Dealing with conference championship game losers…

[77GTFan]

Pundits are discussing the disadvantage of having to play in your conference championship game if a loss could keep you out of the playoffs. Lane Kiffin had said last week he saw a great disadvantage to having to play an extra, difficult game. In turn some of the talking heads and bloggers were suggesting this might be the last year of conference championship games altogether. How stupid! A solution is quite simple.

Make the last week for the committee ranking teams immediately at the end of the regular season. In other words, on Monday, December 2, list the top 15 teams in order. Play the championship games. The next week on December 9 the top four conference champions are seeded based on their ranking from the previous week. Then, the lowest ranked conference champion and seven at large bids are extended and placed in the brackets based on their position at the end of the regular season. This means playing the games are important for crowning a conference champion but do not eliminate a team from the playoffs unless they were not ranked high enough at the end of the regular season. This is such an easy fix.

 

[Flywheel]

Pundits are discussing the disadvantage of having to play in your conference championship game if a loss could keep you out of the playoffs. Lane Kiffin had said last week he saw a great disadvantage to having to play an extra, difficult game. In turn some of the talking heads and bloggers were suggesting this might be the last year of conference championship games altogether. How stupid! A solution is quite simple.

Make the last week for the committee ranking teams immediately at the end of the regular season. In other words, on Monday, December 2, list the top 15 teams in order. Play the championship games. The next week on December 9 the top four conference champions are seeded based on their ranking from the previous week. Then, the lowest ranked conference champion and seven at large bids are extended and placed in the brackets based on their position at the end of the regular season. This means playing the games are important for crowning a conference champion but do not eliminate a team from the playoffs unless they were not ranked high enough at the end of the regular season. This is such an easy fix.

Then you'll get conference championship games with key players benched.

The far better solution that's been obvious for years is that only conference champions get into the playoff, period. Then you still only need a 4-team playoff. But none of this is about what makes sense. For the same reason they keep changing the rules to shorten games, they're trying to add games with big-stadium teams to stretch revenue and milk fans' patience. It's going to hurt the sport in the long run.

 

[Nehru Jacket]

Pundits are discussing the disadvantage of having to play in your conference championship game if a loss could keep you out of the playoffs. Lane Kiffin had said last week he saw a great disadvantage to having to play an extra, difficult game. In turn some of the talking heads and bloggers were suggesting this might be the last year of conference championship games altogether. How stupid! A solution is quite simple.

Make the last week for the committee ranking teams immediately at the end of the regular season. In other words, on Monday, December 2, list the top 15 teams in order. Play the championship games. The next week on December 9 the top four conference champions are seeded based on their ranking from the previous week. Then, the lowest ranked conference champion and seven at large bids are extended and placed in the brackets based on their position at the end of the regular season. This means playing the games are important for crowning a conference champion but do not eliminate a team from the playoffs unless they were not ranked high enough at the end of the regular season. This is such an easy fix.

Maybe if Lane Kiffin had worried more about football instead of conference politics his team would have beaten Florida.

 

[BuzzCzar]

Then you'll get conference championship games with key players benched.

The far better solution that's been obvious for years is that only conference champions get into the playoff, period. Then you still only need a 4-team playoff. But none of this is about what makes sense. For the same reason they keep changing the rules to shorten games, they're trying to add games with big-stadium teams to stretch revenue and milk fans' patience. It's going to hurt the sport in the long run.

This eliminates the whole reason for expanding the playoff, which was to allow for the 2nd and 3rd best teams in the best conferences to get a spot, since they are likely better than the best team in another, weak conference.

The Champions League struggled with this dilemma for years bc the 2nd, 3rd, 4th best teams in the top Euro leagues (like England, Germany, Italy, etc) are actually better than the top team in smaller leagues (like Romania or Austria).

The way they solved it is that they keep track of how teams from a league do against other leagues. They calculated coefficients for each league based on actual results of games played. The coefficient is calculated on a rolling 3-yr average, so if the league improves that is reflected but also historical strength counts for something.

Using that coefficient, the number of slots are decided that each league will have during a certain season. The number of slots changes based on actual results. So this season, England might have 4 spots, and Italy 3, but if Italian teams perform better, than next season it could be reversed.

So, the various conferences would be assisigned the number of slots in next year's playoff after this year's playoff, and these coefficients would be calculated by performance in the playoff, and potentially include cross-conference matchups during the season too (if that's what they decided to do).

This is a viable system of managing the entrants to the CFP imo

 

[WracerX]

Keep the conference championship and force divisions. I have more of a problem with teams like Clemson not having a chance to play their way into a conference championship. Sure, you end up with some stinker championship games where one division is weak, but everyone has a chance from the beginning to make the playoffs.

 

[coit]

Pundits are discussing the disadvantage of having to play in your conference championship game if a loss could keep you out of the playoffs. Lane Kiffin had said last week he saw a great disadvantage to having to play an extra, difficult game. In turn some of the talking heads and bloggers were suggesting this might be the last year of conference championship games altogether. How stupid! A solution is quite simple.

Make the last week for the committee ranking teams immediately at the end of the regular season. In other words, on Monday, December 2, list the top 15 teams in order. Play the championship games. The next week on December 9 the top four conference champions are seeded based on their ranking from the previous week. Then, the lowest ranked conference champion and seven at large bids are extended and placed in the brackets based on their position at the end of the regular season. This means playing the games are important for crowning a conference champion but do not eliminate a team from the playoffs unless they were not ranked high enough at the end of the regular season. This is such an easy fix.

I suggested something similar to this in another thread, but with one important tweak.

Make it such that the loser of a championship game cannot be excluded from the playoff while the 3rd or 4th place team in their conference gets in.

This way, if the championship game loser isn't picked, then the conference only gets one team. Therefore, the $ECCG loser won't have to worry about not getting in.

 

[ee8384]

Time to regurgitate this:

tl;dr version: Megaconferences distort the ability to know which teams are "playoff-worthy". Too many in-conference SoS differences.

Assuming 12 game seasons stay, then a "conference" should have 11 members only. You play a 10 game round robin in the conference, which decides the conference champion. You get two OOC games each season, only one of which can be an FCS team. You can play two OOC FBS games (e.g. rivalry & national prestige) if you wish - no penalty for losing in the conference race, no playoff implications for losing.

You win your conference, you are in. Everyone else is out. One conference for each playoff slot.

For fun, blow up all the existing conferences and let everyone reform their chosen 11. Watch the powerhouses try to stock their conferences with a bunch of crappy programs so they can win every year. Downtrodden programs would be in demand. Or, you could seed the conferences by ranking programs over past 20 years and spreading the top 24 or 36 into each of the (12) conferences. Conferences could be re-drawn every 10 years to maintain competitive balance.

Alternative implementation: 12 team conferences with 2 six team divisions. You still play everyone in your conference. Only 1 OOC game. Two division winners square off in conference championship game - only winner gets into the playoff.

With these "mega-conferences" we are going to see more situations where an SMU or Indiana happen to catch a schedule where they miss most of the powerhouses in their conference and have a decent team, so get bumped up the rankings with a record that isn't indicative of their relative strength. This also creates the situation that is forming where 2 and 3 loss teams down in the conference standings are considered playoff-worthy, primarily based on their history and their conference affiliation.

 

[Liberty]

Just make sure there is a mutt clause. Lose the conference championship game and you cannot be excluded from the playoff if previous lower ranked teams are included unless your team sucks- mutts, oh st, dook, etc.

 

[Flywheel]

Time to regurgitate this:

tl;dr version: Megaconferences distort the ability to know which teams are "playoff-worthy". Too many in-conference SoS differences.

Assuming 12 game seasons stay, then a "conference" should have 11 members only. You play a 10 game round robin in the conference, which decides the conference champion. You get two OOC games each season, only one of which can be an FCS team. You can play two OOC FBS games (e.g. rivalry & national prestige) if you wish - no penalty for losing in the conference race, no playoff implications for losing.

You win your conference, you are in. Everyone else is out. One conference for each playoff slot.

For fun, blow up all the existing conferences and let everyone reform their chosen 11. Watch the powerhouses try to stock their conferences with a bunch of crappy programs so they can win every year. Downtrodden programs would be in demand. Or, you could seed the conferences by ranking programs over past 20 years and spreading the top 24 or 36 into each of the (12) conferences. Conferences could be re-drawn every 10 years to maintain competitive balance.

Alternative implementation: 12 team conferences with 2 six team divisions. You still play everyone in your conference. Only 1 OOC game. Two division winners square off in conference championship game - only winner gets into the playoff.

With these "mega-conferences" we are going to see more situations where an SMU or Indiana happen to catch a schedule where they miss most of the powerhouses in their conference and have a decent team, so get bumped up the rankings with a record that isn't indicative of their relative strength. This also creates the situation that is forming where 2 and 3 loss teams down in the conference standings are considered playoff-worthy, primarily based on their history and their conference affiliation.

Oversized conferences will cure themselves if only conference champs get into the playoff at 4 slots. They would optimize at the size where Texas feels like it has a good chance to win, but not so small the conference risks not having a strong enough schedule to get the winner into the top 4 (say, using the old six BCS computer formulae).

You would, ironically, likely end up with 4-5 power conferences and a handful of also-rans. And Notre Dame would join one finally. Rankings and inter-conference SOS would still matter, and so would conference championships. And Cincinnati and Boise would have a chance. Small, but existant.

 

[The Jacket]

Then you'll get conference championship games with key players benched.

The far better solution that's been obvious for years is that only conference champions get into the playoff, period. Then you still only need a 4-team playoff. But none of this is about what makes sense. For the same reason they keep changing the rules to shorten games, they're trying to add games with big-stadium teams to stretch revenue and milk fans' patience. It's going to hurt the sport in the long run.

It will kill it. The same way the NBA is a profitable, meaningless corpse circus. The same soulless, empty excitement of the NFL. That's where this I going, and if they could complete the monstrous process today they would do it. As it stands, we probably have at least a couple more seasons of what we have now, which is not what we had ten years ago and is only similar to what we had twenty years ago on the field, between the guns.

I got my first season tickets when I was 16. By the time my son hits that age in a few years, I cannot imagine college football appealing to him, certainly not in the same way it hooked me.

I hate that most of my thoughts about this thing I love are so negative, and that most of what I have to say about it is pretty bleak. But we know who is calling the shots, we know what their primary goals and incentives are, and we know that what the fans and non-elite schools want does not even qualify as a secondary concern in this process.

If you want to see another Georgia Tech national championship before you die, the window for that to happen is narrow and closing fast as a cash register. By pure good fortune, I think Tech has the guy right now, who gives us the best chance to reach the top before it is roped off from us forever. If you have the means, now is the time to throw every cent and shred of support you've got to spare at this thing.

 

[greenmachine]

I suggested something similar to this in another thread, but with one important tweak.

Make it such that the loser of a championship game cannot be excluded from the playoff while the 3rd or 4th place team in their conference gets in.

This way, if the championship game loser isn't picked, then the conference only gets one team. Therefore, the $ECCG loser won't have to worry about not getting in.

making it into championship game does not necessarily mean you were ranked higher than other teams in conference, just means your conference record was better. .

 

[coit]

making it into championship game does not necessarily mean you were ranked higher than other teams in conference, just means your conference record was better. .

That is a good point against my idea for sure. But still, it will reward those that do well with their conference schedules, even though your point would be that a 2nd place team may have had a much easier conference schedule than the 3rd or 4th place team.

 

[moochie]

Pundits are discussing the disadvantage of having to play in your conference championship game if a loss could keep you out of the playoffs. Lane Kiffin had said last week he saw a great disadvantage to having to play an extra, difficult game. In turn some of the talking heads and bloggers were suggesting this might be the last year of conference championship games altogether. How stupid! A solution is quite simple.

Make the last week for the committee ranking teams immediately at the end of the regular season. In other words, on Monday, December 2, list the top 15 teams in order. Play the championship games. The next week on December 9 the top four conference champions are seeded based on their ranking from the previous week. Then, the lowest ranked conference champion and seven at large bids are extended and placed in the brackets based on their position at the end of the regular season. This means playing the games are important for crowning a conference champion but do not eliminate a team from the playoffs unless they were not ranked high enough at the end of the regular season. This is such an easy fix.

excellent points and as soon as someone has a conference championship loser knocked out due to a big loss and another conference gets one in....either the rules change for selection or conference championships end. the latter is unlikely due to $$$, but it's a concern of conference commissioners.

separately, still a ton of inequity in the selection of 12, and take the indiana story as a prime example. great story, coach and year and i'm personally glad they're in. but the fact remains these guys faced only #2 ohst in conference and lost by a wide margin. the scheduing quirks really illustrate a point of how it's great to be the #3 and NOT get in the championship game. indiana faced only one of top 7 teams in conference, missing penn st, oreg, illinois, iowa, minn, etc. so they basically ran the schedule they were given, then lost a key game to stay outside of the conference championship game and in national top 12. they ride the coattails of ohst, oreg and penn state in top four (??) to a 9 or 10 seed. like i said, great story but classic example of luck of scheduling and finishing #3 in a P4 conference. in hindsight, teams like tennessee and indiana benefit from the current system. also far less taxing of a road as compared to texas / mutts / buckeyes or ducks! hoosiers will be much healthier than the others who face their arch rivals (mutts, ohio state, etc), and then a conference championship game before playoffs start.

great to be third in the new playoff system! that said, a great man once told me life's not fair, get over it. so i'm over it.

happy thanksgiving all!!

GO JACKETS!

 

[GoGATech]

The only way to make it work like it is now where it wont hurt the conf. championship loser is eliminate conf. championship games and make top 2 teams auto bids. The top team is your conf. champion. P4 only and each conf gets 2 auto bids. The other 4 spots are at-large.