B1G Left Out Again. Best Two Teams in Championship Game?

[txsting]

I just think divisions are dumb and unfair. And I don't think there is any real need for a round of championship games if the presidents won't be willing to expand the playoff to 8 teams otherwise. The 8 team playoff is more interesting in my eyes. A true round robin decides your champion naturally, like in most world soccer leagues.

 

[05GTCorndog]

I was wasting a bunch of time kicking this around in my head. Since you asked, my ideal ACC would be:

GT
UVA
NC
NCST
Duke
Wake
Clem
Mia
FSU
Maryland

Perhaps South Carolina could come back in, kicking Wake. It turns out you can make 7 pretty solid and traditional 10 team conferences. You would have to bring back a solid Big East, along with some new "Heartland" conference to absorb the teams that would get left out. Pipe dreams of engineers who prefer 90 degree angles and symmetry, I know.

I’d trade VPISU for Miami. I miss the old 9 team ACC.

 

[juraitwaluzka]

The best thing would be for every team to play each other during the regular season, then the conference record means the same thing to everyone. But that can't be done now as there are too many teams for this. However, you could keep the divisions and just use the division record as the criteria for going to the conference title game. That way no one gets the perma advantage of getting Wake each year while we get saddled with Clemson. It's certainly not a level playing field. Of course that means really there are 2 sub-conferences, with some inter-sub-conference play but öööö it, who gives a öööö, better than the current situation.

 

[Skydog]

Though winning your conference championship game will not guarantee you a spot in the CFP, losing your conference championship game should eliminate you. However, Notre Dame would need to be forced in to a conference for this to really work. Play your way in ... it sure would ramp up the conference championship game excitement.

 

[18in32]

Though winning your conference championship game will not guarantee you a spot in the CFP, losing your conference championship game should eliminate you. However, Notre Dame would need to be forced in to a conference for this to really work. Play your way in ... it sure would ramp up the conference championship game excitement.

I'm all for that... except it creates the weird situation (which happens pretty often, actually) where two teams have identical conference records, but the one with the much worse OOC record beats the one with the much better OOC record, to play for the conference championship. You end up with one-loss teams on the outside looking in, and multiple-loss conference champions taking up space in the Big 6.

 

[gtfan088]

1. Get rid of divisions.
2. Top 2 teams in each conference meet for the championship, so you're unlikely to have a 7-5 team in the game.
2a. If you need to resolve tiebreakers that go past H2H, do so in a way that doesn't involve CFP or other rankings. Or do involve them. Whatever.
3. Expand playoff to 6 teams
4. Dispense with the notion that any conference can get two teams in the playoff. Your conference champ gets in and that's it, plus the top ranked G5 team. Notre Dame, you're not that special and either need to get in a conference or fade into irrelevance.

 

[18in32]

2. Top 2 teams in each conference meet for the championship, so you're unlikely to have a 7-5 team in the game.

Remember back in the BCS era when #1 & #2 Mich and OSU played each other? There was a lot of talk that they could end up #1 & #2 after the game and rematch in the BCS Championship. Then of course that happened again with LSU and Bama, though they had played several weeks prior (rather than the last week of the season).

I think rematches are the worst thing about the new era of college football. There are a lot of great things about a playoff, so it's a price worth paying... but once you lose to a team that season, you shouldn't get a second chance.

 

[gtfan088]

Remember back in the BCS era when #1 & #2 Mich and OSU played each other? There was a lot of talk that they could end up #1 & #2 after the game and rematch in the BCS Championship. Then of course that happened again with LSU and Bama, though they had played several weeks prior (rather than the last week of the season).

I think rematches are the worst thing about the new era of college football. There are a lot of great things about a playoff, so it's a price worth paying... but once you lose to a team that season, you shouldn't get a second chance.

The only real way to solve that is to do away with conference championship games, which I don't see happening. There will always be times teams meet again, like Auburn vs. UGA last year, Tech vs. Clemson in 2009, etc.

 

[18in32]

The only real way to solve that is to do away with conference championship games, which I don't see happening. There will always be times teams meet again, like Auburn vs. UGA last year, Tech vs. Clemson in 2009, etc.

Well the (theoretical) solution is to either (a) make the conferences big enough that cross-over games aren't necessary, or (b) create more conferences so that there are fewer teams in each division.

 

[Skydog]

I'm all for that... except it creates the weird situation (which happens pretty often, actually) where two teams have identical conference records, but the one with the much worse OOC record beats the one with the much better OOC record, to play for the conference championship. You end up with one-loss teams on the outside looking in, and multiple-loss conference champions taking up space in the Big 6.

I get that .. and I guess it would not encourage teams to schedule tough OOC either.