More on the 1st CFP and how well it worked

[WizardofhOgZ]

A few Jeff Long quotes in this.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/bowls14/story/_/id/12159527/college-football-playoff-outcome-shows-power-human-element

[Professor Psychosis]

Here's Nate Silver's take.  He's already calling for an expansion. 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/expand-the-college-football-playoff/

[WizardofhOgZ]

Here's Nate Silver's take.  He's already calling for an expansion. 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/expand-the-college-football-playoff/

Yes, I read that too . . . very good analysis.  However, for me, it just reinforces that 4 is the right number. 

I want ALL the teams that HAVE to be there, and a minimal amount of "filler" teams.  Using his chart, I ALWAYS want teams that are shaded red, and then as many of the orange with a dark dot in the middle as needed to fill out the Top Four.  His chart goes back to 1998 and - guess what - only in ONE of those 16 seasons did the combination of those two total more than four teams; ironically, this one.  In 7 of those years there were only 3 "must have" teams, and in another 6 only 2.  One year, there was only 1 team that really stood above the others in the top tier.

IMO, a one loss team from a major conference that didn't win it's conference is sometimes a good "other" team to include, if needed.  In the 16 years charted, there would have been 7 teams needed outside of that group (undefeated in a major conference, 1 loss major conference Champion, or 1 loss major conference non-champion) that would have been included in the Top Four.

If you expand to any more than 4, almost all of the remaining teams wouldn't have - in my opinion - earned the right to be there alongside the top tier teams.  That is too high a price to pay for the "every now and then" season where there is some controversy about who the 4th team should be.

[Hogfaniam]

Why do some of you not want more, competitive college football?

It blows my mind.

"No, let's have less"


Bring on 8

[junkyardhog]

Well, I don' t know if the statements will help recruiting in Texas. Maybe with Texas recruits that already hate the Longhorns. If a coach talked smack about Arkansas, I would expect every Arkansas boy to want to join up and try to get a rematch against them and make them eat their words.A little state pride you know.

[longpig]

8 makes the season too long and it already is.  It would become a game of attrition favoring the larger programs with deeper benches, and might result in rosters being increased 15 or 20 players.

[SwineGrind]

8 makes the season too long and it already is.  It would become a game of attrition favoring the larger programs with deeper benches, and might result in rosters being increased 15 or 20 players.

Too long? I vote for 11 month seasons. I hate when there is no active football and the weather is beginning to get nice out.

[Hogfaniam]

8 makes the season too long and it already is.  It would become a game of attrition favoring the larger programs with deeper benches, and might result in rosters being increased 15 or 20 players.

FCS does a 24 team playoff with 63 scholarships.

With 8 teams it will not be longer because of the huge break after conference champ games until New Years.  Besides, it would only involve 8 of 128 teams.  Ask the players if they would want to play.

[EastexHawg]

How could the playoff have worked poorly?  They picked four teams and one of them won the championship.  Was there a chance that it could have happened some other way?

[PorkRinds]

Well, I don' t know if the statements will help recruiting in Texas. Maybe with Texas recruits that already hate the Longhorns. If a coach talked smack about Arkansas, I would expect every Arkansas boy to want to join up and try to get a rematch against them and make them eat their words.A little state pride you know.

Wrong thread broseph.

[Hoggish1]

Here's Nate Silver's take.  He's already calling for an expansion. 

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/expand-the-college-football-playoff/

I like Nate Silver's take.  Everything needs to be done to figure a way to get all five power conference champs into the mix.

More often than not, there is going to be an argument when one of the conference champions is left out, as happened to the Big 12.

The Big 12's problem is to fix their "undisputed" champ issue, even in the case where they actually get one in certain seasons.  If you are going to have a 12 game season vs. all others' 13 game season (by virtue of a conference championship game weekend), you invite always being left out.

[WizardofhOgZ]

How could the playoff have worked poorly?  They picked four teams and one of them won the championship.  Was there a chance that it could have happened some other way?

Well . . . yes.

Had there been a huge outcry from the public that someone that HAD to be included had been left out, they would have "messed it up".  Now, TCU and Baylor fans each have a decent argument, but there is no one (outside of the alumni of those two schools) that thought either was a candidate for anything but the fourth of the four positions.  It was clearly Alabama, Oregon, FSU and then ONE of TCU, Baylor or Ohio State in the minds of the country.  Could TCU or Baylor have won, if they had gotten in?  Yes. 

If you want to see a huge public outcry, consider what would have happened if we were still under the 2 team BCS this past season.  FSU would have been, as Tim Brando likes to say, the "fly in the ointment" - but of a completely different type.  Usually, that term has been used for the Boises or pre-Big 12 TCU's of the world - an undefeated team from a weaker conference.  The Seminoles, of course, were from one of the "Power 5" conferences, were undefeated, and defending National Champions riding a 20+ game winning streak.  Such teams are ALWAYS in the National Championship picture.

And, interestingly enough, had we been in the old BCS, that formula apparently would have chosen Alabama and FSU.  Frankly, this surprised me because of FSU's general weakness in the computer rankings, relative to an undefeated team in the ACC.  But because of the specific rankings used by the BCS, the ones that ranked FSU the highest were the ones used.  So, they would have been in!

http://www.colleyrankings.com/curBcsLike.html

This would have been a huge mess, with Oregon, Ohio State, TCU and Baylor left out.  You would have seen a LOT of disappointment with the system then.

As it is, while TCU and Baylor fans were disappointed, there was an overall satisfaction with the new system - that it had gotten the "right" four teams.  Imagine the uproar if they had selected TCU, say, instead of FSU?  While many of us felt TCU was as good or better than FSU (i.e, would have been favored if they played on a neutral field), ALL fans want to see an undefeated, defending Notational Champion from a power conference included in any playoff.

So, yes, there IS a way they could have "done it wrong".  But they didn't.

[EastexHawg]

As it is, while TCU and Baylor fans were disappointed, there was an overall satisfaction with the new system - that it had gotten the "right" four teams.

Based on absolutely nothing tangible.  "I feel like the right four teams were picked" is all anyone can say.

As for "the committee got it right", the point is that if they had picked Wake Forest, Southern Miss, Yale, and Slippery Rock the odds are 100% that one of the four selected teams would have won the championship.  How would that have proved the correct four teams were chosen?

There was no way the committee could be proven wrong.  There was no possibility that we could be sitting here today saying, "Well I'll be danged.  The committee chose Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, and Ohio State...but TCU WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP INSTEAD!"

Their selections are a self fulfilling prophecy, and to claim after the fact that one of the four teams given the opportunity actually won the championship proves their worthiness is utterly void of logic.

[Hogarusa]

8 makes the season too long and it already is.  It would become a game of attrition favoring the larger programs with deeper benches, and might result in rosters being increased 15 or 20 players.

say what now?  Moving to 8 adds 0 games to the schedule as you would just have 2 more of the New Years 6 be counted as a quarterfinal.  2 teams would end up playing 16 games instead of 15 they played this year.

[Hogfaniam]

say what now?  Moving to 8 adds 0 games to the schedule as you would just have 2 more of the New Years 6 be counted as a quarterfinal.  2 teams would end up playing 16 games instead of 15 they played this year.

Couldn't be on New Years though.  Semi's have to be on New Years or else push the champ game back a week.

[WizardofhOgZ]

I would say there is an overall feeling that Ohio State (ugh!) was the best team and a deserving Champion.  I'm not talking about what I think - just what I am hearing from others (friends, media, fan boards) now that the game has come a gone, and a few days have passed.  That level of satisfaction would not be the case in your outrageous and exaggerated example.  Sure, one of the four teams would have won - but NO one would have been satisfied, nor think that the right teams were involved. 

And, as for your comment about "no one will ever know if they got it wrong" - Hello!  That is the way it has ALWAYS been, and will always be.  The nature of football is that (a) you can't have a system where everybody (Division I) plays everybody; hence, you can never say "X definitely would beat W". In fact (b), even if all teams DID play each other, the "any given Saturday" aspect of the game means that you really don't know "who is better than who".  You only know what happened in that sample-of-one event.  To be confident in saying one team is better than another, you'd have to have them play a series - like they do in Basketball, Baseball and Hockey.  But Football isn't made to be played in "series".

Based on absolutely nothing tangible.  "I feel like the right four teams were picked" is all anyone can say.

As for "the committee got it right", the point is that if they had picked Wake Forest, Southern Miss, Yale, and Slippery Rock the odds are 100% that one of the four selected teams would have won the championship.  How would that have proved the correct four teams were chosen?

There was no way the committee could be proven wrong.  There was no possibility that we could be sitting here today saying, "Well I'll be danged.  The committee chose Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, and Ohio State...but TCU WON THE CHAMPIONSHIP INSTEAD!"

Their selections are a self fulfilling prophecy, and to claim after the fact that one of the four teams given the opportunity actually won the championship proves their worthiness is utterly void of logic.

[Mike Irwin]

Eight teams will happen but it's several years down the road. There will be a reorganization of the power 5 into a power 4 before it happens. If you have two divisions of nine teams in each of four conferences with the eight divisional winners going to the playoffs the need for a selection committee would be eliminated.

You would also eliminate crossover games that count on your conference record. You'd play an eight game round robin conference schedule with the teams in your division ONLY. A crossover game, if you wanted to schedule it, (Alabama-Tennessee) would not count as a conference win or loss.

[woodrow hog call]

Biggest disappointment was not having a final commercial with Larry the Dr Pepper guy trying to steal the trophy, or interrupting the presentation reminding everybody it was all his idea.
They could have done several good ones, and instead just used one from earlier in the year, big failure.

[WorfHog]

Eight teams will happen but it's several years down the road. There will be a reorganization of the power 5 into a power 4 before it happens. If you have two divisions of nine teams in each of four conferences with the eight divisional winners going to the playoffs the need for a selection committee would be eliminated.

You would also eliminate crossover games that count on your conference record. You'd play an eight game round robin conference schedule with the teams in your division ONLY. A crossover game, if you wanted to schedule it, (Alabama-Tennessee) would not count as a conference win or loss.

Which conference is going to dissolve?  ACC or Big 12?

[EastexHawg]

I would say there is an overall feeling that Ohio State (ugh!) was the best team and a deserving Champion.

Not to pick on you, but feelings prove nothing.  You know that.  Whatever anyone thinks or feels, it doesn't prove that the committee "got it right".

Increasing the sample size decreases the margin of error.  That is a fact, not a feeling.  If all power five conference champions are included, that creates an objective way for teams to qualify.  Feelings and opinions will have nothing to do with their selection, they will be there for a demonstrable and tangible reason.

Probably the most despised conference on this board is the "Little 12". That so many guffaw about their champion being left out does not create evidence of any kind, and definitely not proof that the "correct" four teams were selected.

No one is talking about including every team or playing a series.  That isn't done at any level of football from junior high to the NFL.  It's hyperbole intended as a distraction from the point...that point being that a four team playoff doesn't even allow for one loss conference champs from a major conference to have a shot. Would someone complain if the field was set at eight?  Yes, but they are complaining now.  So what?

I don't know who finished #9, but regardless of who it was ask yourself if they have as legitimate a case for inclusion as TCU or Baylor had.

[Hogfaniam]

Not to pick on you, but feelings prove nothing.  You know that.  Whatever anyone thinks or feels, it doesn't prove that the committee "got it right".

Increasing the sample size decreases the margin of error.  That is a fact, not a feeling.  If all power five conference champions are included, that creates an objective way for teams to qualify.  Feelings and opinions will have nothing to do with their selection, they will be there for a demonstrable and tangible reason.

Probably the most despised conference on this board is the "Little 12". That so many guffaw about their champion being left out does not create evidence of any kind, and definitely not proof that the "correct" four teams were selected.

No one is talking about including every team or playing a series.  That isn't done at any level of football from junior high to the NFL.  It's hyperbole intended as a distraction from the point...that point being that a four team playoff doesn't even allow for one loss conference champs from a major conference to have a shot. Would someone complain if the field was set at eight?  Yes, but they are complaining now.  So what?

I don't know who finished #9, but regardless of who it was ask yourself if they have as legitimate a case for inclusion as TCU or Baylor had.

Ole miss.  No claim.

[WizardofhOgZ]

East, you are usually one of my favorite posters.  Heck - you still are.  But you are, IMO, way off point here.

Not to pick on you, but feelings prove nothing.  You know that.  Whatever anyone thinks or feels, it doesn't prove that the committee "got it right".

Increasing the sample size decreases the margin of error.  That is a fact, not a feeling.  If all power five conference champions are included, that creates an objective way for teams to qualify.  Feelings and opinions will have nothing to do with their selection, they will be there for a demonstrable and tangible reason.

That depends on what kind of error you are talking about.  One, that you seem to be enamored with, is making sure that all teams that could possibly have any type of claim be included.  For me, that would be modified to being sure that all of the teams that have significant support for being acclaimed as having performed the best of any team in the nation throughout the entirety of the season, at the time the season ends, are included.  That is, the 1, 2, 3, or 4 teams (varies from year to year) that everyone feels has earned it over the course of the entire season, at season's end.

The other type of error - which bothers me and most purists, is the possibility of getting an outlier . . . a "filler" team whose season results have not earned it a place in the elite "first tier" of teams . . . gets into the playoff.  As I've described in an earlier post in this thread (based on the chart below), in a sport where that elite tier varies from 1 to 4 or 5 teams annually, including four teams strikes the best balance of inclusion without dilution of the field. 

No one is talking about including every team or playing a series.  That isn't done at any level of football from junior high to the NFL.  It's hyperbole intended as a distraction from the point...that point being that a four team playoff doesn't even allow for one loss conference champs from a major conference to have a shot. Would someone complain if the field was set at eight?  Yes, but they are complaining now.  So what?

I didn't say anyone WAS talking about playing all other teams, or having series; nor, did I advocate doing so.  I simply pointed out that unless you DO those things, the naming of a Champion will ALWAYS be subjective, regardless of how many games are played. 
Even winning a 16 or 32 team playoff will mean playing 4 or 5 more games (teams).  Who's to say that someone you didn't play isn't better than you are, or that  you wouldn't have lost had you played one of the teams you didn't?

But, winning a season ending "tournament" is one thing; having earned the right over a 3 month season to be in an elite four team showdown is another.

If you have a 16 team playoff, then teams like (this year) Arizona State, Missouri, UCLA and Georgia Tech would be involved.  If one of them got "hot" and won four in a row (probably because they got some bracket breaks due to upsets in other games which set them up against other mediocre opposition), does it REALLY mean that a 3 loss team is more deserving of a Championship than a Power 5 team that played and beat 6 or 7 Top 25 teams during the year and went undefeated, until they were upset and suffered ONE loss in the second round of the playoff?  Not to me.  It just means they got hot at the right time.  One of the things I despise about the NFL.

I don't know who finished #9, but regardless of who it was ask yourself if they have as legitimate a case for inclusion as TCU or Baylor had.

Not sure what your point is.  A team ranked nth is almost always going to have a "better" argument for inclusion that the team ranked n+1.  But that doesn't mean it's an argument with any real merit.  After the Bowl games, I think anyone would say that between Texas and Arkansas, the Hogs have a much better argument for being included.  But we're both so far down the list as to make the particular distinction meaningless. 

Likewise, the 5th rated team will have a better argument that they should have been in the Final Four than the ninth place team, 99% of the time - but that doesn't mean the CFP is a "failure" because they were not included.  If you look at the chart above, there were some seasons where there were only 2 in the first tier.  Really, the public's desire would have been sated to just have those two play (and in those years, the BCS got it right).  But in many other years, the first tier had 3; occasionally, 4.  In those years, there was great debate about "were the right teams taken".

IMO, had there been a four team playoff in those years, like we have now, that answer would have been "yes" all but one or two of the last 15 years.  And in the few years when you could have legitimately included another team (or two), I'd say the public at large would have agreed with a four team playoff assuming the consensus top 2 or 3 were among the 4 teams chosen. 

The problem with ANY system is that the way college football is constructed at this time, there is no easy mechanism for coming to a finite, predictable, repeatable number of teams at the end of the year.  It varies from one consensus "kind of the hill" to 3, 4 or 5 teams, depending on how the year played out.  IF we were more like High Schools - where there were divisions/regions that each produced one champion, without "Conference Championship Games" or Bowl games, it would be different.  But until there is a major reorganization that puts the teams in regions of roughly the same size, eliminates conference championships (or uses them to decide who comes out of the region), and does away with the Bowls (one of the bigger challenges), what we have now is THE best overall solution.

[EastexHawg]

I get it.  You're afraid that some team already ranked in the top eight...actually ranked between 5 and 8...that you "feel" isn't worthy will, in successive games, win three straight either road or neutral site games against the presumed elite of collrge football from that season.  At least one of them...the first for sure...will be over one of the "worthy" top four that get in now.

Maybe even...dare I say it...over the top ranked team that the committee and everyone else just knew...or at least felt...was better.

I'm not sure why that possibility is so disconcerting to some people,  but apparently it is.

I do have one question.  If one team...let's say #8...plays and beats a team that "everyone" thought was better...let's say #1...how do you know that the result is an outlier?  How do we know that #1 wasn't merely overrated and that #8 wasn't better?  Especially since they played different opponents from different conferences during the regular season?

[WizardofhOgZ]

The same could be said about #10 . . . or #13.  You have to draw the line somewhere.  As discussed and argued, it is my assertion and opinion that drawing that line at four is the best all-around solution to ALL of the variables in play here.

You think it is more than 4.  I get it.  I just disagree.

And, I know others who agree with me, and yet others who agree with you.  It will continue to be debated, as was the case when we didn't even have the BCS, for years to come.  Some day - IF and when true conference of the type I (and others) described takes place, perhaps something akin to an 8 team playoff will make more sense.  But with the conferences we have today, the Conference Championship games, and - most importantly - the Bowl games, it can and will not, because the people who make those decisions don't want it to expand.

I get it.  You're afraid that some team already ranked in the top eight...actually ranked between 5 and 8...that you "feel" isn't worthy will, in successive games, win three straight either road or neutral site games against the presumed elite of collrge football from that season.  At least one of them...the first for sure...will be over one of the "worthy" top four that get in now.

Maybe even...dare I say it...over the top ranked team that the committee and everyone else just knew...or at least felt...was better.

I'm not sure why that possibility is so disconcerting to some people,  but apparently it is.

I do have one question.  If one team...let's say #8...plays and beats a team that "everyone" thought was better...let's say #1...how do you know that the result is an outlier?  How do we know that #1 wasn't merely overrated and that #8 wasn't better?  Especially since they played different opponents from different conferences during the regular season?