There are not eight teams who have earned a shot at the national title. Only two, maybe three have. And by having a four team playoff, you can reasonably assure that they all get their chance. The current system has worked flawlessly. Why change?
Don’t agree at all, and quite frankly do not see your points at all.
College football has 130 teams, 10 conferences, and Notre Dame. Each conference plays a different set of opponents. There’s little-to-no common opponents between the cream of the crop teams.
Your logic only makes sense if the ACC and SEC play the same opponents or the Big12 and Big-10 play the same opponents or any combination you want. For example, Ohio State didn’t play Clemson’s schedule or Alabama’s schedule. How do you know that Ohio State would be undefeated if they played Clemson’s schedule? How do you know that Alabama would run the table playing Clemson’s schedule? The answer is, you don’t. What about Notre Dame? Would they still be 12-0, if they played in the Big-12 or ACC or SEC? The answer is probably not. What about Oklahoma playing Ohio State’s schedule?
Why 8 teams? Because it gives all the power conference champions, the opportunity to get into the playoff, AND leaves the door open for Notre Dame, at-large schools, and a G5 conference champion which played quality power conference teams and ran the table. In other words, 8 teams makes up for the lack of common opponents with the cream of the crop teams.
4 teams is guaranteed to leave out a power conference champion and pretty much all G5 teams.
I don’t really see the issue or your obsession with “earned”, which makes zero sense to me.
Keep in mind, we have 130 teams. 8/130 is 6% of the college football population. You still will need to win between 10-13 games, lose between 0-2 games. 94% of teams would get left out.
In 2017, Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia, Ohio State, and USC would get in. All of these schools won their power conference, played a quality schedule, and beat at least 11 FBS opponents. You would then include Alabama and Wisconsin. Both failed to win their conference, but only lost once and played a quality schedule. Bama lost by 12 to Auburn, Wisky lost by 6 points to Ohio State. Then the debate would shift toward putting in either Auburn (beat Georgia and Alabama), Penn State, or undefeated UCF.
In 2016, you would have had Alabama, Clemson, Washington, Penn State, and Oklahoma in. Then you would have left the door open for Ohio State, Michigan, and then they would decide between Wisconsin or undefeated Western Michigan.
Again, the reason why it’s only four is because it works with the bowl system and lines the pockets of bowl executives. Each team getting in, EARNED it. They all had a great season and now they all get a shot at winning. Your logic ONLY makes sense if we had less teams. Also, many sports commentators wanted Georgia into the final four this year. That’s right, Georgia. Some even argued they should have been #3. Think about a 2-loss team with no conference title should edge out a 2 one-loss power conference champions and a zero loss team.
College students shouldn’t play football.
Your liberal college administrator friends disagree. There is big money in college football. They are addicted to the cash. Good luck convincing them.
Tonights Clemson blowout proves why we need a playoff. The two top SEC teams both lost their games, Alabama getting blown out and Georgia losing to a team that wasn’t even in consideration for a playoff spot. Their 3rd best team, LSU, did win but did so against a team being forced to start a true freshman QB because their starter and best player got hurt at the end of the season.
It shows that the SEC was very overrated this year but because of the SEC bias that exists in the selection committee and polling they got over rated. Alabama still deserved to be in the playoff by virtue of being undefeated but Georgia clearly had no business even being considered yet they were the #5 team and barely missed out.
We do need a playoff. Four teams is perfect. The system has yet to fail. It has worked better than anticipated. Number one and number two played for the title without controversy. Why should the number one team in the nation be forced to beat the number eight team in order to play in the championship? Makes no sense.
I gave you examples in this thread where it failed. Stop being a Trumper who lives in his own reality.
I’d go further than that. All 10 BCS conference champions, plus 6 at large bids for a total of 16 teams.
This way, you get teams fighting hard all year to get a spot in the playoff, and it’s less subject to polls which in reality are nothing more than popularity contests.
I could roll with that too. But we have to crawl first
Dude. Did you know that this is a sports forum? This is just for fun. You should check your hate at the door before commenting. Fair enough?
Very much against expanding the playoffs to 8 teams.
When I started watching college football the season was 11 games. With a bowl game, the most a player would play is 12 games.
Now the season has been expanded to 12 games, straight money grab. Every conference now has a conference championship game…13 games. National semifinal…14 games and championship game…15 games. What do the players get out of playing the extra games? Nothing.
Especially since the current system has worked perfectly. It’s not broken and doesn’t need to be fixed. The four team playoff system was designed to assure that the top two teams are always in. If there is a controversy, they have included four teams to assure this is the case. There is no value added by forcing the #1 team to beat the #8 team before they get a chance at the title.
I can totally blow away your argument with three words: Football Championship Subdivision.
It’s the lower half of the NCAA Division I. They have held a tournament every year since 1978, and it’s current iteration involves 24 teams, working really well.
If the FCS can do it, and do it well, it’s way past time for the FBS to be holding a similar tournament. The only real reason such a tournament doesn’t exist, is colleges like Ohio State are afraid of sharing too much money with Boise State.
Or worse yet losing to Boise State, the two time Fiesta Bowl winner who wasn’t allowed to compete in the playoffs because they allegedly weren’t good enough.
Or losing to TCU (before they went power 5) who won the Rose Bowl after they weren’t allowed to compete in the playoffs.
