2014 Bowl Season 39 Games of Joy

[wapiti]

The flip side of this scenario is that a 16-team playoff could select a 2-3 loss team that didn't win their conference. I think this takes away from the regular season even if that 2-3 loss team is playing better football than anyone else at the end of the season. With 8 teams, the conference champion from the five major conferences can be selected along with three at-large teams.

16 teams would have to include some lesser conference champs so as to remove at large possibilities for 3 loss teams that didn't win their conference. But I agree, 8 is plenty, especially with conference championship games acting as a round 1.

[TripletDaddy]

Brady Poppinga, for one. He said it on the radio this morning.

lol. He tweeted a week or so ago that bronco was one of the top 5 coaches in any sport. Do you still care to call brady poppinga to the stand?

[SeattleUte]

they are? which folks?

Brady Poppinga, for one. He said it on the radio this morning.

[TripletDaddy]

In all seriousness, as Urban's legend grows, folks are going to start asking whether the 2004 Utes could have beaten the 2004 Trojans. The 2004 Utes will be the Buffalo Springfield of college football (I won't say Jackie Robinson, or PAC will chide me).

they are? which folks?

[Jeff Lebowski]

The flip side of this scenario is that a 16-team playoff could select a 2-3 loss team that didn't win their conference. I think this takes away from the regular season even if that 2-3 loss team is playing better football than anyone else at the end of the season. With 8 teams, the conference champion from the five major conferences can be selected along with three at-large teams.

8 teams is plenty.

[Paperback Writer]

I understand the idea of wanting the regular season to mean something, but given that there are only 12 games with almost all of those being within a conference, and with at least two of everyone's non-conference games played at home against vastly inferior competition, I think how we interpret things can easily get distorted. There just isn't enough cross polination in the non-conference schedule among the good teams, so everything essentially hangs on perception of how good the leagues are. And at least for this season with what happened with SEC teams in the post season, maybe the perception was incorrect. That's kind of my point about what the BCS would have given us compared to what we got.

A playoff system is still imperfect, but it usually does a decent job of sorting things out. Imagine if you had a 16 team basketball conference where everyone is playing a different schedule. You can't play enough games to get a complete picture. Maybe some of the best teams don't play each other at all, and only the rival teams play twice H-H. Now let's award a conference champ after that without a tournament on the rationale that we want the regular season to mean something. It's one way to do it, but you have to accept the reality that the team that ends up with the best record at the end may not really be the test team. That's pretty much what college football has been. only on a bigger scale.

The flip side of this scenario is that a 16-team playoff could select a 2-3 loss team that didn't win their conference. I think this takes away from the regular season even if that 2-3 loss team is playing better football than anyone else at the end of the season. With 8 teams, the conference champion from the five major conferences can be selected along with three at-large teams.

[SeattleUte]

Yes. they all would have lost to the 1984 team.

In all seriousness, as Urban's legend grows, folks are going to start asking whether the 2004 Utes could have beaten the 2004 Trojans. The 2004 Utes will be the Buffalo Springfield of college football (I won't say Jackie Robinson, or PAC will chide me).

[TripletDaddy]

No BYU fan should think this is funny. Can you imagine what any of these four teams would do to that 1984 BYU team?

Yes. they all would have lost to the 1984 team.

[BlueK]

Can you imagine what any of those four teams would have done to one of those Army teams that won it in the 40s?

[BlueK]

I don't care about belief. Prove it on the field. Normally I would agree the SEC is the best. This year they didn't do so well in the post season. At least that should be pointed out.

[PaloAltoCougar]

No BYU fan should think this is funny. Can you imagine what any of these four teams would do to that 1984 BYU team?

It would be horrible! Some of those '84 Cougars are in terrible shape and they're all well into their 50s. But I'm sure those four teams would also destroy the '84 Huskies, Sooners or Gators, too, so there's that.

[BlueK]

Change comes slowly in college football. There was a time when the national championship was awarded before the bowl games. That's how Alabama can claim a national championship in 1964, despite losing to Texas in the Orange Bowl, over undefeated Arkansas who beat Texas during the regular season. Agree that the playoffs should be expanded to 8 teams but probably not any further. One of the great things about college football is that the regular season means something

I understand the idea of wanting the regular season to mean something, but given that there are only 12 games with almost all of those being within a conference, and with at least two of everyone's non-conference games played at home against vastly inferior competition, I think how we interpret things can easily get distorted. There just isn't enough cross polination in the non-conference schedule among the good teams, so everything essentially hangs on perception of how good the leagues are. And at least for this season with what happened with SEC teams in the post season, maybe the perception was incorrect. That's kind of my point about what the BCS would have given us compared to what we got.

A playoff system is still imperfect, but it usually does a decent job of sorting things out. Imagine if you had a 16 team basketball conference where everyone is playing a different schedule. You can't play enough games to get a complete picture. Maybe some of the best teams don't play each other at all, and only the rival teams play twice H-H. Now let's award a conference champ after that without a tournament on the rationale that we want the regular season to mean something. It's one way to do it, but you have to accept the reality that the team that ends up with the best record at the end may not really be the test team. That's pretty much what college football has been. only on a bigger scale.

[Jeff Lebowski]

No BYU fan should think this is funny. Can you imagine what any of these four teams would do to that 1984 BYU team?

Funny you should show up. A couple of years ago you were arguing that we should NOT have a playoff system.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I just find it funny that if this were still the BCS system neither one of these teams would have been playing for the national championship. The polls would have followed tradition and given Florida State the #1 ranking since they were undefeated coming from a BCS league, not to mention being the defending champs. #2 would have been Alabama as the top SEC team. And the college football establishment would have been talking about what a great job the BCS did in giving us the two best teams. This year blew that crap out of the water. Hardly anyone is talking about that though because the committee released their rankings starting in October, and the polls mostly just contorted to conform to whatever the committee said. This is definitely better than what we had, but still not good enough. We need at least 8 teams.

Absolutely. Remember how mpfunk always argues that we shouldn't have playoffs because one or two games could be a fluke and the regular season is a larger, more reliable body of evidence? What a load of crap. tOSU was clearly better than both Alabama and Oregon. Thank goodness we finally have a real playoff system. Can't wait until it expands to eight teams.

Speaking of which, tOSU winning as the fourth seed is great evidence that we need a bigger field. All this talk about about only a small handful of teams being good enough to win it all is nonsense.

[SeattleUte]

I just find it funny that if this were still the BCS system neither one of these teams would have been playing for the national championship. The polls would have followed tradition and given Florida State the #1 ranking since they were undefeated coming from a BCS league, not to mention being the defending champs. #2 would have been Alabama as the top SEC team. And the college football establishment would have been talking about what a great job the BCS did in giving us the two best teams. This year blew that crap out of the water. Hardly anyone is talking about that though because the committee released their rankings starting in October, and the polls mostly just contorted to conform to whatever the committee said. This is definitely better than what we had, but still not good enough. We need at least 8 teams.

No BYU fan should think this is funny. Can you imagine what any of these four teams would do to that 1984 BYU team?