(07-01-2018 10:34 AM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-16-2018 08:48 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(06-15-2018 03:04 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  

(06-09-2018 12:58 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(07-31-2016 06:39 PM)Attackcoog Wrote:  Is it? Just remember #4 won in year one. Who's to say #5 wouldn't have won. My preference is send the conference champs. That way it's all decided on the field.

Except ... just because something is decided on the field doesn't mean it isn't perverse, because the methods for picking conference champs are far from perfect, and the immediate impact would be to make OOC games worthless, which should be more important than conference games in determining playoff worthiness.

E.g., in the AAC, Houston could go 12-0, with wins over two good OOC teams like say a high ranked Louisville and Oklahoma of a couple years ago. USF could go 8-4, with losses to terrible OOC teams. But if USF went 8-0 in the conference, they'd win their division, and if they then beat Houston in the AAC title game, you'd have a 9-4 USF team in the playoffs over a 12-1 Houston team.

That would be pretty crazy.

But acceptable---because UCF would have earned their way to the CFP by defeating the better team "on paper" in front of thousand of witnesses (and millions on TV). In fine with that. In fact---thats what sports is. If we knew who would win the games---sports wouldnt be very interesting. As long as the action plays out on the field--I dont think anyone can really argue with the outcome. Putting a bunch of big cigars in a behind closed doors and letting them decide outcomes is the polar opposite of letting things play out on the field in broad daylight in front of the nations fans.

IMO, the problem with your take is that it ignores the 4 other times that USF (I actually used USF, not UCF as my example) lost. It privileges the one H2H game between USF and Houston over not just one of those, but all four, which to me is nonsensical.

I always use 1992 NFL as an example. I'm a Rams fan of 45 years, and that year we had a lousy team, 6-10. The Dallas Cowboys won the Super Bowl that year, with maybe the most talented roster any team has ever had.

But guess what? we played Dallas that year, in Dallas, and beat them. Does that mean our "win over the better team on paper in front of millions of witnesses" mean we should be ahead of them in the NFL standings? Of course not. They won 13 games, we won 6.

Similarly, in my example, USF won 9 games, Houston won 12. The problem here is the AAC method of picking its division winners - only the conference games count. Which is contrary to reason, and how every other league does it (e.g., in the NFL, all games count towards picking a division winner, not just the divisional games).

Since college conference methods for picking their champs are flawed, it makes no sense to use them as the sole, ironclad method for playoff inclusion.

In my example, Houston wasn't the better team on paper. Even after losing to USF, they were clearly the better team in terms of results on the field, but USF would go to the playoffs.

Your NFL expample is a good one. Nobody ever at argues that an NFL champion isn’t legit—-regardless if they have the best regular season record or whether they had the weakest schedule. If a team makes the playoff with a lackluster record because it plays in a lackluster division—-nobody cares. Every team knew going in what they needed to accomplish to make the playoff. Every team, once in the playoff, will move on based entirely on what transpires on the field. The NFL is the most watched athletic league in the country. A model where every team has a path to the playoff thats within its own control is a totally acceptable model. Granted—it will require some tweaks in the college world where all conferences are not equal—but the 8 team (5 P5 champs and the top ranked G5 champ are AQ with 2 wildcards) seems to come pretty close to that model in a imperfect world.

I agree as far as you take this, but I don't think you take it quite far enough. Yes, with the NFL and the other pro leagues - whoever wins the title is legit, well except when there's something like Spygate or whatever. But even if a 10-6 team that played a weak schedule beats a 14-2 team that played a tough schedule, nobody questions that the 10-6 team is the rightful champ.

But ... first, as for acceptance, the current model pretty much works, as did the BCS. Over the 20 years of the BCS/CFP, how many true controversies, where the official champ isn't regarded as 'legit' by a significant number of fans, have there been? I can only think of one - LSU vs USC in 2003, the "split championship". That's it. So if the goal is to produce a champ that is basically regarded as such by 99%+ of the college football community, these BCS/CFP systems get the job done.

Second, while I agree your model of all P5 champs in plus the top-rated G5 champ and two WCs would be acceptable to the P5 and public, it seems to me it doesn't address the fundamental problem that seems to animate your concern (and those of other G5 fans as well): G5 teams are still not given an NFL-like "guaranteed path" to the playoffs. An AAC team or MWC team or whatever could go undefeated and still not make the playoffs if a committee ranks another G5 higher and also puts them outside the wild-cards.

If I'm a P5 fan, I'm down with your plan but from a G5 perspective it's just the same wine in a new bottle - no path to the title.

In hoops, all conference champs make the tournament. But, that's only because the event is large enough to include enough "wild cards" to ameliorate the concern that much better Power conference non-champs are being left out in favor of much weaker champs from smaller conferences. That concern is what caused the abandonment of the champs-only tournament in 1975. Heck, i am pretty certain that this concern is strong enough that if the NCAA were forced to have a hoops tournament with all conference champs included but only conference champs included, or an event with everyone being "at large", with conference champs not being guaranteed a tourney spot (as in the CFP) the "at large" model would be the one adopted.

Assuming the hoops ratio of champs to non-champs is regarded as acceptable to the football community as well, given that there are 10 FBS conferences, there would need to be about 14 "wild cards" in a football playoff, or a 24-team playoff, similar to the size of the FCS event, for the football community to be happy with an event that guarantees every FBS team a "win on the field" path to the title via all champs being included.