The point about home games for the top four is so right. Consider, if like me you are a fan of a team outside the Big 10 / SEC:
- you have the season of a lifetime, and are in the conference championship game, where a win means you get ... a chance to spend a couple grand flying to New Orleans for what you hope it the first of three winter trips (that you didn't even find out about until you were already into the Christmas billing cycle on your credit card)? Is there anyone in the world who wouldn't much prefer to welcome a CFB bigshot into your home stadium?
- and if you lose in the conference championship in the current format, there is basically zero chance for an ACC or Big 12 team to host a game - you're going to be on the road in round 1 at an SEC, Big 10, or Notre Dame (honorary Big 10) team;
- if you go into Happy Valley or South Bend and win - your reward is, let's say, Georgia in ... New Orleans? Boise State in Tempe? I'd MUCH rather go into Athens as 10% of the crowd in an amazing college football environment than sit in a stadium borrowed from the Saints. Getting to Boise might be tough, but nothing could be more college football than looking through the snow at blue turf. I'm going to have to live off these experiences for the rest of my life, especially once Alabama buys the ACC for spare parts.
Let's make this count! We don't owe anything to the bowl committee chairs (who might have to find jobs) or the airlines or warm city hotels (who will hardly notice).
Given that bowls exist in the first place, far be it from me to presume college football wouldn't stage neutral-site helmet games even if they became even more meaningless, but isn't a structure like this sort of necessary to ensure that the Big Ten and SEC title games still have *some* significance? If you just seeded by the teams' rankings without boosting conference champions, you'd pretty heavily risk the games not even having a bye at stake.
How long before the Big Ten and SEC figure they can make (and keep) more money having their own playoff tournaments and holding their own College Super Bowl?
Great piece Rodger...If Oregon and Georgia lose in QFs there will be a lot of complaining about the keeping the New Year Six happy...
I do think 12 team format....does move quickly to a 16 team format (quicker than we went from 4 to 12).... And the multiple automatic bids wanted by SEC or Big Ten will be done because TV networks will wants 3 games with playoff potential the final weekend (1 vs 2, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5) instead of just one.
This year was the perfect storm for the SEC...The out of conference teams they played had historically bad year (Florida State worst season since 1974, Wisconsin first losing season since 2001, Michigan lowest win total in full season since 2014, Wake Forest back to back losing seasons for first time since 2014-2015 , Ok State first losing season since 2005) you don't get any credit for beating up a bad power 4.
I spent a lot of time looking at the computer based rankings in College Football based off results based metrics (Colley, Anderson & Hester, Wolfe Rankings, etc) and all of them had SMU ahead of Alabama which reflected it.
- They had a good case about Indiana but leaving out 11-1 Big Ten seem odd. Using NCAA tournament below you can see they were only team in playoff without a Quad 1 win (beating 1-25 at home, 1-50 on road). SMU had some good wins with their 3 best wins coming on the road.
- That all schedules need to be created and the CFP committee needs to mandate all NCAA teams play 5 true road games
Some stats- 8 Teams in CFP Top 25 played 4 true road game or less (7 of those 8 teams made the playoff including all 3 SEC Teams, Ohio State, Indiana, and Notre Dame)…
In all of FBS, 19 teams played 4 true road games or less (37% of these teams made playoff) vs the other 115 teams who played 5 true road games or more (4% of these teams made playoff)
Only 1 team who made the CFP playoff played 5 true road games vs P4 opponents (Penn State).... that Penn State team struggled to come back in the second half in 3 of those games to beat 5-7 Wisconsin, 6-6 USC, and 7-5 Minnesota. The first four left out (Bama, Miami, Ole Miss, S. Carolina) all played four P4 teams on the road
For the Top 16 teams I broke down there schedule into Quad 1, Quad 2, and Quad 3 games like NCAA Tournament...you can see you
Using ColleyMatrix:
Oregon: 5 Quad 1 wins (Ohio State, Boise State, Illinois, Penn State (N), at Michigan)
Penn State: 3 Quad 1 wins (Illinois, at USC, at Minnesota)
Notre Dame: 5 Quad 1 wins (Army (N), Navy (N), Georgia Tech (N), at Texas A&M, at USC)
Ohio State: 2 Quad 1 wins (at Penn State, Indiana)
Tennessee: 2 Quad 1 wins (Alabama, at Oklahoma)
Indiana: 0 Quad 1 wins - only 4 Quad 2 wins (Michigan and Washington at home, UCLA and Michigan State on road)
SMU: 3 Quad 1 wins (at Duke, at Louisville, at TCU)
Clemson: 3 Quad 1 wins (SMU(N), at Pitt, at Va Tech)
Teams out
Alabama: 4 Quad 1 wins only one on road (Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, at LSU) plus Q2 win at Wisconsin...would have been a Q1 loss at Oklahoma and Q2 loss at Vanderbilt
Miami: 2 Quad 1 wins (at Louisville, at Florida)...all losses would have been Q1 losses (at Syracuse, at Georgia Tech) and they would have 2 more Quad 2 wins (Duke, VaTech) …Miami would have had 5 Q3 wins (at Cal, Wake, Florida State, South Florida, Ball State) and 1 Q4 win (Florida A&M) which would have shown their weakness in overall SOS
Ole Miss: 2 Quad 1 wins (Georgia, at South Carolina) +3 Quad 2 wins (Oklahoma, Ga Southern, at Arkansas)...Kentucky would have been Q3 loss
South Carolina: 3 Quad 1 wins (at Clemson, Missouri, at Oklahoma)...computer would categorize all losses as Q1 losses (LSU, Bama, Ole Miss) and they would 2 more Q2 wins (Texas A&M, and at Vandy)
I stopped reading when I read how ND didn't schedule IU because they're snooty. The fact that ND plays in-state Purdue with frequency and has scheduled IU in the past reveled your bias and ignorance about ND. You're looking to flame and not engage thoughtful readers who love college football. My hope, and I will work to this end is you go unread.
It's refreshing to read a post from a CFB person that isn't defending the bowls. Nostalgia is great and all, but the game has changed. It's time to tell the bowls to pound sand and put the CFP on campus.
The point about home games for the top four is so right. Consider, if like me you are a fan of a team outside the Big 10 / SEC:
- you have the season of a lifetime, and are in the conference championship game, where a win means you get ... a chance to spend a couple grand flying to New Orleans for what you hope it the first of three winter trips (that you didn't even find out about until you were already into the Christmas billing cycle on your credit card)? Is there anyone in the world who wouldn't much prefer to welcome a CFB bigshot into your home stadium?
- and if you lose in the conference championship in the current format, there is basically zero chance for an ACC or Big 12 team to host a game - you're going to be on the road in round 1 at an SEC, Big 10, or Notre Dame (honorary Big 10) team;
- if you go into Happy Valley or South Bend and win - your reward is, let's say, Georgia in ... New Orleans? Boise State in Tempe? I'd MUCH rather go into Athens as 10% of the crowd in an amazing college football environment than sit in a stadium borrowed from the Saints. Getting to Boise might be tough, but nothing could be more college football than looking through the snow at blue turf. I'm going to have to live off these experiences for the rest of my life, especially once Alabama buys the ACC for spare parts.
Let's make this count! We don't owe anything to the bowl committee chairs (who might have to find jobs) or the airlines or warm city hotels (who will hardly notice).
Given that bowls exist in the first place, far be it from me to presume college football wouldn't stage neutral-site helmet games even if they became even more meaningless, but isn't a structure like this sort of necessary to ensure that the Big Ten and SEC title games still have *some* significance? If you just seeded by the teams' rankings without boosting conference champions, you'd pretty heavily risk the games not even having a bye at stake.
How long before the Big Ten and SEC figure they can make (and keep) more money having their own playoff tournaments and holding their own College Super Bowl?
Great piece Rodger...If Oregon and Georgia lose in QFs there will be a lot of complaining about the keeping the New Year Six happy...
I do think 12 team format....does move quickly to a 16 team format (quicker than we went from 4 to 12).... And the multiple automatic bids wanted by SEC or Big Ten will be done because TV networks will wants 3 games with playoff potential the final weekend (1 vs 2, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5) instead of just one.
This year was the perfect storm for the SEC...The out of conference teams they played had historically bad year (Florida State worst season since 1974, Wisconsin first losing season since 2001, Michigan lowest win total in full season since 2014, Wake Forest back to back losing seasons for first time since 2014-2015 , Ok State first losing season since 2005) you don't get any credit for beating up a bad power 4.
I spent a lot of time looking at the computer based rankings in College Football based off results based metrics (Colley, Anderson & Hester, Wolfe Rankings, etc) and all of them had SMU ahead of Alabama which reflected it.
I used the Colley (https://www.colleyrankings.com/currank.html) index to break down each team...and honestly I think the only two cases the SEC was first inclusions
- They had a good case about Indiana but leaving out 11-1 Big Ten seem odd. Using NCAA tournament below you can see they were only team in playoff without a Quad 1 win (beating 1-25 at home, 1-50 on road). SMU had some good wins with their 3 best wins coming on the road.
- That all schedules need to be created and the CFP committee needs to mandate all NCAA teams play 5 true road games
Some stats- 8 Teams in CFP Top 25 played 4 true road game or less (7 of those 8 teams made the playoff including all 3 SEC Teams, Ohio State, Indiana, and Notre Dame)…
In all of FBS, 19 teams played 4 true road games or less (37% of these teams made playoff) vs the other 115 teams who played 5 true road games or more (4% of these teams made playoff)
Only 1 team who made the CFP playoff played 5 true road games vs P4 opponents (Penn State).... that Penn State team struggled to come back in the second half in 3 of those games to beat 5-7 Wisconsin, 6-6 USC, and 7-5 Minnesota. The first four left out (Bama, Miami, Ole Miss, S. Carolina) all played four P4 teams on the road
For the Top 16 teams I broke down there schedule into Quad 1, Quad 2, and Quad 3 games like NCAA Tournament...you can see you
Using ColleyMatrix:
Oregon: 5 Quad 1 wins (Ohio State, Boise State, Illinois, Penn State (N), at Michigan)
Georgia: 5 Quad 1 wins (Texas (2), Clemson, Tennessee, Florida (N))
Boise State: 3 Quad 1 wins (UNLV (2), at Georgia Southern)
Arizona State: 3 Quad 1 wins (BYU, Iowa State (N), at Kansas State)
Texas: 3 Quad 1 wins (at Michigan, at Texas A&M, Oklahoma (N))
Penn State: 3 Quad 1 wins (Illinois, at USC, at Minnesota)
Notre Dame: 5 Quad 1 wins (Army (N), Navy (N), Georgia Tech (N), at Texas A&M, at USC)
Ohio State: 2 Quad 1 wins (at Penn State, Indiana)
Tennessee: 2 Quad 1 wins (Alabama, at Oklahoma)
Indiana: 0 Quad 1 wins - only 4 Quad 2 wins (Michigan and Washington at home, UCLA and Michigan State on road)
SMU: 3 Quad 1 wins (at Duke, at Louisville, at TCU)
Clemson: 3 Quad 1 wins (SMU(N), at Pitt, at Va Tech)
Teams out
Alabama: 4 Quad 1 wins only one on road (Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, at LSU) plus Q2 win at Wisconsin...would have been a Q1 loss at Oklahoma and Q2 loss at Vanderbilt
Miami: 2 Quad 1 wins (at Louisville, at Florida)...all losses would have been Q1 losses (at Syracuse, at Georgia Tech) and they would have 2 more Quad 2 wins (Duke, VaTech) …Miami would have had 5 Q3 wins (at Cal, Wake, Florida State, South Florida, Ball State) and 1 Q4 win (Florida A&M) which would have shown their weakness in overall SOS
Ole Miss: 2 Quad 1 wins (Georgia, at South Carolina) +3 Quad 2 wins (Oklahoma, Ga Southern, at Arkansas)...Kentucky would have been Q3 loss
South Carolina: 3 Quad 1 wins (at Clemson, Missouri, at Oklahoma)...computer would categorize all losses as Q1 losses (LSU, Bama, Ole Miss) and they would 2 more Q2 wins (Texas A&M, and at Vandy)
I stopped reading when I read how ND didn't schedule IU because they're snooty. The fact that ND plays in-state Purdue with frequency and has scheduled IU in the past reveled your bias and ignorance about ND. You're looking to flame and not engage thoughtful readers who love college football. My hope, and I will work to this end is you go unread.
It's refreshing to read a post from a CFB person that isn't defending the bowls. Nostalgia is great and all, but the game has changed. It's time to tell the bowls to pound sand and put the CFP on campus.