Haven't we been saying this all along?

Hey, look a playoff. Solves everything right because picking two teams is more fair than picking just two. 

Unless you are the fifth team....

"One thing people don't realize is that mathematically it's harder to separate a No. 5 [team] from a No. 4 than it is a No. 2 from a No. 3," Colley said. "What's the difference between the 51st team and the 50th? It's indifferent. I think there will be more reason to debate the merits of four versus five than there was with two versus three. I think you will see a pretty good debate on four versus five in most years."

And if you don't think that's true, think about the list of teams that have a legitimate beef about being left out of the 64+ team NCAA basketball tourney.

The fine line distinctions that have to be made between a one loss Pac-12 runner up and a no loss B1.5G champion are far easier than between one loss B1.5G runner up and a one loss Big12 runner up and a no loss Northern Illinios and a one loss ACC champion.

But hey, we've got a playoff and that is American. So is bitching about your team not getting a shot at the title, which now goes from one or two teams to 3-5 teams each year.
TD

Tweet

Case Study for the Playoffs: NASCAR

Reading Blutarsky's piece on the playoffs, as well as Year2's piece that inspired it, I can't help but to think about NASCAR, and what has happened to its popularity, especially in person attendance at NASCAR events. I know there are some fundamental differences, namely NASCAR being the anti-CFB with it's monopolistic control and access structure. Still, I can't help but to look at the swoon in popularity of NASCAR in the past 10 or so years and think there are some lessons there for the powers that be in college football.

Not that they'd learn them. I was struck by Blutarsky's assessment, one that I agree with:

First of all, I think that underestimates the degree to which guys like Slive, Scott and Delany are convinced they’re the sharpest people in the room. I look at them and see a bunch of 21st century Jed Clampetts who just happened to be in the right place at the right time controlling access to a product that consumers want and are willing to pay for, while most simply see the size of the contracts and are dazzled by the numbers.

Which sounds like what Bill France was doing in the late 90s. NASCAR went from 26 races to 33 races. Those 33 races don't include the All-Star race or the Bud Shootouts held the week before Daytona. They also decided to have a ten race 'playoff' designed to make the championship, and the build up to it, more interesting.

And now NASCAR is dying, or at least moving backwards in popularity. They turned their back on what worked for them. The shorter tracks and Labor Day in Darlington and fall in Atlanta and North Wilkesboro and Rockingham. And their TV partners are saying no thank you. TBS and ESPN decided they didn't want NASCAR anymore (note the irony of NPR doing a NASCAR piece). And fans aren't going anymore. Why would they? The racing is homogeneous. The only thing unique about the cars are paint schemes and name plates. The cars all look the same.

And all of that for a demographic that was merely passing a fancy at the sport.

That is the biggest red flag I see for college football. At some point, teams are going to stop worrying about the regular season, you know the season that brings in the revenue for the conferences and the teams, when the schools/conferences figure out how to milk more money from a playoff than the regular season can bring. For a good example, see Madness, March.  You think I'm joking? Just ask John Calipari:

Calipari: "They're making it like this is a big deal. But it's November. How big a deal is it?"
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_CJ) November 11, 2013

This after an early season loss. Certainly Kentucky can survive a November loss to Michigan State (and for that matter about 10 more losses, approximately 1/4 of their schedule) and still have a shot at playing for the national championship.

You think that won't be the case when we go to 8 teams in college football? How about 16 teams?

They aren't good at leaving great alone or identifying what it is they are facing:

Well, simply, these are people who don’t handle crisis well. Heck, they don’t even identify crisis well. Remember, one of the reasons we’ve got this brand-spanking new playoff is a panic over what they thought at the time were declining postseason revenues that were causing the conferences to bleed money, and that’s turned out to be non-existent. So what happens when the next terrifying thing (another ratings drop, or an O’Bannon loss, perhaps) hits?

Thinking back to NASCAR, they were worried about two things: Growing their sport to new markets and the (perceived) problems the season faced with competition in the fall from football and the baseball playoffs. So they shunned what worked for them, went to more 'fan friendly' and TV friendly tracks, and just assumed the base would follow. But it didn't. There is nothing compelling about non-characters running the same car as 42 other non-characters around the same track they are racing at for over half the season. Yet this is the product NASCAR has designed. And if we are being honest, that is what the Mike Slives of the world are also worried about.

The message I take from NASCAR is one that many former fans, including myself, have been saying for some time: Don't screw with what is working for your current demographic in the blind hope that those who are your current fans won't bail when you take away what currently attracts them.

Because they will. There are those of us that are die hards that will always support our teams, but it is harder to say who are general college football fans who will bail on the regular season when a late September match-up is at best a seeding game for the playoffs.
TD

Tweet

Chaos Saturday?

Someone is going to have to explain to me why one loss Auburn is more deserving than one loss Michigan State, Baylor, or even Ohio State. Can we say they are more deserving than one loss Alabama, even with the head to head?

Don't misunderstand me, this isn't an expanded play off screed, I'm just curious. BTW, this is the reason I like the old let's fight it out in discussion bowl system. The discussion is fun. And yes, next year we'll be debating how Michigan State or Stanford or Baylor is 'getting screwed' by the four team system. Then in five years we can debate how Fresno State, Missouri, UCF, Clemson, and/or South Carolina is getting screwed by the 8 team system.

The road goes on forever and the party never ends.
TD

Tweet

The Real Difference With a Playoff

Now that the Presidential Oversight Committee (Gordon Gee's counterparts, yay!) has approved the playoff plan, we finally have a playoff. The whole world is different now

Except it isn't different at all. We have increased the access to the national championship from 1.6% of  eligible teams to 3.2% of eligible teams. We've gone from a two team playoff to four team playoff. We've moved the discussion from one to three teams 'getting screwed' to three to five teams 'getting screwed.'

The only real change is who is picking the teams for the playoff. We've gone from six computers, 115 former coaches, players, media, and administrators, and 59 coaches (or their proxies) making the decision on two teams to a committee of "knowledgeable" people, of a relatively small number, deciding what four teams will compete.  Call me crazy, but that doesn't sound any more likely to solve the legitimacy issue than the old way would have.

No, we are not getting a new world order in selecting a champion. We are getting a new world order in how we pick those that are playing for the championship.

And although it is worth a whole other post, I'll say we are going backwards in the money parity race. Don't think so? Bet you Boise State and TCU (and others) are more glad they changed conferences than they were three weeks ago. The day of the mega-conference is coming. If the pace of change in the summer of 2011 was dizzying, then the pace of change in the spring and summer of 2013 is going to knock your socks off.  With four slots on the table, the Pac 1x/B1G confederation, and the current SEC/Big 12 champions bowl, there is too much pointing to those with the most to gain continuing to consolidate the money (which is where the constant schedule strength talk is coming from). If that happens, there will be a big upheaval as programs go looking to ensure their place on that tit.

I know it is just a hunch, but it is a good one.

TD

-Blutarsky points out a feature (or bug) related to the money (Get the Picture)
-Notre Dame AD drops a hint at where this selection committee thing is going (South Bend Tribune)

Tweet

Andy Staples Proves the Point on Playoffs

@DanWolken Who cares about bowl performance? Teams that matter are in the playoff.
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) June 26, 2012

Thank you for making the point of all of us that hate the idea of a playoff.

Tweet

Dance as You May

Since the conference commissioners have agreed in principle to a four team playoff, the only thing left is for the University presidents to agree to it.  Will they? Who knows?

I do know that those yelling the loudest that the current system needs fixing because it isn't fair to some teams will find the new system equally unfair. There is no way a four team playoff, selected by some Star Chamber, will yield the 'fairness' those people demand. Just won't happen.  

In that regard, I see where my consistent adherence to a let's go back to split national champion view might be a bit wrong. I have always thought it better for the sport to have the discourse about who should be or would be the better team. That was what made college football so unique. Now we'll see if the discussion about which three to five teams got screwed in not getting picked for the four team playoff is as interesting.  My bet is that it will end about five minutes after the semifinal games are done.

That this will stop those who are constantly harping about the teams that didn't get a fair shot at the National Championship is mere folly. Of course it won't. An 11 win Boise State or Utah playing the schedules they played in 2004 aren't getting into that four team playoff, any more than they would have then (by my count, USC, Oklahoma, Texas, Auburn, Cal all would have gotten in before those two given the current discussions about schedule strength; for that matter it is possible Tennessee, Georgia and Louisville get discussion before either in 2004 and certain those three would have before Boise would have). 

The conference commissioners did what they needed to do to make a money grab, which is what this is about.  I hope they kept their bowl partners happy enough. Or there is enough money in the new system to keep an 8 team playoff out of the mix. But that is just me.

TD

Tweet

Don't Be Ridiculous, Lemon

Dude. A playoff? Really?

I've uttered those words at least twenty times over the past four months years. Yes, I know, the WHOLE world is demanding a college football playoff. Except those of us that don't want one.

Blutarsky has been at the blogging forefront of the anti-playoff resistance. Like Blutarsky, I know the vast majority of the arguments for a playoff are shortly translated to there is more money in it for the conferences. Hey, I'm a Jack Donaghy capitalist. Being such, I also believe that quality of product is more important than doing what merely brings in more money, as long as you are making enough money to know the name of the secret European country only rich people know about.

Now, Mike Slive drops the big one and brings Chuck Neinas Bob Bowlsby and his Big 12 from the realm of the dead to a likely defacto full time seat at the semi-final table. The SEC Championship will soon be a national quarterfinal. The genius of Slive's plan is cutting the ACC and Big East and Notre Dame out of the game. If Roy Kramer is seen as the father of the Conference Championship Game. Slive may well be seen as the father of the Super Conference. Oh, I know Delany made a move to get some teams first (there is also a Schadenfreud thing about Nebraska in all of this I didn't think about), but this move will hasten the coming tide of new conference expansion.

A couple of other thoughts have come to mind.  First, will the teams play in the Sugar Bowl? Fiesta Bowl? Rotate? Play at another place? Second, hasn't the SEC given the Big 12 champion an easier road into the BCS or whatever championship game, since the Big 12 doesn't currently have a championship game? Third, when will South Carolina propose that the conference representative in the SEC/Big12 bowl game be the team with the best record in September? Fourth, is Bob Bowlsby a vampire?

As you can tell, there are a lot of details to be worked out.

TD

Tweet

Playoffs Render Regular Season Moot?

Mark Bradley thinks so.

A Tar Heel scare: John Henson hurt (thought apparently not seriously) in a game that doesn't matter. #acctournament bit.ly/ycVMxM
— Mark Bradley (@MarkBradleyAJC) March 9, 2012

Not hard to see the parallels, right?
TD

Tweet

Welcome to March

The month a year when college basketball is relevant to those who aren't the hardest core college basketball fans. Yes, that is anti-playoff snark.

The SEC Conference tourney is next week. While I don't want to see a tornado is New Orleans, it would be cool to see another run like that out of Georgia, who could do it if they play like they did at times (specifically the Florida game last weekend).  For now, we've got Kentucky in Lexington.

Oooof.

TD

Tweet

Varney Leaving DOJ

Wonder how long it'll take the BCS to hire Cravath in some capacity? Varney was the Assistant Attorney General that was spearheading the DOJ's inquiry into why the NCAA doesn't host a football playoff for the Football Bowl Subdivision.

No word on if The Senator from Utah is in the President's ear about the next selection.

TD

Tweet

NCAA Tournament Expansion

Typically the NCAA Tourney expansion talk is driven by coaches who are almost always on the bubble. They want expansion because going from 65-96 teams will add girth to the middle of the field...not the bottom.

The other reason is TV revenue. A 96 team tourney is too big for CBS to cover, and they would need help from ESPN to televise it all. Neither of those are good reasons for expansion to me.

But this piece by Andy Katz actually references an interesting point beyond self preservation and money.

Of course, I could be totally wrong, if the NCAA pushes through the idea that it already has 97 teams in the postseason (since it runs the 32-team NIT). The NIT television contract ends after this season, so that is still a curveball in these discussions. The NCAA could always do a bridge deal with the NIT and ESPN again to get it through the next round of negotiations for television partners in 2014 and beyond. (Emphasis added)

The NCAA acquired the NIT a few years ago. An argument could be made that the NCAA doesn't need a second class tourney when it could make its members much happier by rolling those same teams into the big dance.

Personally, I think it simply dilutes the quality of the flagship product, but it's an interesting take. Apply that logic to the bowls and a playoff. You could easily see the NCAA starting with a 4, then 8 and then 16 team play off and then saying...."Well, we already have a post season for 68 teams (34 bowls), why not expand the tournament to 32, 48 or 64 teams?"

It's the same argument as the NIT take above.

PWD

Tweet