{"id":1146,"date":"2019-11-16T21:27:51","date_gmt":"2019-11-17T03:27:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/?p=1146"},"modified":"2019-11-19T09:42:35","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T15:42:35","slug":"why-an-8-team-playoff-will-save-college-football","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/why-an-8-team-playoff-will-save-college-football\/","title":{"rendered":"Why an 8-team Playoff Will Save College Football"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/CFP-Logo.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1153\" width=\"269\" height=\"167\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Fans have been clamoring for a college football playoff for\nyears.&nbsp; The BCS did a poor job of giving\nteams a chance at a true national championship.&nbsp;\nThe 4-team playoff has not done much better.&nbsp; It has routinely excluded conference\nchampions, excluded many really good football teams, and ultimately has become\nsystem that employs beauty pagent criteria to get access.&nbsp; If you are not a blue-blood program without any\nflaws, you have no chance to win it on the field.&nbsp; Lose an early game\u2026you are out.&nbsp; Suffer a critical injury at a core position,\nyou might be left out even if you are playing amazing football by the end of\nthe season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, in the current system, teams outside of Alabama,\nClemson and Ohio State are routinely left out despite an incredible\nseason.&nbsp; The effects of this can be seen\naround the country as teams with a realistic playoff aspiration are seeing\nsignificant drop offs in fan interest after they suffer a first loss, and\nrecognize they have zero chance with two losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Look at these five reasons to expand to 8 teams, you will see\nhow important this move will be for college football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol><li>Schedules are set too far in advance.<\/li><li>Conference Championships really only thing a\nteam controls year-to-year.<\/li><li>Injuries can keep out deserving teams.<\/li><li>Flukely plays and\/or bad officiating could keep\na team out.<\/li><li>Home Field is an enormous benefit.<\/li><li>More teams in the running in November.<\/li><li>Criteria are inconsistently applied<\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<ol><li><strong>Schedules are set too far in advance.<\/strong><\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Non-Conference games played in\n2019 were likely scheduled sometime between 2006 and 2012.&nbsp; Are the power programs today the same as they\nwere in those years?&nbsp; Can you predict how\ngood a Power 5 team will be 7 to 13 years (or more) in advance.&nbsp; Judging a program\u2019s success by the strength\nof that Non-Conference schedule makes little logical sense, because it is not\nlike the school could predict the \u201cstrength\u201d at the time it was schedule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Conference Championships really only\nthing a team controls year-to-year.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The only item in the control of a\nteam each year is to win its games.&nbsp;\nUltimately, for every team, in every conference, one of their main goals\neach season is to win their conference.&nbsp;\nThat accomplishment alone should be sufficient to get a Power 5 team into\nthe CFP.&nbsp; The beauty pagent conversations\nof the CPF Committee (which we discuss further below) should not be allowed to\noverride a conference championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Injuries can keep out deserving teams.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Take a look at Tua\u2019s recent\ninjury.&nbsp; If Alabama had lost a close game\nwhich was missed by their star QB, shouldn\u2019t they still have an opportunity to\nbe considered if he was healthy come playoff time? Under the current format,\nthere would be little chance to that to occur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Flukey plays and\/or bad officiating could\nkeep a team out.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Do we really want a team left out\nof the CFP with a bad call or a flukey play?&nbsp;\nYes, I recognize that this could occur at any level, no matter how many\nteams we put into the CFP.&nbsp; However, an\nexpansion to 8 teams would give an aggrieved team the opportunity to overcome a\nhiccup, something that does not exist in the current format.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Home Field is an enormous benefit.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A common complaint against\nexpanding the playoff, is that it would make games less meaningful.&nbsp; To the contrary, I think it would make the\ngames MORE meaningful.&nbsp; Teams would be battling\nfor home field in the Quarterfinals all the way through the conference\nchampionship games.&nbsp; We have seen\nsituations where it has been clear that a team may be in the CFP, even with a\nloss in the championship (or conversely, eliminated even with a close loss).&nbsp; The distinction between playing at home or\ntraveling across the country to another power school would keep the stakes\nhigh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>More teams in the running in November.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>A team with two losses currently\nhas no chance to get into the CFP.&nbsp; For\nsome of the reasons set forth above, you can see that could unfairly penalize a\nteam.&nbsp; If you look at the Top 25 right\nnow, there are probably a dozen teams who could reasonably have a chance to\nmake an 8 team playoff that would have zero chance to make a 4 team playoff.&nbsp; As currently situated today, there are really\nonly about 8 teams with a chance:&nbsp; Ohio\nState, Clemson, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Oregon, Utah and Oklahoma.&nbsp; You might be able to make arguments for a few\nothers, but it would take a lot of upsets. In an 8 team playoff, you would\nstill see a path to the playoff for: Baylor, Penn State, Minnesota, Wisconsin,\nMichigan, Florida, Notre Dame and Auburn.&nbsp;\nThis basically doubles the pool of candidates and sets up critical games\ndown the stretch as we head to rivalry week.&nbsp;\nThe importance of this breadth and diversity cannot be overstated since\nit will allow many programs to see a viable route to the program even when they\nunderstand that likelihood of finishing in the Top 4 is not a realistic goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Conference Championship games\nfrequently lack energy<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>So now let\u2019s look at the actual\nselection process.&nbsp; My proposal is for 8\nteams, rewarding all 5 Power Conference Champions with a bid.&nbsp; This ensures that all Conference\nChampionships mean something.&nbsp; On the\nrare occasion that a truly \u201cundeserving\u201d team wins the championship, so what?\nThey become an underdog and a darling and maybe they make a run!&nbsp; The Group of 5 teams would have a spot\nreserved for them as long as the highest ranked team in that group is in the\nTop 12 (or Top 15).&nbsp; I don\u2019t think anyone\nminds seeing a Central Florida take a spot in the tournament, but nobody wants\nto see a three loss Group of 5 team ranked 20<sup>th<\/sup> or worse taking up a\nvaluable spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Criteria are inconsistently applied.<\/strong><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>When you look at the way the\ncommittee approaches the conversation, you essentially see three distinct\nconversations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Body of Work<\/strong>\u2014Your body of work can\nonly be as good as your schedule.&nbsp; So\nthese all relate to each other, but sometimes a school just wins and wins and\nwins, but may not look as impressive.&nbsp; Does\nthat team deserved to be excluded because they do not blow out every\nopponent?&nbsp; Put them on the field and they\nwill just win games\u2026and they should get that chance.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Best Win<\/strong>\u2014another function of the\nschedule. Not only your schedule, but the schedule of an opponent.&nbsp; Beat a really good team who has beaten nobody\nelse and you will get little credit, no matter how good that team is.&nbsp; Beat a mediocre team that has a win over\nanother mediocre team&nbsp; (i.e. overrated in\npreseason polls) and you will jump up the charts.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Worst Loss<\/strong>\u2014If multiple teams have\none loss, is the primary consideration who they lost to?&nbsp; Or who else they have beaten?&nbsp; This year, Georgia has a terrible, home loss\nto South Carolina.&nbsp;&nbsp; Alabama has a close\nhome loss to LSU.&nbsp; Georgia\u2019s loss is\nclearly worse, but they are rated higher due to wins over Florida, Notre Dame\nand Auburn.&nbsp; The committee flip flops\nevery year on how they apply this criteria.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Strength of Schedule<\/strong>\u2014Subject to\nthe same problem noted above based on how far the games are scheduled in\nadvance.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, the expansion to 8 will be great for college\nfootball.&nbsp; What used to be the best\ncollege sports season out there, has now largely been reduced to watching which\nteam between Alabama, Ohio State or Clemson can run up the score the highest.&nbsp; That is not a sustainable model.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fans have been clamoring for a college football playoff for years.  The BCS did a poor job of giving teams a chance at a true national championship.  The 4-team playoff has not done much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":114,"featured_media":1153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[610],"tags":[516,35,317,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/114"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roykessel.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}