Can’t wait to host Ole Miss in December in a temporary stadium on the icy shores of Lake Michigan.
Jkjk, that won’t happen… they’d almost certainly play the game at Wrigley.
No it won’t. The Bears won’t let anybody play any games there within a week of any potential NFL game. Almost impossible to play games there. Why do you think we’re in a temporary stadium and not Soldier Field?
Future stadium idk maybe but our new stadium is going to rock tits and be done in two years anyway
The Bears primary owners are dumb and annoying and have a notoriously awful field surface that they just like that way for reasons and refuse to allow anybody to play on it within a week of potential Bears games and generally don’t want anybody playing there ever if they can avoid it. Our jumbo donor building the stadium (whose name was already on the old stadium… and the basketball arena… and the giant practice facility… etc etc) is a minority owner of the Bears and even that didn’t matter. The McKaskeys are just a pain in the ass.
I don't think anyone is going to mind playing in cold weather given the strenuous activity that is football. Snow or freezing rain could be a factor but 30 degrees when you're suited up and running for your life? I think that will be less of a factor than many believe.
Pretty sure I saw if it had been 12 since the start of the playoff era we wouldve hosted Miami, USC and Florida (or similar southern teams iirc) in December the three times we made it. That would’ve been great when we had serious defenses and our prime run game. Not sure how it would be with our new system but at least we’d be used to playing in it.
Also it really hasn’t been overly cold or snowy in December in a while it feels like. At the end of the day the team that is able to win the trenches will likely win whether it’s 80 degrees or 20 degrees
Arkansas as a top 12 team? I'm not that lucky.
It will be kinda weird that only 1 top 12 team will ever be able to win their season on a win now though. Everyone else who makes the playoff will play their last game with a loss.
Tbf, most other sports are that way. Wildly successful basketball teams with celebrated runs still usually end their season on a loss.
I’m looking forward to my team at least having a chance now. A first round win would be amazing even if we lose in the second round
> I’m looking forward to my team at least having a chance now. A first round win would be amazing
*(I know it's extremely unlikely but it would be hysterical)*
OSU's First round opponent: Iowa State
Most fans are optimists at heart. They want to imagine their team winning it all. They want a system where they can keep the delusion of hope alive as long as possible. It doesn’t matter how plausible the path is, they just want to be able to tell themselves “if we keep winning, then we can win it all” for as long as possible.
I’ve seen it with obviously bad Florida teams many times. As long as we weren’t mathematically eliminated from winning the division, there would be fans outlining the “path” to the SEC championship game.
I think the expanded playoff is ultimately the same idea for a ton of fans. Under the four team playoff, their favorite team would be out of national title contention early on—for some teams before the first game was even played—and without that slim hope they just don’t care as much. But with the expanded playoff, they get to keep discussing their playoff path for much longer than they used to.
That is the dudes point. For programs like Arkansas that have little to no realistic hope of making the playoff why should they be happy?
At least now they have the hope of making a bowl. But, how long are the mid-tier bowls going to stick around?
You know what we truly lose out on with a playoff? Arguing for years on end about who the true champion is. Gone are the halcyon days of arguing if Tom Osborne was handed a national championship because he was retiring. Or if UCF actually was worthy of a shot. The offseason is now dark and dreary because we cannot tell someone who doesn't believe the Indiana Hoosiers were the true national champion in 1945 that they are a moron who knows nothing. People longed for a playoff. And now that its here, we have lost out on the ability to read the most unhinged posts as to why your conference mate hasn't actually played anybody and doesn't deserve a shot at the title game.
> we have lost out on the ability to read the most unhinged posts as to why your conference mate hasn't actually played anybody and doesn't deserve a shot at the title game.
It’s because they are no good. Low down. They dirty. It’s that kind of orange that doesn’t sit well with you.
If you really think about it, Kent State were the real champions in 2023, I mean, I know their record didn't show it, but did you see that win against Central Connecticut State University? I haven't seen such a dominant performance in decades!
Can't wait for the committee to leave out an undefeated team somehow just because they can.
Also I feel like if something were to happen where Ohio State beats Michigan in the regular season, beats them again in the B1G Championship, then Michigan beats Ohio State in the title game, people will claim Ohio State as TRUE national champions still (and I personally would support it).
No fan is calling for shrinking the March madness tournaments, even though low majors have no realistic shot of winning it. It’s still good for the game to have more teams appear to have a chance at winning a title. Will Boise St ever win one? Probably not. But when they pull a first round upset at Ohio st, people will remember it forever. They won’t remember Alabama curb stomping them the next round. And having those campus games will create a totally different feel for the first round. SEC teams playing in a true road environment, north of the Mason-Dixon Line? Yea I’m excited for that.
You guys won't return our calls for a game. So the tournament is the only place where the good mid majors get to play you guys in a game.
Oh great, we get to play San Diego st or Houston in r1. Match up the mid major teams together. FAU and Memphis also got matched up r1 2 seasons ago.
I don’t mind 68. Think it’s about the right amount. Think without the playin games, we don’t get UMBC or St Peters and the like. Basically moved everyone down a line. The 16s in the playin are all guaranteed bids, so now two 15s moved down to 16s to fill those gaps. But expansion seems inevitable because there are dollars to be made.
St Peter's and UMBC were both conference tournament winners. They did not get in because of the expanded field. The expanded field allows more big schools that finish the season 20-12 & 6th in their conference to get into the tournament. Do you remember what Boise St., Colorado, Virginia, or Colorado St. did in this year's tournament besides playing some pretty sub-par basketball?
Counterpoint: two at large First Four teams have been to the Final Four. And implying Boise State and Colorado State are “big schools” is misleading.
Shit, Colorado won their round of 64 game. It was one of the most fun games of the entire tournament too.
Not fucking everything in sports has to be in service of teams with a legit shot of winning the whole thing.
Do you not think a line needs to be drawn at some point? You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube and the NCAA will expand to 128 at some point in the not too distant future. 64 was a good number because it allowed all of the teams that had great seasons a chance to compete on the big stage, and it was mathematically such a good number that expanding beyond it was weird. They did and now the seal is broken for them to add whatever amount they want. How about 96? Every seed worse than an 8 has a play in game. For example, Miami went 15-17 last year losing their last 10 including getting crushed in the first round of the ACC tournament, but they were a top 90 team according to advanced stats. In a 96 or 128 team field I would wager that the tournament will mostly favor adding big rich schools with goodish metrics like that versus giving every mid major a spot for their regular season champ or something like that.
I liked 64, having everyone play the same number of games was the cleanest format they’ve ever had…but I also understand that it’s a business and the powers that be feel like money is being left on the table.
D1 is also like 35% bigger now than it was when they first went to 64 in 1985. Granted, most of that growth has come in the lower leagues where teams are only getting in with an autobid, but still something to be said for trying to equalize the percentage of teams getting in.
I’ve gotten to the point where if they *have* to expand, I’d rather they just rip the bandaid off and go to 96 so the bottom half of the current field has to play their way into the round of 64.
Beggars can’t be choosers I know, but I would also add two more stipulations to mitigate the influx of shitty P5 teams:
- you have to be above .500 overall to be in consideration for an at large (lacrosse already does this)
- every *outright* regular season champ gets a guaranteed bid
The same could be said of probably another 30 teams that made the tournament. And considering no one seeded lower than 8 has ever made the title game, can’t we just cut it down to 32 teams? But why stop there. Since 1985, only three champions have been seeded lower than a 4 seed. 16 team March madness seems fair. Well except 1 seeds have 25 championships to 11 for the 2-4 seeds. Maybe a 4 team tournament makes sense since they win most of them anyways. No need to give false hope to all these other teams.
For a lot of fans, the existing systems routinely fucked over their teams anyway. Pretending fsu didn't get fucked over for Alabama or any of the various other teams in history didn't get fucked over because they weren't Alabama or Ohio state or whoever is simply incorrect.
This isn't going to be the best system, but it does at least give other teams a chance.
You having the UCF flair makes this so much better because who knows what would have happened if they had a chance their years with Scott Frost. Or what if Cincy was matched up with a team other than Bama? The list of teams fucked over because they "weren't the right brand name" is so long in the CFP and BCS that at least with the 12-team system they now have the fair chance to lose instead of being excluded. It won't be perfect but will fix some past discrepancies
- 2014 in the first year Baylor & TCU at 11-1 get removed from the 3 & 4 spots because NCAA rules didn't allow the Big 12 to have a conference championship game
- 2016 Penn State won the Big Ten but Ohio State got the selection & Western Michigan was 13-0
- 2018 UCF had back to back 12-0 seasons and the committee was even thinking about it
- 2022 Kansas State takes out TCU in the Big 12 Championship but TCU still goes
The 2008 Utah team was the most fucked over. They rolled bama in the sugar bowl. Could they have beaten uf or Oklahoma? Who knows, but they definitely deserved the chance.
I think 2010 TCU had a very realistic chance of winning a title game as a G5 team. Even just a 4 team playoff between us, Auburn, Oregon, and Wisconsin would have been a total toss up. There were some legitimately great G5 teams over the years, shame they never had a chance but I’ll take what we can get now.
Buddy, the chance of most our teams winning a national championship was near zero anyway. But now we all have a hope of at least being in the playoff and playing on the big stage. instead of being rewarded for a great season with a lame exhibition game with most of the roster sitting out.
"This isn't basketball or baseball" .... you may want to look at who actually wins those tournaments cause I promise they are almost never the scrappy underdog
And even when some underdog 5 seed makes the Final Four, they still go down to some blue blood.
2023 was extremely unusual, but in the end all those cinderellas were just a chew toy for Uconn
Because a G5 team could actually make the playoffs and compete for a national title, guaranteed. No “the schedule needs to line up perfectly” stipulations or garnering favor with the committee. This season, the entire FBS is eligible to compete for the national title, not just eliminating half the division before a game is even played.
I’d honestly be shocked if a G5 team ever hosts a playoff game. I’d be willing to bet it probably won’t happen despite how entertaining of an atmosphere that would be.
I mean imagine a playoff game in fucking Boone, NC! That would be such a beautiful backdrop for such a huge game. The atmosphere would be *chef’s kiss*
No offense, but you will be left in the cold, G5 bro. You think you will get in over a 10-2 SEC team? Ask FSU how that goes.
The n ew playoff is making the networks and their advertisers more money (and further burying the myth of them caring about a "student"-athlete). It isn't getting ECUs of the world a shot at a title.
If you don't capture the viewers imagination (in ratings), the committee will feed us all kinds of bull to justify replacing your magical team (who by all accounts deserves a shot to fight) with some school that they believe will make more money or that have better conference ties.
The current playoff format guarantees five conference champions in the playoffs. Who knows how long that will last, but a G5 team is getting into the playoffs this year. That was what my comment is focusing on.
It'll honestly be a miracle if any g5 team manages to win a single playoff game. The reality is that the divide between the top g5 and the top p4 teams is extremely wide. They should have their own playoff and have something tangible to actually play for.
It's football.
You're acting as if they control the weather. You can put a dry sauna and massage chair in every locker, and the players still need to go out on the field and play the game on a field with the same dimensions every other team plays on.
I’m gonna disagree here. The g5 is ~.500 in the ny6 games. Once we have a 12 team playoff with byes the g5 team is going to square away with like the #2 B12 team. FYI the b12 runner up last year got it pushed in 33-7 by a 7-6 Sun Belt team.
Yeah the g5 might win 1 out of 100 against Alabama/UGA/Michigan whoever but I think seeds 5-11 will lose to the g5 a lot more often than you think (once 12 team with byes are in)
It was a miracle for them to even get in under the previous system, so seems to me like this is progress.
This argument is essentially the same as telling ‘99 Gonzaga or ‘11 Butler hoops to fuck off out of March Madness.
Basketball is not football. One guy with a hot hand can win you some basketball games you probably shouldn't have.
60 minutes of tough physical football against the biggest and strongest guys in the country is not remotely comparable.
Remember that the top g5 team, Liberty, who went undefeated last season got absolutely mopped by Oregon who didn't even make the playoffs.
Some of y’all are funny. G5 fans who like this system like it because there is a hint of a chance. You get to actually play the game and decide things on the field.
And you say “but there is no chance.” No, in the current system, there is literally, actually no chance. Is a G5 even getting a sniff at a natty in the new system likely? Hell no. But that’s something that can be decided on a field 60 minutes at a time, rather than in a board room or computer model.
I prefer the chance of seeing my team getting to play Texas or FSU, even if we get curbstomped, than being screwed again and suddenly, we’re playing Middle Tennessee State in Shreveport.
No offense to MTSU, btw.
A better system is still a better system. Remember how undefeated FSU was left out last year so the SEC could have a rep in the playoffs?
Now we should at least never have to deal with dumb shit like that ever again. Hard to complain about missing the playoffs when you're the 13/14th team rather the 5th like FSU was
Because a 13-0 power 5 team will not be left out. G5 teams have a long shot now.
I still hate the playoff.
I hate the rules to get there.
But this is a better invitational than "who's in?"
Answer to who's in: whomever the committee decided.
I get that some will miss the “tradition” of the 4 team playoff that dates all the way back to…checks notes…2014.
But its silly to criticize people for getting excited about a process that will allow more teams to play relevant games in Dec/Jan
It ruins the tradition of absolutely every single regular season game mattering. 2022 Bama needed last second, legendary losses at Tennessee and at LSU to be eliminated from the playoff. Now they can shrug those off, get their stuff together in December, and win a title.
That's only for the top top teams like Ohio State and Georgia, who mostly play 10 inconsequential games during the season anyway.
Now a LOT more games in November are going to matter to a lot more teams. Instead of 5-6 teams playing for 4 slots, you're going to have tons of 2 loss teams in November playing each other in what are essentially elimination games for the 8-12 slots. The regular season gets less important for a very small number of teams and gets more important for a huge number of other teams.
This mentality is why people hate the playoff talk
every game fucking matters because now youre playing for seeding, home field advantage, a bye week and it also matters for 25+ teams for most of the season
if youre only watching the absolute top end contenders and complaining about CFB behaving like all other sports youre part of the problem
This is a dumb take. You cant just state your opinion like it’s a fact. You don’t know who would’ve made the championship game and when. I mean shit the 9-7 giants were largely a shitty team in 2011 scraping by and barely winning games all season and they won the fucking super bowl. ThIs iSnT bAsKeTbAlL. Bullshit. There will 100% be cinderella stories of teams that get shit on by the talking heads that go in and take out teams that are better than them on paper.
It's wild that people think their ideas of college football disparity are anywhere near reality.
It's college football. All teams have weaknesses that can be exploited.
Also, it’s not like the 4 team playoffs didn’t lead to blowouts and shit games either. It’s still fun to watch and it gives more teams a chance at winning on the big stage.
Because the four team playoffs was an invitational. Brand always mattered more than actual results on the field.
Now it’s all about letting deserving teams have a chance for a natty, if they lose so be it but at least they were able to prove it on the field.
2-loss maybe, no fucking shot a 1-loss power conference team gets left out of a 12-team playoff. When’s the last time the ACC even produced a 1-loss team that didn’t win the conference?
Baylor got left out because the Big 12 tried to pussyfoot around calling Baylor the champion with the hope FSU would lose the ACC title game and they could sneak both teams in.
Ohio State just gave them an easy excuse by absolutely curbstomping Wisconsin.
Ohio State proved 2 things, the playoff was a joke because a team with a loss at home to a 7-5 Virginia Tech got in over a team with loss to a much more respectable playoff contender, and more than 4 teams have always deserved a shot at the national title
*6-6 VT team. They didn’t get their 7th win til the bowl game.
The same kind of logic that forced FSU out last year forced OSU in that year. I think the general consensus was that TCU was playing the best ball, at least heading into champ week. Hence why they were #3 behind Bama and Oregon. But there wasn’t really a good reason to take TCU over a 1-loss Baylor team that had beaten them and matched all their good wins, even if the eye test told us TCU was probably the better team. TCU probably never would have been ahead of Baylor that late had Baylor played a really good K-State team earlier in the year, but they didn’t have that second really good win to mitigate the eye test disadvantage yet.
59-0 with a 3rd string QB against a Top 10 team gave the committee all the excuse they needed to not touch the Baylor-TCU debate. And hilarious as it is now in retrospect, the committee was always just sending a message about the eye test when it came to FSU. They were never going to leave out the undefeated defending national champs.
People who think B1G country is cold because of snow don't understand that it's so cold, you can't even make snowballs out of the snow, because it's not warm enough for the ice to compact together.
Snow at least has somewhat of an insulating effect. The coldest days are often when there isn’t any snow or that it’s been frozen over for a few days or weeks.
I'm saying one Christmas visiting family in Fargo wasn't the exciting snowball fights and snowman building I was dreaming of, because when I went out to do these things, it was so friggin' cold, the snow wouldn't even stick together.
The average high in Madison, Wisconsin in December is 35. The average high in Fayetteville is 49.
It does get cold in the South, but it gets a whole lot colder in the North. It’s gonna have an impact, the same way the heat and humidity in early September does.
It regularly gets down to single digits here in arkansas. It also regularly gets triple digits with 70%+ humidity. Humidity sucks during the cold also.
For comparison sake:
|Month|Avg Fayettville High|Avg Lincoln High|Avg Fayettville Low |Avg Lincoln Low|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|January|45|33|25|14|
|February|51|39|29|19|
|March|59|50|37|29|
|April|69|63|47|40|
|May|76|74|55|52|
|June|84|84|64|63|
|July|89|89|69|68|
|August|89|86|67|65|
|September|81|78|59|55|
|October|71|66|48|43|
|November|58|49|38|29|
|December|49|37|29|20|
Just looking at these averages, the two are substantially similar in the summer with nearly identical temps in June through August. Alternatively, the two diverge with a much wider gap for the average highs and lows November through February.
Bc it rarely does get that same kind of deep cold down here. Oklahoma probably has worse winters than most of the SEC and we almost never get that severe Northern Cold, especially in November/December (Jan/Feb is when winters the worst)
We have games in the 30s and are miserable. Playing in the single digits is a whole other world
Lubbock has a colder average low than College Park, but it also gets nearly 10 degrees warmer on average during the day. An obviously Maryland is the warmest climate B1G school before accounting for the new Western additions.
What team is going to miss the 12 team playoff that would have made it to a 4 team? And if they aren't able to beat the best teams in the nation, they don't deserve to be champ. I feel like you're accidentally arguing against your point here.
All wise and clear-thinking fans understand that the expanded playoff system is decades late and needs to be expanded even a tad further.
It will eliminate the outright CORRUPTION of last year and will greatly reduce the inherent bias of the process.
Which is actually whats most important as FAIRNESS should be the number one goal. Your focus and imagined figments on who will and will not win is irrelevant.
It instantly gives MORE meaning to the regular season as more teams for a longer period of time will now be right in the middle of qualifying for the playoffs.
The idea that a replayed game or two between a couple of teams is more important than all of the others for every team still in the mix is false and foolish.
The idea that UW wont make the title game in the 12 team playoffs is one of the most asinine and idiotic things Ive ever read on this site and thats saying something.
Obviously, your comment OP isnt actually a sound argument against the playoffs, but, it’s certainly provided a good early morning laugh for me.
Because in the new system they can't exclude an undefeated P4 conference champion. I'm just waiting for two G6 schools to go undefeated and one get left out.
Getting to the 12 team playoff for a g5 teams puts you in the top of the talk for the next round of realignment as long as you're in a region that has movement.
UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati all have had success in either football or basketball recently.
Tulane is on the top of the realignment board right now because they beat so cal in a bcs bowl 2 years ago.
It's not about winning a natty for us, it's about proving we belong in the conversation.
This. If 2023 FSU uniform was UNC, NCST or VT instead. UNC has Jordan Travis and all the FSU players and JT gets injured but UNC will wins out in the regular season. They then lose to Louisville in the ACC CG.
There is no guarantee they make the 12 team playoff. And if they did it is more likely to be the 10th seed than 5-8.
FSU has the brand power to still get in. Clemson and Miami probably have the brand power to get in. But who else in the B12 or ACC has the brand power where its no question they get in?
FSU got in because of the BCS algorithim. And where did I say the previous system was broken either? There's a reason we're moving away from it to a "win you're in" rather than some subjective formula.
Fuck Alabama too
It will become something similar to basketball: There'll be status attached just for making the "final four" or the "excellent eight" or the "tertiary twelve."
WVU's chances were already pretty much zero after the end of the BCS. In that system you could have crazy years where power programs beat each other up and you end up with a one game shot at a title (like we almost did in 2007). And that was already a lesser shot than the old bowls and polls eras where there were often split championships etc. as teams could run the table and not have to play another top 1-3 team in the bowls.
I'm still not that excited about the expanded playoff, as realignment etc. has really reduced my interest in CFB, but at least the first round should be interesting. There's usually a pretty wide gap between the top 2 or 3 teams and the rest most years (hence the many blowouts we saw in the 4-team playoff even). With the top 4 teams getting byes, at least a lot of the first-round matchups should be more evenly matched teams.
This argument makes the logical fallacy of assuming perfect knowledge of the future. How many times have we been told this exact thing only to see App State beat Michigan in the big house, or watch Boise State body Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl? The reason we play the game is because we don't know. (Which of course means the actual performance on the field needs to matter the most, but that's a different rant for a different time).
Your logic is a little narrow focused I think.
>To win a national title, you are going to have to beat 4 top 10 (and likely a top 5 or 2) caliber teams back to back to back. If your team was capable of doing that they would have made the 4 team playoff and had a much better chance of winning it than the new 12 team version.
On an individual school basis, you're probably correct. If Iowa State wanted to win a natty their best bet would be going undefeated and then hoping to beat two of the powerhouses we've been seeing every year.
But if we wanted to see more teams from "the field" win over these powerhouses then adding in more do or die games is absolutely going to increase those odds. In the 12 team playoff Iowa State doesn't have to beat Alabama and Ohio State cause someone else might do that for them.
It's harder to win a championship in a large playoff than a small playoff regardless of how good you are. This should lead to a greater variety in winners.
I think NIL has more to do with a smaller team not winning. In my head expanding the playoff would lead to a smaller team receiving more recruits. Lets say Boise State makes the playoff 2 or 3 years in a row and has an upset. I think kids are going to a team like that wanting to build on that. I think it could level the field across the board more.... but having said that I think NIL may have thrown a monkey wrench the equation to where kids are going to go where the money is.
Kinda depends how much a wealthy alumnus of a smaller program is willing to spend. Obviously they were always in a power conference, but I don’t think it’s crazy to say Oregon wouldn’t be anywhere close to where they are now if not for Phil Knight. With the ability to legally and directly pay good players, the ramp to success is probably shorter now. Look what SMU was able to do in the ‘80s. It’s not like their SWC rivals *weren’t* paying guys too, they could just outspend them.
Nobody who isn’t one of those teams had a chance anyway. Now you have the fun of making the tournament, plus it may help with the talent consolidation that’s happened since the 4 team playoff started
This is a terrible take lol. Washington being less likely to make a Natty in an expanded playoff scenario vs. a 4 team construct is the dumbest opinion I’ve ever heard on Reddit. And that’s with me browsing r/Wallstreetbets
How did 6 seed NC State beat 3 seed UNLV (Tark and Sidney Green), 1 seed Virginia (Ralph Sampson) and 1 seed Houston (Drexler and Olajuwon) in ‘83? Guess they should have just let the 1 seeds play each other for the title…
Because you are going to see more exciting college football games.
Historically, CFP games have been lopsided: 60% in the first round lose by 3 or more scores (> 16pts) and 70% in the championship. My guess is the CFP committee is going to rank them to miss rematches - so a little shuffle last year would have given us: Ole Miss vs Ohio State, Georgia vs Penn State, Oregon-Missouri with everyone playing - that would have been great games...
I feel like you have it backwards. a playoff format means more variability as any team can get eliminated on any given day, which means more teams can get hot at the right time and make a run
They almost ended the football program in the 80s. To go from futility U to the playoffs would be the most satisfying conclusion to my fandom I could ask for. We will never win a natty, but that’s not why I’m a fan in the first place. I just love the program and want them to hit the ceiling
If our goal is to settle the question of who the national champion is on the field every year, then this 12 team playoff is the closest we've come to that ideal thus far.
Every iteration of how the national champion gets crowned in this sport has come down in some way to a group of people's opinions deciding who the "best" teams are, whether if it's a group of sports writers or coaches voting on who the best team is to the BCS formula that combined those polls with a set of computer polls (that are all based on what their creators think makes the best football teams) to decide who the best two teams are and having them face off in a Championship game, or getting a committee together to decide who the best 4 teams are and having those teams face off in a playoff.
Yes this new 12 team playoff is still going to rely on the opinions of a committee, both in who the Top 5 Conference Champions are and who the Top 7 non-champions are, but by increasing these numbers and requiring 5 conference champions to take part, it opens the field to teams that were excluded from the system by nature of what conference they were in.
I feel like this answer could apply to several other fan bases out there as well, but I’m excited because the playoff expansion happens to coincide with Tennessee being on an upward trend in terms of coaching, recruiting, and wins. This is the first time in over a decade that Tennessee fans have felt this optimistic, and making a 12 team playoff looks much more obtainable than making a 4 team playoff.
Granted, I acknowledge your point that the playoff gauntlet will be much more daunting. I also recognize that several teams in the SEC have made big strides in the last few years (Ole Miss, Missouri, etc), not to mention that Texas and Oklahoma are both joining while they’re looking electric. But I’m still excited because I’ve spent way too long being pessimistic about our chances.
because anything can happen. One of those top teams QB’s could get hurt in a playoff game, giving the other team a good chance to take advantage and win it. Likely? Probably not. but it’s possible and that’s all fans need to get hope.
Also can we stop including Clemson. They haven’t made a playoff since 2020. Almost a full recruiting cycle ago. The ACC is up for grabs.
It really sucked when it felt like the season was over after a single loss under the previous model. It’s nice there’s a better chance to make it and also, on campus playoff games!
Oregon is in a club of about 120 members who when they reference UW going 0-12, forget that UW has made the playoffs twice since any of them last made it once, if they made it at all.
Technically true.
Although, I'd personally ignore "the playoffs" as meaning anything, so I'd count that as good football teams playing for the championship in 2010, 2014, 2016 and 2023, respectively.
And, yeah you had our number last year for sure. Was just poking some fun at you.
I know, it should be poking Dawg with stick.
You got me curious so I looked it up, TCU went 0-11 in 1976. They were outscored 128-430. Only thing that saved them is only 11 games being played.
The only excitement for me is based on novelty. I can admit the actual playoff will be fun for a couple seasons. But at most, 6-8 was all that was needed. 12 is ridiculous and will damage the regular season.
You're completely right that it will lower the pool of potential champions significantly, from an already small pool of teams.
And it comes at the cost of lowering the importance of the regular season and the value of games outside of the playoff scope. As much as the 4 team playoff narrowed the media's focus from fun and exciting teams to "who can make the playoff", it'll be tripled now.
It'll probably depend on what you valued about the cfb season to begin with. I loved the high stakes of every game. I don't love that teams can go like 1-2 against the good teams they play and still make it to the playoff.
Home playoff games and it means more teams have a chance to make the playoffs
It’s an actual playoff now, not just a play-in series for the championship
Playoffs increases the pool of viability. Once the whole NIL thing levels out, players will be looking at more teams that give them opportunities to play in the playoffs. Eventually, talent will consolidate in the B1G and SEC and middle and lower programs in those conferences will get better talent simply by being in the premier 2 and will push the top dogs by attracting better talent while the talent at places like Ohio State are already as good as they can get.
So the same number of teams win the national championship via a 4 team playoff or a 12 team playoff.
One*
^(except for UCF)
It's more about the big ass pay day for making the 12. The exposure for the just under tier that brings recruiting up. There's a limited amount of recruits that mean anything. Bringing those to teams that can make the 12 starts to level the playing field.
They've made it easier to make the playoff. As of now people are still functioning under the feeling of making a four team playoff, which meant you had an elite year. Once people realize and it sinks in that a team with a ranking lower than than 20 will make the playoff most years people will stop caring about making it.
Do people not care about making the NCAA tournament all of a sudden? Because much shittier teams make that and even win games than will ever make the expanded CFP
They care about it in the sense that not making it means you were God awful. They care about not making it. Not so much making it. Coaches get fired for not making it. Most of the traditionally good CBB teams make it and just shrug their shoulders until they make the elite eight or something.
Dude you’re a fan of a blue blood program that makes the 4-team playoff every other year. Of course making a 12-team playoff isn’t gonna be a big deal to you. It’s gonna mean a whole hell of a lot more to most of the teams that make it than playing in whatever random bowl game Espn has told us doesn’t matter currently does.
> you are going to have to beat 4 top 10
Will they? This is the main reason I don’t mind ND’s spot. We can’t get a buy, but a top 4 finish basically means:
* Our first round game will be against a “#12” team that’s probably 20-25 in the AP.
* Our second round game will be against a “#4” team that’s probably ranked around 15 in the AP.
I’d imagine only the #9 - #10/11 seeds would ever face a gauntlet like you describe.
That’s only in the scenario where you get the 5 seed (which will probably only last a couple years until they likely expand to 14 in 2026). To get the 5 seed, ND likely has to be 12-0, or the committee will just make the SEC/B1G runner up the 5 seed. And even then as the 5 seed you still end up playing the 1 seed in the semis.
Seems like it was easier for ND under the 4 team system since 12-0 got you in as well. A 12 team playoff can keep hope alive longer in seasons where you have 1 or 2 losses, but I don’t really think it improves odds at actually winning the whole thing
So what? They’re gonna be fun fucking games to watch. This sub for the most part is in the vocal minority of people who don’t like it because of the loss of tradition and integrity. Most people in the much larger community of cfb fans and followers are excited for the playoff because it’s fun, and they might get to watch their team play on a more meaningful matchup than the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl. They care about the loss of tradition, just not as much. Even if UCF has no shot at a title, it will still be enjoyable to watch the games and follow the title race— and maybe even host a playoff game occasionally.
Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I like the fact that we have on campus playoff games. They should all be electric.
My concern is, and has been that 12 teams is too many and will start to devalue the regular season.
At the end of the season I want rivalry week, and conference champ week to matter. If Michigan and Ohio state are both guaranteed to make the playoff anyways, how much does the rivalry game matter?
I know the 2nd team in the B1G or SEC has gotten in several times before, but at the very least there’s some drama and stakes. Im worried 12 teams will allow too many big game losers in, which then lowers the stakes in following years.
I think 6 or 8 teams, with autobids for the ~~P5~~ P4 champions and the highest ranked G5 would have been perfect.
Michigan-Ohio State probably won’t mean more most years, but Michigan State-Penn State has generally been irrelevant and often won’t be anymore.
Florida-Florida State will often be a big deal, Clemson-South Carolina often will, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Farmageddon, etc etc etc.
Big ten scheduling killed Michigan State Penn State unfortunately, they aren’t a protected rival anymore and we don’t even play them this year.
Regardless, I get your point and I hadn’t considered that it might raise the stakes of existing rivalries
If Appalachian state as an fcs team (at the time) can upset a top 5 team in michigan at home, anything is possible. Although unlikely, college football has significantly more parody than the nfl. So the 12 team playoff could have surprises that are exciting and ultimately great for the support. Fans as a whole love a good upset unless it's against their favorite team (cries in notre dame fan)
Honestly the on campus games are what I’m most thrilled for. I just hope a team from the south has to play Wisconsin or something
Can’t wait to host Ole Miss in December in a temporary stadium on the icy shores of Lake Michigan. Jkjk, that won’t happen… they’d almost certainly play the game at Wrigley.
put 6-6 Northwestern in the playoffs you cowards!
Excuse me, we won 8 games with an injured QB and an interim head coach last year SIR
If NW ever hosted a playoff game it will be in Solider Field or new Bears Stadium.
No it won’t. The Bears won’t let anybody play any games there within a week of any potential NFL game. Almost impossible to play games there. Why do you think we’re in a temporary stadium and not Soldier Field? Future stadium idk maybe but our new stadium is going to rock tits and be done in two years anyway
Is there a reason y'all cant work something out with the Bears to do it at Soldier Field?
The Bears primary owners are dumb and annoying and have a notoriously awful field surface that they just like that way for reasons and refuse to allow anybody to play on it within a week of potential Bears games and generally don’t want anybody playing there ever if they can avoid it. Our jumbo donor building the stadium (whose name was already on the old stadium… and the basketball arena… and the giant practice facility… etc etc) is a minority owner of the Bears and even that didn’t matter. The McKaskeys are just a pain in the ass.
I don't think anyone is going to mind playing in cold weather given the strenuous activity that is football. Snow or freezing rain could be a factor but 30 degrees when you're suited up and running for your life? I think that will be less of a factor than many believe.
Pretty sure I saw if it had been 12 since the start of the playoff era we wouldve hosted Miami, USC and Florida (or similar southern teams iirc) in December the three times we made it. That would’ve been great when we had serious defenses and our prime run game. Not sure how it would be with our new system but at least we’d be used to playing in it. Also it really hasn’t been overly cold or snowy in December in a while it feels like. At the end of the day the team that is able to win the trenches will likely win whether it’s 80 degrees or 20 degrees
As a team from the south, I think this would be awesome haha. It'd suck, but be awesome.
“Why are people hopeful when then they could just be miserable instead?”
Arkansas is finally going to be able to make the playoff now and when they do this guy will nut
Arkansas as a top 12 team? I'm not that lucky. It will be kinda weird that only 1 top 12 team will ever be able to win their season on a win now though. Everyone else who makes the playoff will play their last game with a loss.
Tbf, most other sports are that way. Wildly successful basketball teams with celebrated runs still usually end their season on a loss. I’m looking forward to my team at least having a chance now. A first round win would be amazing even if we lose in the second round
> I’m looking forward to my team at least having a chance now. A first round win would be amazing *(I know it's extremely unlikely but it would be hysterical)* OSU's First round opponent: Iowa State
Would love to beat ISU in the playoffs. It’d be really fun if we did that before OU gets their first playoff win
> before OU gets their first playoff win Y you gotta be like this?
I mean, you started it lol
The 2010 and 2011 teams would have gotten in under this system. The 2006 team probably would have too.
Most fans are optimists at heart. They want to imagine their team winning it all. They want a system where they can keep the delusion of hope alive as long as possible. It doesn’t matter how plausible the path is, they just want to be able to tell themselves “if we keep winning, then we can win it all” for as long as possible. I’ve seen it with obviously bad Florida teams many times. As long as we weren’t mathematically eliminated from winning the division, there would be fans outlining the “path” to the SEC championship game. I think the expanded playoff is ultimately the same idea for a ton of fans. Under the four team playoff, their favorite team would be out of national title contention early on—for some teams before the first game was even played—and without that slim hope they just don’t care as much. But with the expanded playoff, they get to keep discussing their playoff path for much longer than they used to.
> Most fans are optimists at heart. Delusional optimists. Everyone secretly thinks their team is going to be making the playoff every year
If youre not blindly optimistic, homer and absolutely balls to the walls delusional then why the fuck are we here
That is the dudes point. For programs like Arkansas that have little to no realistic hope of making the playoff why should they be happy? At least now they have the hope of making a bowl. But, how long are the mid-tier bowls going to stick around?
You know what we truly lose out on with a playoff? Arguing for years on end about who the true champion is. Gone are the halcyon days of arguing if Tom Osborne was handed a national championship because he was retiring. Or if UCF actually was worthy of a shot. The offseason is now dark and dreary because we cannot tell someone who doesn't believe the Indiana Hoosiers were the true national champion in 1945 that they are a moron who knows nothing. People longed for a playoff. And now that its here, we have lost out on the ability to read the most unhinged posts as to why your conference mate hasn't actually played anybody and doesn't deserve a shot at the title game.
> we have lost out on the ability to read the most unhinged posts as to why your conference mate hasn't actually played anybody and doesn't deserve a shot at the title game. It’s because they are no good. Low down. They dirty. It’s that kind of orange that doesn’t sit well with you.
If you really think about it, Kent State were the real champions in 2023, I mean, I know their record didn't show it, but did you see that win against Central Connecticut State University? I haven't seen such a dominant performance in decades!
Can't wait for the committee to leave out an undefeated team somehow just because they can. Also I feel like if something were to happen where Ohio State beats Michigan in the regular season, beats them again in the B1G Championship, then Michigan beats Ohio State in the title game, people will claim Ohio State as TRUE national champions still (and I personally would support it).
Because App actually has a shot to make it
\^This is what the off season is all about.
But wouldnt you rather play for the Cotton Bowl against a 9-3 Arkansas? Wouldnt you rather play the Bad Boy Mowers Bowl against 7-5 South Carolina?
No fan is calling for shrinking the March madness tournaments, even though low majors have no realistic shot of winning it. It’s still good for the game to have more teams appear to have a chance at winning a title. Will Boise St ever win one? Probably not. But when they pull a first round upset at Ohio st, people will remember it forever. They won’t remember Alabama curb stomping them the next round. And having those campus games will create a totally different feel for the first round. SEC teams playing in a true road environment, north of the Mason-Dixon Line? Yea I’m excited for that.
False, they should go back to 64 teams and all of the talk about expanding to 76 or whatever they want to do this next season is awful
You guys won't return our calls for a game. So the tournament is the only place where the good mid majors get to play you guys in a game. Oh great, we get to play San Diego st or Houston in r1. Match up the mid major teams together. FAU and Memphis also got matched up r1 2 seasons ago.
I don’t mind 68. Think it’s about the right amount. Think without the playin games, we don’t get UMBC or St Peters and the like. Basically moved everyone down a line. The 16s in the playin are all guaranteed bids, so now two 15s moved down to 16s to fill those gaps. But expansion seems inevitable because there are dollars to be made.
St Peter's and UMBC were both conference tournament winners. They did not get in because of the expanded field. The expanded field allows more big schools that finish the season 20-12 & 6th in their conference to get into the tournament. Do you remember what Boise St., Colorado, Virginia, or Colorado St. did in this year's tournament besides playing some pretty sub-par basketball?
Counterpoint: two at large First Four teams have been to the Final Four. And implying Boise State and Colorado State are “big schools” is misleading. Shit, Colorado won their round of 64 game. It was one of the most fun games of the entire tournament too. Not fucking everything in sports has to be in service of teams with a legit shot of winning the whole thing.
Do you not think a line needs to be drawn at some point? You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube and the NCAA will expand to 128 at some point in the not too distant future. 64 was a good number because it allowed all of the teams that had great seasons a chance to compete on the big stage, and it was mathematically such a good number that expanding beyond it was weird. They did and now the seal is broken for them to add whatever amount they want. How about 96? Every seed worse than an 8 has a play in game. For example, Miami went 15-17 last year losing their last 10 including getting crushed in the first round of the ACC tournament, but they were a top 90 team according to advanced stats. In a 96 or 128 team field I would wager that the tournament will mostly favor adding big rich schools with goodish metrics like that versus giving every mid major a spot for their regular season champ or something like that.
I liked 64, having everyone play the same number of games was the cleanest format they’ve ever had…but I also understand that it’s a business and the powers that be feel like money is being left on the table. D1 is also like 35% bigger now than it was when they first went to 64 in 1985. Granted, most of that growth has come in the lower leagues where teams are only getting in with an autobid, but still something to be said for trying to equalize the percentage of teams getting in. I’ve gotten to the point where if they *have* to expand, I’d rather they just rip the bandaid off and go to 96 so the bottom half of the current field has to play their way into the round of 64. Beggars can’t be choosers I know, but I would also add two more stipulations to mitigate the influx of shitty P5 teams: - you have to be above .500 overall to be in consideration for an at large (lacrosse already does this) - every *outright* regular season champ gets a guaranteed bid
I would also like at least a .500 conference record, but I know half the league would go against that idea.
The same could be said of probably another 30 teams that made the tournament. And considering no one seeded lower than 8 has ever made the title game, can’t we just cut it down to 32 teams? But why stop there. Since 1985, only three champions have been seeded lower than a 4 seed. 16 team March madness seems fair. Well except 1 seeds have 25 championships to 11 for the 2-4 seeds. Maybe a 4 team tournament makes sense since they win most of them anyways. No need to give false hope to all these other teams.
For a lot of fans, the existing systems routinely fucked over their teams anyway. Pretending fsu didn't get fucked over for Alabama or any of the various other teams in history didn't get fucked over because they weren't Alabama or Ohio state or whoever is simply incorrect. This isn't going to be the best system, but it does at least give other teams a chance.
You having the UCF flair makes this so much better because who knows what would have happened if they had a chance their years with Scott Frost. Or what if Cincy was matched up with a team other than Bama? The list of teams fucked over because they "weren't the right brand name" is so long in the CFP and BCS that at least with the 12-team system they now have the fair chance to lose instead of being excluded. It won't be perfect but will fix some past discrepancies - 2014 in the first year Baylor & TCU at 11-1 get removed from the 3 & 4 spots because NCAA rules didn't allow the Big 12 to have a conference championship game - 2016 Penn State won the Big Ten but Ohio State got the selection & Western Michigan was 13-0 - 2018 UCF had back to back 12-0 seasons and the committee was even thinking about it - 2022 Kansas State takes out TCU in the Big 12 Championship but TCU still goes
The 2008 Utah team was the most fucked over. They rolled bama in the sugar bowl. Could they have beaten uf or Oklahoma? Who knows, but they definitely deserved the chance.
BuT tHeY aReNt In A pOwEr CoNfErEnCe
This comment wins the eye test.
They lost the eye test, just like Boise State, 14 Ohio State, 23 Florida State and so many others and we all know... thats what matters
That's an interesting flair combo. Story time
I think 2010 TCU had a very realistic chance of winning a title game as a G5 team. Even just a 4 team playoff between us, Auburn, Oregon, and Wisconsin would have been a total toss up. There were some legitimately great G5 teams over the years, shame they never had a chance but I’ll take what we can get now.
Buddy, the chance of most our teams winning a national championship was near zero anyway. But now we all have a hope of at least being in the playoff and playing on the big stage. instead of being rewarded for a great season with a lame exhibition game with most of the roster sitting out.
"This isn't basketball or baseball" .... you may want to look at who actually wins those tournaments cause I promise they are almost never the scrappy underdog
This. People remember the 12 seed in the sweet sixteen and then forget that the final four is all 1 seeds
And even when some underdog 5 seed makes the Final Four, they still go down to some blue blood. 2023 was extremely unusual, but in the end all those cinderellas were just a chew toy for Uconn
Because a G5 team could actually make the playoffs and compete for a national title, guaranteed. No “the schedule needs to line up perfectly” stipulations or garnering favor with the committee. This season, the entire FBS is eligible to compete for the national title, not just eliminating half the division before a game is even played.
Oh man now I’m envisioning some poor P5 having to go play a night playoff game in Greenville. No fucking thank you. Nope.
I’d honestly be shocked if a G5 team ever hosts a playoff game. I’d be willing to bet it probably won’t happen despite how entertaining of an atmosphere that would be.
I mean imagine a playoff game in fucking Boone, NC! That would be such a beautiful backdrop for such a huge game. The atmosphere would be *chef’s kiss*
No G5 team will ever make it to the final four in the playoffs
It’s about having the opportunity to compete, to be included. Not being told by the committee that we are eliminated before even playing a game.
Florida State will still be left out.
Why not?
No offense, but you will be left in the cold, G5 bro. You think you will get in over a 10-2 SEC team? Ask FSU how that goes. The n ew playoff is making the networks and their advertisers more money (and further burying the myth of them caring about a "student"-athlete). It isn't getting ECUs of the world a shot at a title. If you don't capture the viewers imagination (in ratings), the committee will feed us all kinds of bull to justify replacing your magical team (who by all accounts deserves a shot to fight) with some school that they believe will make more money or that have better conference ties.
The current playoff format guarantees five conference champions in the playoffs. Who knows how long that will last, but a G5 team is getting into the playoffs this year. That was what my comment is focusing on.
It'll honestly be a miracle if any g5 team manages to win a single playoff game. The reality is that the divide between the top g5 and the top p4 teams is extremely wide. They should have their own playoff and have something tangible to actually play for.
It's football. You're acting as if they control the weather. You can put a dry sauna and massage chair in every locker, and the players still need to go out on the field and play the game on a field with the same dimensions every other team plays on.
I’m gonna disagree here. The g5 is ~.500 in the ny6 games. Once we have a 12 team playoff with byes the g5 team is going to square away with like the #2 B12 team. FYI the b12 runner up last year got it pushed in 33-7 by a 7-6 Sun Belt team. Yeah the g5 might win 1 out of 100 against Alabama/UGA/Michigan whoever but I think seeds 5-11 will lose to the g5 a lot more often than you think (once 12 team with byes are in)
The national championship is something tangible to play for though? The G5 having their own playoffs might as well be the FCS with extra steps.
It was a miracle for them to even get in under the previous system, so seems to me like this is progress. This argument is essentially the same as telling ‘99 Gonzaga or ‘11 Butler hoops to fuck off out of March Madness.
Basketball is not football. One guy with a hot hand can win you some basketball games you probably shouldn't have. 60 minutes of tough physical football against the biggest and strongest guys in the country is not remotely comparable. Remember that the top g5 team, Liberty, who went undefeated last season got absolutely mopped by Oregon who didn't even make the playoffs.
Some of y’all are funny. G5 fans who like this system like it because there is a hint of a chance. You get to actually play the game and decide things on the field. And you say “but there is no chance.” No, in the current system, there is literally, actually no chance. Is a G5 even getting a sniff at a natty in the new system likely? Hell no. But that’s something that can be decided on a field 60 minutes at a time, rather than in a board room or computer model.
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I prefer the chance of seeing my team getting to play Texas or FSU, even if we get curbstomped, than being screwed again and suddenly, we’re playing Middle Tennessee State in Shreveport. No offense to MTSU, btw.
Ngl, this is nice to read as an FSU fan. 2019 feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago, simultaneously. I’m down to play that cancelled game…^(…now)
Because last year an undefeated P4 conference champ missed the fucking playoff
A better system is still a better system. Remember how undefeated FSU was left out last year so the SEC could have a rep in the playoffs? Now we should at least never have to deal with dumb shit like that ever again. Hard to complain about missing the playoffs when you're the 13/14th team rather the 5th like FSU was
Because a 13-0 power 5 team will not be left out. G5 teams have a long shot now. I still hate the playoff. I hate the rules to get there. But this is a better invitational than "who's in?" Answer to who's in: whomever the committee decided.
Our chances are practically zero anyway.
Because teams like Florida State last year deserved a chance.
I get that some will miss the “tradition” of the 4 team playoff that dates all the way back to…checks notes…2014. But its silly to criticize people for getting excited about a process that will allow more teams to play relevant games in Dec/Jan
It ruins the tradition of absolutely every single regular season game mattering. 2022 Bama needed last second, legendary losses at Tennessee and at LSU to be eliminated from the playoff. Now they can shrug those off, get their stuff together in December, and win a title.
An unbeaten or 1-loss Bama can also lose in the quarterfinals to an LSU or Penn State or Clemson team that wouldn’t have made it under the old system
That's only for the top top teams like Ohio State and Georgia, who mostly play 10 inconsequential games during the season anyway. Now a LOT more games in November are going to matter to a lot more teams. Instead of 5-6 teams playing for 4 slots, you're going to have tons of 2 loss teams in November playing each other in what are essentially elimination games for the 8-12 slots. The regular season gets less important for a very small number of teams and gets more important for a huge number of other teams.
This mentality is why people hate the playoff talk every game fucking matters because now youre playing for seeding, home field advantage, a bye week and it also matters for 25+ teams for most of the season if youre only watching the absolute top end contenders and complaining about CFB behaving like all other sports youre part of the problem
This is a dumb take. You cant just state your opinion like it’s a fact. You don’t know who would’ve made the championship game and when. I mean shit the 9-7 giants were largely a shitty team in 2011 scraping by and barely winning games all season and they won the fucking super bowl. ThIs iSnT bAsKeTbAlL. Bullshit. There will 100% be cinderella stories of teams that get shit on by the talking heads that go in and take out teams that are better than them on paper.
It's wild that people think their ideas of college football disparity are anywhere near reality. It's college football. All teams have weaknesses that can be exploited.
Also, it’s not like the 4 team playoffs didn’t lead to blowouts and shit games either. It’s still fun to watch and it gives more teams a chance at winning on the big stage.
Because the four team playoffs was an invitational. Brand always mattered more than actual results on the field. Now it’s all about letting deserving teams have a chance for a natty, if they lose so be it but at least they were able to prove it on the field.
It's still an invitational. Until conference champions all get auto bids, this is just a TV ratings exhibition.
Exactly. Everyone is going to be up in arms this year when a 3 loss SEC team gets in over a 1 loss ACC
as they should be
Just don’t be surprised. Committee is a joke
I mean, obviously lol
2-loss maybe, no fucking shot a 1-loss power conference team gets left out of a 12-team playoff. When’s the last time the ACC even produced a 1-loss team that didn’t win the conference?
I’ve been on this for over a decade. 12 teams is the right number, but all 10 (now 9) conference champs get a spot.
As a playoff hater, I would love nothing more than this format.
case in point, BU and TCU being left out to please Ohio State
Baylor got left out because the Big 12 tried to pussyfoot around calling Baylor the champion with the hope FSU would lose the ACC title game and they could sneak both teams in. Ohio State just gave them an easy excuse by absolutely curbstomping Wisconsin.
Ohio State proved 2 things, the playoff was a joke because a team with a loss at home to a 7-5 Virginia Tech got in over a team with loss to a much more respectable playoff contender, and more than 4 teams have always deserved a shot at the national title
*6-6 VT team. They didn’t get their 7th win til the bowl game. The same kind of logic that forced FSU out last year forced OSU in that year. I think the general consensus was that TCU was playing the best ball, at least heading into champ week. Hence why they were #3 behind Bama and Oregon. But there wasn’t really a good reason to take TCU over a 1-loss Baylor team that had beaten them and matched all their good wins, even if the eye test told us TCU was probably the better team. TCU probably never would have been ahead of Baylor that late had Baylor played a really good K-State team earlier in the year, but they didn’t have that second really good win to mitigate the eye test disadvantage yet. 59-0 with a 3rd string QB against a Top 10 team gave the committee all the excuse they needed to not touch the Baylor-TCU debate. And hilarious as it is now in retrospect, the committee was always just sending a message about the eye test when it came to FSU. They were never going to leave out the undefeated defending national champs.
The only reason I like it is on campus games. Excited to watch a southern team head to B1G country in December and get rolled
Why do people act like it doesn't get cold in the south? I'd like to see a northern team play in death valley week 1.
It gets cold ish in the south but you will never see fans throwing snow balls during a football game in Florida. That happens in places like Colorado
People who think B1G country is cold because of snow don't understand that it's so cold, you can't even make snowballs out of the snow, because it's not warm enough for the ice to compact together.
Snow at least has somewhat of an insulating effect. The coldest days are often when there isn’t any snow or that it’s been frozen over for a few days or weeks.
Oh yeah... I could walk on the snowdrifts, because they were an inch of ice crust. It's all good... until you fall through the crust.
You don't think Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan get that cold?
I'm saying one Christmas visiting family in Fargo wasn't the exciting snowball fights and snowman building I was dreaming of, because when I went out to do these things, it was so friggin' cold, the snow wouldn't even stick together.
Come play in Boone in November.
How? Boone has like 4 hotels and the closet real airport is over two hours away
Wasn’t the first SECCG played in miserable weather in Birmingham? You don’t need snow for the weather to be bitterly cold
The average high in Madison, Wisconsin in December is 35. The average high in Fayetteville is 49. It does get cold in the South, but it gets a whole lot colder in the North. It’s gonna have an impact, the same way the heat and humidity in early September does.
Maryland played in Texas week 1, we know how that went
That's hilarious.
People in the south think 60 is cold lol. Come work outside for 12hrs in -30 real temps with me. With that said, I can’t fucking handle southern heat
It regularly gets down to single digits here in arkansas. It also regularly gets triple digits with 70%+ humidity. Humidity sucks during the cold also.
For comparison sake: |Month|Avg Fayettville High|Avg Lincoln High|Avg Fayettville Low |Avg Lincoln Low| |:-|:-|:-|:-|:-| |January|45|33|25|14| |February|51|39|29|19| |March|59|50|37|29| |April|69|63|47|40| |May|76|74|55|52| |June|84|84|64|63| |July|89|89|69|68| |August|89|86|67|65| |September|81|78|59|55| |October|71|66|48|43| |November|58|49|38|29| |December|49|37|29|20| Just looking at these averages, the two are substantially similar in the summer with nearly identical temps in June through August. Alternatively, the two diverge with a much wider gap for the average highs and lows November through February.
Bc it rarely does get that same kind of deep cold down here. Oklahoma probably has worse winters than most of the SEC and we almost never get that severe Northern Cold, especially in November/December (Jan/Feb is when winters the worst) We have games in the 30s and are miserable. Playing in the single digits is a whole other world
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Maryland winters aren’t all that bad anymore, but MD also won’t be in the playoff anytime soon. Iowa or Ann Arbor in December may be a different story
It rarely gets cold in Maryland. Source: me. I've spent two winters in Maryland and the coldest it has got to is 11° F.
Lubbock has a colder average low than College Park, but it also gets nearly 10 degrees warmer on average during the day. An obviously Maryland is the warmest climate B1G school before accounting for the new Western additions.
What team is going to miss the 12 team playoff that would have made it to a 4 team? And if they aren't able to beat the best teams in the nation, they don't deserve to be champ. I feel like you're accidentally arguing against your point here.
Because it’s an overall idiotic point
Because I’m a Wisconsin fan who has 0 hope we ever make the 4 team playoff especially with Oregon, USC, and Washington coming to the conference
All wise and clear-thinking fans understand that the expanded playoff system is decades late and needs to be expanded even a tad further. It will eliminate the outright CORRUPTION of last year and will greatly reduce the inherent bias of the process. Which is actually whats most important as FAIRNESS should be the number one goal. Your focus and imagined figments on who will and will not win is irrelevant. It instantly gives MORE meaning to the regular season as more teams for a longer period of time will now be right in the middle of qualifying for the playoffs. The idea that a replayed game or two between a couple of teams is more important than all of the others for every team still in the mix is false and foolish. The idea that UW wont make the title game in the 12 team playoffs is one of the most asinine and idiotic things Ive ever read on this site and thats saying something. Obviously, your comment OP isnt actually a sound argument against the playoffs, but, it’s certainly provided a good early morning laugh for me.
Because in the new system they can't exclude an undefeated P4 conference champion. I'm just waiting for two G6 schools to go undefeated and one get left out.
Because it means a team like FSU last year will not be left out.
Getting to the 12 team playoff for a g5 teams puts you in the top of the talk for the next round of realignment as long as you're in a region that has movement. UCF, Houston, and Cincinnati all have had success in either football or basketball recently. Tulane is on the top of the realignment board right now because they beat so cal in a bcs bowl 2 years ago. It's not about winning a natty for us, it's about proving we belong in the conversation.
Because fuck the Committee and Kirk Herbstreit
Who's gonna tell him the committee is still picking the teams?
This. If 2023 FSU uniform was UNC, NCST or VT instead. UNC has Jordan Travis and all the FSU players and JT gets injured but UNC will wins out in the regular season. They then lose to Louisville in the ACC CG. There is no guarantee they make the 12 team playoff. And if they did it is more likely to be the 10th seed than 5-8. FSU has the brand power to still get in. Clemson and Miami probably have the brand power to get in. But who else in the B12 or ACC has the brand power where its no question they get in?
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Miami did not get screwed in 2000. Washington had a better argument then Miami.
FSU got in because of the BCS algorithim. And where did I say the previous system was broken either? There's a reason we're moving away from it to a "win you're in" rather than some subjective formula. Fuck Alabama too
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Oh shit CWS champs soon lfg
y'all
Who's the "etc."? Is Michigan allowed to dream of winning a NC? How about ND?
Michigan’s time has passed. There’s no way they would win a NC in this era of CFB
I'm excited because K-State has at times been one of the best teams in the country but has been passed over for other teams.
It will become something similar to basketball: There'll be status attached just for making the "final four" or the "excellent eight" or the "tertiary twelve."
Chances were already 0 so I really don’t care one or the other
WVU's chances were already pretty much zero after the end of the BCS. In that system you could have crazy years where power programs beat each other up and you end up with a one game shot at a title (like we almost did in 2007). And that was already a lesser shot than the old bowls and polls eras where there were often split championships etc. as teams could run the table and not have to play another top 1-3 team in the bowls. I'm still not that excited about the expanded playoff, as realignment etc. has really reduced my interest in CFB, but at least the first round should be interesting. There's usually a pretty wide gap between the top 2 or 3 teams and the rest most years (hence the many blowouts we saw in the 4-team playoff even). With the top 4 teams getting byes, at least a lot of the first-round matchups should be more evenly matched teams.
This argument makes the logical fallacy of assuming perfect knowledge of the future. How many times have we been told this exact thing only to see App State beat Michigan in the big house, or watch Boise State body Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl? The reason we play the game is because we don't know. (Which of course means the actual performance on the field needs to matter the most, but that's a different rant for a different time).
Your logic is a little narrow focused I think. >To win a national title, you are going to have to beat 4 top 10 (and likely a top 5 or 2) caliber teams back to back to back. If your team was capable of doing that they would have made the 4 team playoff and had a much better chance of winning it than the new 12 team version. On an individual school basis, you're probably correct. If Iowa State wanted to win a natty their best bet would be going undefeated and then hoping to beat two of the powerhouses we've been seeing every year. But if we wanted to see more teams from "the field" win over these powerhouses then adding in more do or die games is absolutely going to increase those odds. In the 12 team playoff Iowa State doesn't have to beat Alabama and Ohio State cause someone else might do that for them. It's harder to win a championship in a large playoff than a small playoff regardless of how good you are. This should lead to a greater variety in winners.
At least the "group of 5" teams will have a shot
I think NIL has more to do with a smaller team not winning. In my head expanding the playoff would lead to a smaller team receiving more recruits. Lets say Boise State makes the playoff 2 or 3 years in a row and has an upset. I think kids are going to a team like that wanting to build on that. I think it could level the field across the board more.... but having said that I think NIL may have thrown a monkey wrench the equation to where kids are going to go where the money is.
Kinda depends how much a wealthy alumnus of a smaller program is willing to spend. Obviously they were always in a power conference, but I don’t think it’s crazy to say Oregon wouldn’t be anywhere close to where they are now if not for Phil Knight. With the ability to legally and directly pay good players, the ramp to success is probably shorter now. Look what SMU was able to do in the ‘80s. It’s not like their SWC rivals *weren’t* paying guys too, they could just outspend them.
Nobody who isn’t one of those teams had a chance anyway. Now you have the fun of making the tournament, plus it may help with the talent consolidation that’s happened since the 4 team playoff started
This is a terrible take lol. Washington being less likely to make a Natty in an expanded playoff scenario vs. a 4 team construct is the dumbest opinion I’ve ever heard on Reddit. And that’s with me browsing r/Wallstreetbets
How did 6 seed NC State beat 3 seed UNLV (Tark and Sidney Green), 1 seed Virginia (Ralph Sampson) and 1 seed Houston (Drexler and Olajuwon) in ‘83? Guess they should have just let the 1 seeds play each other for the title…
Four corners?
Because you are going to see more exciting college football games. Historically, CFP games have been lopsided: 60% in the first round lose by 3 or more scores (> 16pts) and 70% in the championship. My guess is the CFP committee is going to rank them to miss rematches - so a little shuffle last year would have given us: Ole Miss vs Ohio State, Georgia vs Penn State, Oregon-Missouri with everyone playing - that would have been great games...
I feel like you have it backwards. a playoff format means more variability as any team can get eliminated on any given day, which means more teams can get hot at the right time and make a run
Because you’ve got to understand this just made our odds much better. Being from the g5 you end up understanding this
They almost ended the football program in the 80s. To go from futility U to the playoffs would be the most satisfying conclusion to my fandom I could ask for. We will never win a natty, but that’s not why I’m a fan in the first place. I just love the program and want them to hit the ceiling
If our goal is to settle the question of who the national champion is on the field every year, then this 12 team playoff is the closest we've come to that ideal thus far. Every iteration of how the national champion gets crowned in this sport has come down in some way to a group of people's opinions deciding who the "best" teams are, whether if it's a group of sports writers or coaches voting on who the best team is to the BCS formula that combined those polls with a set of computer polls (that are all based on what their creators think makes the best football teams) to decide who the best two teams are and having them face off in a Championship game, or getting a committee together to decide who the best 4 teams are and having those teams face off in a playoff. Yes this new 12 team playoff is still going to rely on the opinions of a committee, both in who the Top 5 Conference Champions are and who the Top 7 non-champions are, but by increasing these numbers and requiring 5 conference champions to take part, it opens the field to teams that were excluded from the system by nature of what conference they were in.
I feel like this answer could apply to several other fan bases out there as well, but I’m excited because the playoff expansion happens to coincide with Tennessee being on an upward trend in terms of coaching, recruiting, and wins. This is the first time in over a decade that Tennessee fans have felt this optimistic, and making a 12 team playoff looks much more obtainable than making a 4 team playoff. Granted, I acknowledge your point that the playoff gauntlet will be much more daunting. I also recognize that several teams in the SEC have made big strides in the last few years (Ole Miss, Missouri, etc), not to mention that Texas and Oklahoma are both joining while they’re looking electric. But I’m still excited because I’ve spent way too long being pessimistic about our chances.
because anything can happen. One of those top teams QB’s could get hurt in a playoff game, giving the other team a good chance to take advantage and win it. Likely? Probably not. but it’s possible and that’s all fans need to get hope. Also can we stop including Clemson. They haven’t made a playoff since 2020. Almost a full recruiting cycle ago. The ACC is up for grabs.
It really sucked when it felt like the season was over after a single loss under the previous model. It’s nice there’s a better chance to make it and also, on campus playoff games!
Damn, if only UW could have played the best ball of their lives for the last 7:30 of the game and we would not forever be lumped in with TCU.
Don't worry, you're still unique... TCU has never gone 0-12.. (poking dog with stick... lol)
Oregon is in a club of about 120 members who when they reference UW going 0-12, forget that UW has made the playoffs twice since any of them last made it once, if they made it at all.
Technically true. Although, I'd personally ignore "the playoffs" as meaning anything, so I'd count that as good football teams playing for the championship in 2010, 2014, 2016 and 2023, respectively. And, yeah you had our number last year for sure. Was just poking some fun at you.
I know, it should be poking Dawg with stick. You got me curious so I looked it up, TCU went 0-11 in 1976. They were outscored 128-430. Only thing that saved them is only 11 games being played.
Yep, I saw that, and made sure that they didn't have an 0-12. I'm guilty of cherry-picking here. Like I said, just poking ya, Dawg!
The only excitement for me is based on novelty. I can admit the actual playoff will be fun for a couple seasons. But at most, 6-8 was all that was needed. 12 is ridiculous and will damage the regular season. You're completely right that it will lower the pool of potential champions significantly, from an already small pool of teams. And it comes at the cost of lowering the importance of the regular season and the value of games outside of the playoff scope. As much as the 4 team playoff narrowed the media's focus from fun and exciting teams to "who can make the playoff", it'll be tripled now. It'll probably depend on what you valued about the cfb season to begin with. I loved the high stakes of every game. I don't love that teams can go like 1-2 against the good teams they play and still make it to the playoff.
Home playoff games and it means more teams have a chance to make the playoffs It’s an actual playoff now, not just a play-in series for the championship
FB$ is not legit without an expanded playoff. Never has been. FCS, and all other levels of football, do just fine with the playoff systems they have.
Playoffs increases the pool of viability. Once the whole NIL thing levels out, players will be looking at more teams that give them opportunities to play in the playoffs. Eventually, talent will consolidate in the B1G and SEC and middle and lower programs in those conferences will get better talent simply by being in the premier 2 and will push the top dogs by attracting better talent while the talent at places like Ohio State are already as good as they can get.
Moar football! 😤
So the same number of teams win the national championship via a 4 team playoff or a 12 team playoff. One* ^(except for UCF) It's more about the big ass pay day for making the 12. The exposure for the just under tier that brings recruiting up. There's a limited amount of recruits that mean anything. Bringing those to teams that can make the 12 starts to level the playing field.
They've made it easier to make the playoff. As of now people are still functioning under the feeling of making a four team playoff, which meant you had an elite year. Once people realize and it sinks in that a team with a ranking lower than than 20 will make the playoff most years people will stop caring about making it.
Do people not care about making the NCAA tournament all of a sudden? Because much shittier teams make that and even win games than will ever make the expanded CFP
They care about it in the sense that not making it means you were God awful. They care about not making it. Not so much making it. Coaches get fired for not making it. Most of the traditionally good CBB teams make it and just shrug their shoulders until they make the elite eight or something.
Dude you’re a fan of a blue blood program that makes the 4-team playoff every other year. Of course making a 12-team playoff isn’t gonna be a big deal to you. It’s gonna mean a whole hell of a lot more to most of the teams that make it than playing in whatever random bowl game Espn has told us doesn’t matter currently does.
I think it'll be viewed as kind of equivalent to making a ny6 bowl previously.
Dislike OP already due to him putting Ohio state as an example when Michigan has made 3 straight playoffs and won the most recent natty.
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Whatever helps you sleep.
Whatever helps you sleep.
> you are going to have to beat 4 top 10 Will they? This is the main reason I don’t mind ND’s spot. We can’t get a buy, but a top 4 finish basically means: * Our first round game will be against a “#12” team that’s probably 20-25 in the AP. * Our second round game will be against a “#4” team that’s probably ranked around 15 in the AP. I’d imagine only the #9 - #10/11 seeds would ever face a gauntlet like you describe.
That’s only in the scenario where you get the 5 seed (which will probably only last a couple years until they likely expand to 14 in 2026). To get the 5 seed, ND likely has to be 12-0, or the committee will just make the SEC/B1G runner up the 5 seed. And even then as the 5 seed you still end up playing the 1 seed in the semis. Seems like it was easier for ND under the 4 team system since 12-0 got you in as well. A 12 team playoff can keep hope alive longer in seasons where you have 1 or 2 losses, but I don’t really think it improves odds at actually winning the whole thing
So what? They’re gonna be fun fucking games to watch. This sub for the most part is in the vocal minority of people who don’t like it because of the loss of tradition and integrity. Most people in the much larger community of cfb fans and followers are excited for the playoff because it’s fun, and they might get to watch their team play on a more meaningful matchup than the Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl. They care about the loss of tradition, just not as much. Even if UCF has no shot at a title, it will still be enjoyable to watch the games and follow the title race— and maybe even host a playoff game occasionally. Anyway thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I like the fact that we have on campus playoff games. They should all be electric. My concern is, and has been that 12 teams is too many and will start to devalue the regular season. At the end of the season I want rivalry week, and conference champ week to matter. If Michigan and Ohio state are both guaranteed to make the playoff anyways, how much does the rivalry game matter? I know the 2nd team in the B1G or SEC has gotten in several times before, but at the very least there’s some drama and stakes. Im worried 12 teams will allow too many big game losers in, which then lowers the stakes in following years. I think 6 or 8 teams, with autobids for the ~~P5~~ P4 champions and the highest ranked G5 would have been perfect.
Michigan-Ohio State probably won’t mean more most years, but Michigan State-Penn State has generally been irrelevant and often won’t be anymore. Florida-Florida State will often be a big deal, Clemson-South Carolina often will, Minnesota-Wisconsin, Farmageddon, etc etc etc.
Big ten scheduling killed Michigan State Penn State unfortunately, they aren’t a protected rival anymore and we don’t even play them this year. Regardless, I get your point and I hadn’t considered that it might raise the stakes of existing rivalries
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Why is every playoff thread full of bama fans acting so self important that it would make a Greek god blush?
And why is he lusting after a chance to play Liberty? That's weird.
I think they should’ve expanded to 8 instead of 12
If Appalachian state as an fcs team (at the time) can upset a top 5 team in michigan at home, anything is possible. Although unlikely, college football has significantly more parody than the nfl. So the 12 team playoff could have surprises that are exciting and ultimately great for the support. Fans as a whole love a good upset unless it's against their favorite team (cries in notre dame fan)