🏈 CFP presidents have unanimously approved to expand the College Football Playoff to 12 teams

 

[rocknthefreeworld]

12 is really too many, but I guess it is better than 16.

 

[TerryP]

12 is really too many, but I guess it is better than 16.

If what The Athletic is reporting is correct six will be highest ranked conference champions.

 

[rocknthefreeworld]

If what The Athletic is reporting is correct six will be highest ranked conference champions.

I am OK with that, but we only need at most 2 wild cards. I expect we will have a 20-32 team playoff in the next 10 years to make all of the bowls matter again.

 

[bamascw]

So, 4 SEC teams make the playoffs.

 

[TerryP]

I am OK with that, but we only need at most 2 wild cards. I expect we will have a 20-32 team playoff in the next 10 years to make all of the bowls matter again.

How many times have you heard people talk about the momentum a team will carry through the off-season after a good win to close the season? We'll soon see teams realize a NY6 win is a hell of a lot better than ending their season getting demolished in the playoffs.

 

[BamaFan334]

Man, eff this. College football is done for. I thought student athlete safety and health was at the forefront, so we add more games?

 

[50+yeartidefan]

All true for those opposing but will not see the rash of players sitting out.
More meaningful games as opposed to bowl games

But 12 ....,crazy world of cf these days

 

[rick4bama]

Man, eff this. College football is done for. I thought student athlete safety and health was at the forefront, so we add more games?

It for the Benjamin!!!

 

[mando]

To many - 2-4 is all that is needed. Expanding to keep interest so I wold have only gone to 8. But to each his own. Interesting to see how or if this aligns with bowl games.

 

[The Dude]

If what The Athletic is reporting is correct six will be highest ranked conference champions.

There may be one, but I would liked to have seen a ranking cap on that one. Like they have to at least be ranked in the top 25 (I would prefer 15) to be eligible. I'm sure that would create drama if someone was ranked 26 and missed it but honestly if you are that low you dont deserve to be in even if you won your conference. Not sure that scenario would ever play out, but something I have thought about.

 

[bamatommy]

It for the Benjamin!!!
View attachment 21878

It started in 1992 when the SEC added a championship game, which I HATE. I’ll never forget the 1994 season, Jay Barker’s last ss Tide QB. The Tide was the ONLY SEC school with a perfect record, and in 1991 they would have been outright champions, but in 1994 they had only won the SEC West at the end of the regular season. They had to play Florida in the SECCG and lost by ONE POINT, 24-23, to Gator QB Danny Wuerffel. It’s all about the money, and the SECCG was the beginning of the expansion of the season.

 

[TerryP]

There may be one, but I would liked to have seen a ranking cap on that one. Like they have to at least be ranked in the top 25 (I would prefer 15) to be eligible. I'm sure that would create drama if someone was ranked 26 and missed it but honestly if you are that low you dont deserve to be in even if you won your conference. Not sure that scenario would ever play out, but something I have thought about.

It'll happen. Not the cap, but seeing a team with an automatic bid that's also ranked well below teams that miss out on an at-large invitation.

@bamatommy started another thread that goes hand in hand with this discussion. A sentence from that article:

The new arrangements are established by one force, television networks, and for one reason, national ratings.

Another view of this expansion runs along these lines, "we've gone from five Power Five conferences—where one, if not two, are irrelavent each season—to adding what's basically another Power conference to put us in a P6 landscape: now with two, and three, power conferences with teams that will be irrelevant.

It goes a little farther than that if you step back and look at the entire picture. The two teams that have been "a fly in the ointment" lately are Cincy and UCF. What's happened to UCF? The left the presumably next power conference (AAC) to join the Big 12. Yes, their chasing money but that money isn't coming from that one year out of 10 where they get an invitation, it comes from those network contracts.

Other schools will follow suit by jumping into conferences (see Big 12 and PAC) for the dollar figures. BUT, what does that leave us with? The better teams from the smaller conferences are going to power conferences leaving the talent pool in those smaller conferences worse off than they are today. Take UCF as an example here: a choice between an occasional payout from an occasional playoff appearance versus joining a conference where they get a piece of that "playoff pie each season leaving the ACC weaker than it is today.

In essence, they not only are watering down the playoffs by adding teams that are fodder, but they've also watered down the regular season because losses wont matter as much.

 

[TerryP]

All true for those opposing but will not see the rash of players sitting out.
More meaningful games as opposed to bowl games

Sure, except for those top ten teams who miss out on a playoff spot because of an automatic bid because another team won "Also ran conference titles."

Bowl games didn't become "meaningless" until college football decided to go with a playoff format. Players didn't sit until they went to a playoff format. Now, the assumption that it won't continue? It will, to a greater degree, for teams who are left out.

All those who complain about bowl games while at the same time advocating for expanded playoffs have no one to blame but themselves. The expansionist killed the bowl season. Now, they've removed post-season opportunities for teams—originally found in these very bowl games—because they've preached that message, "the game you're about to play in is meaningless." All because they want to see someone get a participation trophy due to being in the playoffs when those very teams shouldn't be there in the first place.

Let's see how the world reacts to seeing a 24th ranked Utah State with an automatic bid while the second place team from the B1G is left at home (with their players choosing to sit out.)

(Waiting for someone to say, "look at basketball's 68 teams" knowing full well you can't compare to the sports.)

 

[TerryP]

Looking back a bit ...

In 2014, we were in week 12—twelve―and Mississippi State was ranked #1 on its way to face #5 Bama in Tuscaloosa. At the same time Ole Miss had dropped their last SEC game (five loss Auburn,) its second game of that season, as well as dropping several places in the polls.

As you remember the Bulldogs lost to Bama then two weeks later lost to Ole Miss (three loss regular season) to finish their regular season 10-2.

Here they've lost two games to close out their season against two top ten teams. Do they deserve a playoff spot?

Those two losses wouldn't have mattered because under this system they'd have hosted a first round game. CFP Board Chair Mark Keenum said that yesterday. A counter-argument is "it won't water down the regular season" but there we're staring at a situation where Ole Miss is left out all while holding a top 10 ranking.

You're losing two of your last three and you're hosting a first round playoff game. SMFH.

#20, Boise State, would have received an automatic bid.

One of my best friends is putting his kayak in the Cooper River right now to do a little salt water fishing (Redfish.) Looks like I'll be joining him sooner than I expected; next year if things fall the way some are forecasting.

 

[im4uainva]

Not that it matters, but I don't like it.

ROLL TIDE!

 

[50+yeartidefan]

Sure, except for those top ten teams who miss out on a playoff spot because of an automatic bid because another team won "Also ran conference titles."

Bowl games didn't become "meaningless" until college football decided to go with a playoff format. Players didn't sit until they went to a playoff format. Now, the assumption that it won't continue? It will, to a greater degree, for teams who are left out.

All those who complain about bowl games while at the same time advocating for expanded playoffs have no one to blame but themselves. The expansionist killed the bowl season. Now, they've removed post-season opportunities for teams—originally found in these very bowl games—because they've preached that message, "the game you're about to play in is meaningless." All because they want to see someone get a participation trophy due to being in the playoffs when those very teams shouldn't be there in the first place.

Let's see how the world reacts to seeing a 24th ranked Utah State with an automatic bid while the second place team from the B1G is left at home (with their players choosing to sit out.)

(Waiting for someone to say, "look at basketball's 68 teams" knowing full well you can't compare to the sports.)

Lol....knew the response....

No its not going to be perfect....and there probably isnt one....
Every body didn't love polls....BCS...4 team CFP....wont love 12...wouldnt have loved 6 or 8......

And can look through and make examplles...how horribly things would or would have worked.....

But $$$ is driving things....hope its not the "goose and golden egg" happenings......
but foe ME...

Expansion of CFPs is better than bowls.....playing in "bowls"...or in home stadiums...

 

[94 Grad]

Will be interesting to see all the heads explode when a team faces the same team 3 times in a season... One regular season, one championship weekend, and one in playoff...

 

[50+yeartidefan]

Will be interesting to see all the heads explode when a team faces the same team 3 times in a season... One regular season, one championship weekend, and one in playoff...

And might happen.....

Whatever....could happen...very likely will happen...eventually

 

[rocknthefreeworld]

Bowl games didn't become "meaningless" until college football decided to go with a playoff format.

Hard disagree. Once the BCS came into being the rest of the bowls were pretty meaningless. Especially to anyone not playing in them. Anything like the 1965 season where #4 Bama beat #3 Nebraska in the Orange and both #1 and #2 lost their bowls could never happen again.