at-large) vs. 12 Pittsburgh (11-2, ACC Champ)
3 Cincinnati (13-0, AAC Champ) - bye
6 Notre Dame (11-1, at-large) vs. 11 Utah (10-3, Pac-12 Champ)
2 Michigan (12-1, Big 10 Champ) - bye
7 Ohio State (10-2, at-large) vs. 10 Michigan State (10-2, at-large)
(That little Big Ten mini-tournament might need to be broken up down there, but that's just taking the rankings as they were.)
So Notre Dame will never get a bye in this new system even if they are ranked in top 4?
If they’re in the top 12, they’ll always get a bye just before the playoffs because they don’t have to play in a conference championship game.
Yes, that's correct.
Yes, it's good, but I read something that made me think differently and not sure where I read it. But my take was that the top ranked team/champ from each of these conferences automatically qualified: ACC, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC12, and Mountain West. The other six were at large bids. I could be wrong, but that was the impression I received from what I read. The next part was that the top four ranked teams, irrespective of whether they are conference Champs or not, get a first round bye. So if the SEC or Big Ten has a second place team ranked in the top 4, they would get an at large bid and a first round bye. This now makes a repeat of the time that Bama lost to Georgia in the SEC championship but still made the final 4 (and won the Natty) a legitimate outcome. A number of Conference champs will not be ranked in the top 6. I could very easily see the Big 12, the PAC12 and the Mountain West have conference champs that are not top 6, but the only way they are getting those conferences to buy into this deal is if they each get at least one automatic berth, right? Why buy into a playoff scenario where your conference champion my never be ranked high enough to compete in the playoff? If it were just about rankings they would take teams ranked 1 thru 12. Remember Occam's razor.
I don't get why you keep insisting that the Mountain West has 1 of 6 auto bids. Nobody has said this, and even if there were 6 auto bids, it would be much more likely for the AAC to get it than the Mountain West.
This part is also wrong: "The next part was that the top four ranked teams, irrespective of whether they are conference Champs or not, get a first round bye", you must be a conference champ to get a first round bye.
I think you should attempt to track down who put this info out there, because they are spreading misinformation.
Hi Bob, I very well could have this wrong. I'm just posting what I read a while back on some sports page (Yahoo Sports I think). It could be incorrect or out of date at this point. But what I wrote is my takeaway from the article. And yes, the ACC would be a very logical conference to include.
Everything I'm reading says the six champions are merely the six highest ranked champions regardless of conference metrics. So the MWC certainly isn't guaranteed a spot, and neither is the PAC for that matter.
Going through the current CFP history, the PAC has averaged 1.5 teams per year that would make the new playoffs.
This is correct, no conference is "guaranteed" a spot, just the 6 highest-ranked champions. In recent years (besides the weird 2020 COVID year), that would basically mean all the Power 5 champions plus one G5 champion, and actually the American Athletic Conference would get that last spot more often than any other G5 conference.
Isn't there only one conference champion per conference?
Yes, but there are more than 6 conferences. So it's possible for any conference to have its champion ranked low enough to miss getting in the playoff (granted, a much lower chance for the Power 5 conferences).
The Power 5 conferences are probably confident that they'll pretty much always be able to produce a champion that's good enough to be in the Top 12 (which is generally true), and the Group of 5 conferences are happy to just get a foot in the door.
My old fogginess is showing here but I sure do miss the old days of college football when it was about more than money, TV and corporate sponsorship.
Having the players invested certainly strips away any pretense. Though we may see an equilibrium that looks like baseball with 2 "major league" conferences and a bunch of more traditional feeling "minor league" conferences.
Of course, we need major league money to finance the stadium debt.
I am nostalgic for the old way, no doubt. But I'll adapt as long as the California Golden Bears are playing.
CFB schedule is getting way too bloated and too many games. People will start to check out.
No Way. This will be football's version of March Madness...call it 'Winter Wildness'.
I agree with Rugbear, I think overall this gets you more eyeballs and also chances for small school / big school contests
I don’t think it will because it won’t be as many schools and even fewer upsets.
You’re going to have a P10, ACC & Big 12 Champ, with the occasional Cincinnati... then 8 or 9 schools combined from the SEC and B1G.
This is just the rich getting richer. What fun.
Ding, ding, ding!! We have a winner! Cincinnati is now in the Big12 so it will be Boise State or SDSU as that sacrificial lamb.
Football has far fewer upsets than basketball.
This will be nothing more than the the SEC/Big10 tournament with a few little sisters of the poor to be slaughtered. This will be nothing like March Madness.
But all major conferences now have guaranteed post season revenue and visibility. That's step one, and then competing for the NC comes after with better recruiting as a result.
Think this might put a slight damper on the regular season, but more than likely reduces the number of bowl season “opt-outs”. Curious to see if it will be worth the trade-off.
Question: Does this mean that all schools will have to cut back on the number of regular season games? We are starting to creep towards NFL schedules in college football.
Are athletes opposed to longer schedules, especially with the recent changes? I'm sure some profs will be bent out of shape having to accommodate the players' travel schedule but I doubt their opinion carries much weight.
Athletes are now getting paid. They shouldn't be complaining about longer season.
Agreed, at least for the ones getting paid. Presumably some NIL agreements may even have incentives for postseason appearances.
Not sure how things will shake out for the regulars who aren't getting a check. I'm guessing there's an effort to get them some remuneration as well so as to maintain some harmony.
I'm sure youll find a wide range of thoughts on this. From the Cal players ive interacted they would be fired up to play in this format since they are such big time competitors.
That is what I would expect. I think many athletes have felt that the jump from high school to college is a graduation from amateur to professional. With the system being less exploitative they're ready to build their careers (via NIL dollars or promotion by transfer).
nope this is supposed to start after the regular season. since there still needs to be a minimum for the rest of the teams. and we'll still have bowl games.
Pac12 really looks stupid for sandbagging this. It goes through anyway, but with the conference in shambles...smh
Yup, if we would have agreed to it in the beginning maybe USC and UCLA would have stayed. Buttfuckem. I hope they have fun in the Big Ten.
I want to have fun in the Big Ten too!
Why? If the PAC12 has a seat in the Playoffs every year and we don't have to beat OSU, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan St., Penn State, Iowa and more. Why would you want to turn college sports from a regional game, for all sports programs, to one where every athlete needs to take LONG roads trips and be away from class for potentially weeks at a time?
Because I'm not an athlete and I want to see Cal play OSU, Michigan, UCLA, USC, etc!
Plus not being relegated to a "minor league" conference means we can have a better shot at higher quality recruits and/or not so easily lose better performing players to the portal.
Yeah, basically Pac12 is now becoming a second tier conference, so I really hope Cal can jump ship as well.
The American and Mountain West are the strongest G5 conferences, but never say never about the others. Check out 2016: Western Michigan of the MAC went undefeated and would likely have been selected to a 12-team field.
We can look at the final CFP ranking from that year:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_NCAA_Division_I_FBS_football_rankings#CFP_Rankings
Western Michigan is clearly the highest ranked winner from a Group of 5 conference.
We've basically had a Power Five and a Group of Five since 2013, the first year after the Big East and WAC collapsed as football conferences and when the American Athletic Conference was formed.
As far as I can tell, the American would have gotten a berth 7 times (2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021), the Mountain West once (2014), the MAC once (2016), and the Sun Belt once (2020). NOTE: 2020 would have been the only year when two G5 teams made the playoff, as the Pac-12 would not have had a qualifying team in its shortened season. That year is probably not representative of the norm.