CFP expanding to 8 teams before 2026 - CBS Sports

[Jens1893]

nba playoffs are the only playoffs where random noise is generally kept to a minimum and where the better team usually prevails.

if you want a system that produces the best team, theres no way round a true round robin where you preferably play every team home and away.

 

[Not Sure]

there is no notion of 'proof' in sports -- proof is a theoretical concept that only applies in mathematics and philosophy. you're being absurd.

I think we can have confidence that when a 14-6 team is crowned champion over a 16-1 team, and those teams were 1-1 vs each other during the entire season, that the better team wasn't crowned champion.

if you'd like to provide a logical explanation of why you are so confident that a single-elimination, short-series tournament does consistently select the best team, I'll read it carefully with an open mind. If you have nothing more to offer than "they won the playoffs so therefore they must be the best", don't bother.

You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. Saying the champion isn’t the best team is simply being pedantic. As there’s no way to prove you wrong (or right), the discussion can last infinitely. Was Jimmy V’s Villanova team the best team in college basketball? Yes. They have the hardware to prove it and no matter what anybody else says, they can back up the assertion.

 

[leftybuff]

You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. Saying the champion isn’t the best team is simply being pedantic. As there’s no way to prove you wrong (or right), the discussion can last infinitely. Was Jimmy V’s Villanova team the best team in college basketball? Yes. They have the hardware to prove it and no matter what anybody else says, they can back up the assertion.

?????????????

 

[Not Sure]

?????????????

Ha! NC State.

 

[hokiehead]

You’re just arguing for the sake of arguing. Saying the champion isn’t the best team is simply being pedantic. As there’s no way to prove you wrong (or right), the discussion can last infinitely. Was Jimmy V’s Villanova team the best team in college basketball? Yes. They have the hardware to prove it and no matter what anybody else says, they can back up the assertion.

having a trophy doesn't prove who the best team is, it only shows who the champion is. I invited you to provide a logical explanation as to why you are so confident they are necessarily the same. you don't seem able to.

nobody named Jimmy V ever coached at Villanova that I'm aware of. However, the 1983 NCSU NCAA hoops championship example would be the first example I'd suggest to show that the best team doesn't consistently win the NCAA hoops tourney. I've never met a single person before you who even suggested that the Wolfpack were the best team that year, and I lived in Raleigh for seven years working in a firm full of NCSU grads.

if you really believe that recognizing a difference between "being champion" and "being the best" is pedantic, I should've followed my own suggestion and stopped a few posts ago. throwing pearls before swine is accomplishing nothing.

peace.

 

[leftybuff]

Man, the NCAA BBall tourney has 64, now 66, teams and people still bitch about who is in it and who is out....

 

[somebody]

?????????????

lol, don't tell him that the only reason they won that game was Guy Lewis taking the air out of the ball from Phi Slamma Jamma. w/o that, maybe they lose by 50.

 

[leftybuff]

lol, don't tell him that the only reason they won that game was Guy Lewis taking the air out of the ball from Phi Slamma Jamma. w/o that, maybe they lose by 50.

I lived in Houston at that time. My bro was a student at UH, so I saw a lot of their games, best college basketball team ever, IMO. But they never won it all. Guy Lewis, God bless him, was not the best coach, but a legendary recruiter.

 

[bar9716]

fair point....

not quite ready to jump to this conclusion. without analysis, I SWAG'd earlier that the NFL playoffs selects the best team about 60% of the time. I think your sampling backs that up.

The issue people have with this is that you are using some other criteria to determine the "Best team." And that criteria has far more problems and holes than a playoff does, especially in college football.

Even your example of at 14-2 team being crowned champion over a 16-1 team when they were 1-1 against each other has problems. If record is the most important factor, everyone will schedule cream puffs to improve their record. Or if a team was undefeated in conference in a really weak division and play a cream puff non-conference schedule, are they REALLY the best team in the country? There are far too many examples of this not being true to deny the problems.

IMO, I think a playoff may not be perfect, but it is still much better than any other way to determine the best team.

 

[hokiehead]

The issue people have with this is that you are using some other criteria to determine the "Best team." And that criteria has far more problems and holes than a playoff does, especially in college football.

Even your example of at 14-2 team being crowned champion over a 16-1 team when they were 1-1 against each other has problems. If record is the most important factor, everyone will schedule cream puffs to improve their record. Or if a team was undefeated in conference in a really weak division and play a cream puff non-conference schedule, are they REALLY the best team in the country? There are far too many examples of this not being true to deny the problems.

IMO, I think a playoff may not be perfect, but it is still much better than any other way to determine the best team.

good comments.

FTR, I have not been promoting ANY system for determining the best college team. I'm in favor of a system that stops with conference championships and makes no attempt at naming a "national champ".

My argument was that if your intention is to devise a system for selecting the 'best team', that a single-elimination short-series playoffs does a poor job. However, I do appreciate the sense of fairness that most fans feel toward a playoffs. One thought that occurred to me last night is that in order to believe that a single-elimination, single-game series playoffs consistently selects the best team as champ, you have to believe that on a game-by-game basis, the best team consistently wins. My observation following football for close to 40 years is that upsets happen all the time.

Regarding the importance of record and use of that for determining the best team, you're taking my comments out of context: the discussion you're referencing was specific to the NFL, and the NFL parity is much, much greater than in college -- there is no 'stacking of schedule' as its assigned by the NFL's rotating schedule formula. One reason I advocate for keeping the emphasis on college conference championships is that it makes the argument about differences in OOC scheduling irrelevant. Not only are conference schedules assigned, but within each conference (at least when conferences were smaller), there has historically been much more schedule parity within that set of teams vs the set of all FBS teams (or even all P5 teams); this is different now with 12 - 14 team conferences.

 

[tante]

I'm in favor of a system that stops with conference championships and makes no attempt at naming a "national champ".

Interesting. Is an arbitrary "conference champion" any better than an arbitrary "national champ"? Both are based on unequal criteria. If a 7-5 division winner beats an 12-0 division winner, how can they be the conference champion?

 

[hokiehead]

arbitrary: based on random chance or personal whim, rather than any reason or system

Interesting. Is an arbitrary "conference champion" any better than an arbitrary "national champ"? Both are based on unequal criteria. ...

not something I've given a moment of thought to. I'm not aware of anyone proposing an arbitrary champion for any conferences or for the nation.

... If a 7-5 division winner beats an 12-0 division winner, how can they be the conference champion?

not sure where you're going here. The 7-5 team can end up being a conference champ over a 12-0 team because each conference sets its own rules for organizing their teams and determining a conference champ. Most FBS conferences (all now?) have chosen to move toward a division format with a CCG. As I understand it, the trend was driven by financial motivations.

I suspect there's no turning back, but I thought the system pre-Bowl Alliance (before 1995) was damn near perfect -- smaller conferences with a more localized geographic footprint, tighter academic standards and more uniform recruiting territories, where each team played all but 1 - 2 other conference teams each year, and had a decisive system for crowning their own champions, with no notion of a consensus 'national champion'. My remaining hope is that with near-future changes to content distribution, the financial motivation for large conferences goes away and we might see some contraction. There is precedent -- in the 1920's and '30's, the Southern conference included > 20 members at one point (including current ACC and SEC schools).

 

[MiamiBuffs]

To be getting record ratings at a time when ratings in general are declining is a BFD. The reports of the death for college football media deals are greatly exaggerated, methinks.

Im not too sure about that. Ratings for playoffs and championships are high. Are ratings for regular season games as good? Think mens basketball...

I disagree, quite simply because I think ESPN, the one company that is mainly responsible for the increased value of the college football media deals, is walking down a non-sustainable path and losing customers (and hence revenue) left, right and centre. I think the business model will have to change especially, when I see how many people are moving away from linear TV to stream based solutions. They will have to adapt to that and I think that'll ultimately make it more difficult.

^^^^ This.

The Walt Disney Company is not very likely to let the company that inflated all these rights deals do that again. Especially now they are part of the Disney family and have caused a negative impact to the Disney share price.

 

[Buffnik]

I don't think that the College Football rights are the reason that ESPN is struggling. Quite the opposite. LHN aside, it's been the best performance for their money. It's why they did the ACC deal in the midst of layoffs. It's why they're still buying bowl games.

Regardless of cord cutting and whether more people are going to watch programming through hulu or Amazon or Google or AppleTV or whatever... ESPN still has to be positioned to have the content. Where the network is facing challenges is with its daily filler shows that aren't about a live sporting event, a draft or tourney selection or awards show, etc. Also that the premium they were paying for journalists and talking heads in the studio was over the top versus their actual market value.

 

[Not Sure]

What’s stopping the P12 Network from carrying the ACC or the B12 and maybe a bowl game or two?

 

[hokiehead]

What’s stopping the P12 Network from carrying the ACC or the B12 and maybe a bowl game or two?

the contract between the ACC and ESPN would be one significant impediment

 

[Not Sure]

the contract between the ACC and ESPN would be one significant impediment

Well, sure. There are existing contracts with the bowls too. I guess I’m asking about what happens when those contracts expire.

 

[tante]

arbitrary: based on random chance or personal whim, rather than any reason or system


not something I've given a moment of thought to. I'm not aware of anyone proposing an arbitrary champion for any conferences or for the nation.


not sure where you're going here. The 7-5 team can end up being a conference champ over a 12-0 team because each conference sets its own rules for organizing their teams and determining a conference champ. Most FBS conferences (all now?) have chosen to move toward a division format with a CCG. As I understand it, the trend was driven by financial motivations.

I suspect there's no turning back, but I thought the system pre-Bowl Alliance (before 1995) was damn near perfect -- smaller conferences with a more localized geographic footprint, tighter academic standards and more uniform recruiting territories, where each team played all but 1 - 2 other conference teams each year, and had a decisive system for crowning their own champions, with no notion of a consensus 'national champion'. My remaining hope is that with near-future changes to content distribution, the financial motivation for large conferences goes away and we might see some contraction. There is precedent -- in the 1920's and '30's, the Southern conference included > 20 members at one point (including current ACC and SEC schools).

I see the problem now. Your argument is that the winner of the playoffs is the national champ, but may not be the best team. I was assuming that your argument was that they were not champs because the best team should be champion. That is why I considered it arbitrary and why a team like UCF can claim to be the champion. I still don't understand why you are in favor of conference champions over a national champion. A conference champion is bestowed the crown based on the same flawed system and principles that you admonish. They no more represent the best team in the conference than a national championship has in crowing the best team in the country. Sure at times the winner will be both the champion and the best team, but I always prefer to use the winner of a head to head matchup to find the superior team. Let a body of work get you to a playoff and then may the best team prevail.

 

[hokiehead]

I see the problem now. Your argument is that the winner of the playoffs is the national champ...

to clarify my position on this specifc point (now I'm being pedantic), the winner of the playoffs is "a national champ", or "a mythical national champ", if you prefer. until the governing body of the sport recognizes it as such, there is no "the national champ".

 

[tante]

to clarify my position on this specifc point (now I'm being pedantic), the winner of the playoffs is "a national champ", or "a mythical national champ", if you prefer. until the governing body of the sport recognizes it as such, there is no "the national champ".

see you did make it arbitrary. You worded it like there could be multiple national champions. You secret UCF fan.

 

[leftybuff]

Well, sure. There are existing contracts with the bowls too. I guess I’m asking about what happens when those contracts expire.

They sign new ones?

 

[somebody]

to clarify my position on this specifc point (now I'm being pedantic), the winner of the playoffs is "a national champ", or "a mythical national champ", if you prefer. until the governing body of the sport recognizes it as such, there is no "the national champ".

What? The NCAA is the governing body of the sport, and recognizes Alabama as the FBS national champ. Unless you're saying the champ isn't determined between FBS and FCS and Division II and Division III, you're just wrong.

 

[leftybuff]

to clarify my position on this specifc point (now I'm being pedantic), the winner of the playoffs is "a national champ", or "a mythical national champ", if you prefer. until the governing body of the sport recognizes it as such, there is no "the national champ".

Welcome to "Fun with articles" and your host, Hokiehead.

 

[Not Sure]

They sign new ones?

I would assume so.

 

[Medford M.]

The issue with just using record to determine who is best shouldn't even be brought up.

Every single person on here has a set of eyes, and as long as human beings have a part in picking the 4 teams the eye test is going to play a huge role.

Not to mention the millions of advanced metrics which have shown to be pretty damn good at showing who the best teams are.

BTW, TCU should have been in the '14 playoff. Champion tOSU shouldn't have even had the opportunity to compete for it.

 

[Not Sure]

The issue with just using record to determine who is best shouldn't even be brought up.

Every single person on here has a set of eyes, and as long as human beings have a part in picking the 4 teams the eye test is going to play a huge role.

Not to mention the millions of advanced metrics which have shown to be pretty damn good at showing who the best teams are.

BTW, TCU should have been in the '14 playoff. Champion tOSU shouldn't have even had the opportunity to compete for it.

So who is the best team in the NFL?

 

[leftybuff]

So who is the best team in the NFL?

The one with the best record.

 

[Not Sure]

The one with the best record.

It’s so obvious! Why didn’t I think about that?

 

[hokiehead]

What? The NCAA is the governing body of the sport, and recognizes Alabama as the FBS national champ. Unless you're saying the champ isn't determined between FBS and FCS and Division II and Division III, you're just wrong.

Do you have a source for this?!?!?! I really feel that's the kind of news I would've heard or read somewhere.

 

[Medford M.]

So who is the best team in the NFL?

There's no real good answer for that this year, but it's not Tennessee, or Jacksonville.

There isn't an '07 Patriot's in the bunch. Whom btw, the eye test, the record, and literally every standard and advanced stat would tell you they were the best. They didn't get a trophy, but they were clearly the best, and I have a feeling you're the only living being who would argue that.