Should NCAA Football go to a Playoff Format?

Question

I have heard all the excuses but none justify why we don't have a playoff system in NCAA Football. Here's my idea. Divide all the conferences up until you have 16 NCAA conferences. Take the Pac-10 for example. Say USC and Oregon finished with the two best records in the conference. They would go on to the Pac-10 Conference Championship game. The winner of that game would go to a 16-team playoff tournament. This would add 4 weeks onto the season. This can be resolved by cutting back the schedule of most teams. Some teams are playing 13, 14, and even 15 regular season games. I think the Conference Championships should be on Thanksgiving weekend. Imagine Christmas Day having the Final 4 of NCAA Football and New Years having the National Championship game the way it was intended to be! You can still have the bowl games and sponsers. You can even have other bowl games for teams that didn't make the tournament. Forever we would know if a team like Boise State is #1. Do you agree?

In response to Steve, that is exactly why we need a playoff system in place. Then there is no question who the number 1 team is. We would find out if Boise State was just a fluke. I agree about every game meaning something and that's why my idea would work. In order to make it to the tournament you have to make it to your Conference Championship Game and you would still have to win almost every game to do this. In some of the stronger conferences 1 or 2 losses would put you in third place and out of contention so every game would be just as intense. I say let's settle it on the field not in bowl rankings. This would be better than the big dance. Everyone would wonder why it took so long to get this in place. We would have epic playoff games. Can you imagine a team like Tulane beating Ohio State in the first round!

Answer 1

yes, yes, yes and YES!!!

Answer 2

You say let's settle it on the field, but you are talking about 4 games instead of the regular season. You would kill the regular season, and college football would be exactly like pro sports, and college basketball, people will watch the regular season, but not everyone or every game, and they just wont be that exciting. Take USC and Stanford this year. Would that have been as exciting with USC in the playoffs. What about Appalachian state and Michigan. Michigan would probably make the playoffs with 16 teams, if they win out, and do you really think they would deserve a shot at the title? A playoff would be bad, but a 16 game playoff is THE WORST IDEA I have ever heard. Not just for football, but in life. Terrible, it would kill college football as we know it.

Answer 3

yes they should

example:

The best team in the big 10 goes undefeated because the big 10 is a weak conference, well the best team in the pac 10 loses a game. Those 2 teams should play each other to see how good they are, it will be fair. I wanna see the best teams (2) IN the ncaa play, not the best team in one of the worst conferences. With a playoff format, the best teams plays the best team.

Answer 4

no..again, this takes away from a different tradition. Not the whole bowl game thing (i.e. rose, sugar, yadaya) It takes away from the fact that EVERY GAME MATTERS. In the current system, every down, of every game matters. Say LSU drops a non conference game on the last week of the season....they're gone! no questions. in a playoff format, they would only drop a few seeds. To me, the current system makes the regular season a playoff....yea teams like LSU dont play teams like Hawaii in the regular season, and probably wont see them in a bowl, but alot of times, you can look at the two teams in question and pretty much decide if one team is out of the others league. And as far as the boise state thing goes, most people outside of idaho will agree that it was a fluke game, and they wouldnt make it through a playoff.....come on, they won on several trick plays, is that gonna stand up over 4weeks of the nations top teams?


eh, still dont like it

Answer 5

That would be adding 5 weeks to the season.

That would never happen.
The NCAA is comprised of teams with Amateur Athletes who are also College Students. You can't take an additional 5 weeks of school away from these College Students right before finals. Although Florida St., Fresno St., and a few other teams might be exceptions, these people are Students first and Football Players second. A very small number of college athletes make a profession of their sport. The NCAA would NEVER implement your proposed Championship game week and 4 more weeks for a playoff. These kids need to learn something in school too.

Answer 6

I do think a better playoff system should be considered. However, I know of no teams playing 13 or more regular season games. They usually play 10-11 and then they have conference tournaments and bowl games. Therefore, I think they need to drop the bowl games to make room. I think the drawback of 16 new conferences is that most of today's best teams are consolidated into a half dozen or so conferences. Creating 16 conferences would either guarantee teams from all the lesser conferences make it in over second ranked teams from the power conferences, or all the conferences have 1 or 2 contenders with easy conference schedules, 1 competitive conference game, and hopefully 3 competitive non-conference games mixed in. Consider LSU and what their conference be like: LSU, LA-Lafayette, LA- Monroe, LA Tech, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Univ of Southern Mississippi, and Tulane. They would probably rotate non-conference games like Auburn/Florida/Florida State, Texas/Oklahoma/Kansas, USC/Cal/Arizona State, and Ohio State/Michigan/Penn State in weeks 3, 5, 7, and 9 as the little colleges would be their early season tuneups and for recovering from injuries until their next competitive game. I think the system should stay the same, or the bowl games should be dropped in favor of a playoff system.

The playoff system should first allow conference playoffs. Then 16 teams should be chosen based on the following, in this order, until all 16 slots are filled: undefeated in a minimum of 10 FBS Div. I games (in order according to their BCS ranking), top 10 BCS ranked teams (in the order of their BCS ranking), teams that have a winning record against FBS Div I teams and beat any of the top 10 BCS ranked teams (in order of the rank of the highest ranked team they beat, then in order of the point differential if more than one team has beaten that same top 10 ranked team), then the next teams ranked by the BCS. Where they would play would be determined like a draft among the 15 bowl game sites, 2 of which will be chosen by last year's finalists and the remaining 13 chosen by the NCAA. The BCS ranking will determine the seeds. The highest seeded team in the playoffs chooses the field for their first playoff game, among the 15 available sites. The second highest seeded team in the playoffs chooses the field for their first playoff game, among the remaining 14 available sites, and on down to even the teams ranked 9-12 can choose among the remaining available sites for the next field they would play on, should they win in the first round. The team seeded 13 and 14 get to choose the semifinal rounds that they would play in if they win the first two rounds. The final championship will be in the unselected field, which may not be the top field in the country, but one of the top 15 and very neutral considering it was not the top choice of any of the top 14 teams in the country. The alternative is something like always choosing the Rose Bowl and having USC in the championship, giving them a home field advantage even against a team like LSU with a better record and higher BCS ranking.

A rough test of my playoff system, using the AP Top 25 would have the top 16 teams, LSU, California, Ohio State, Boston College, South Florida, South Carolina, West Virginia, Oregon, USC, Missouri, VA Tech, Florida, Arizona State, Cincinnati, and Hawaii, plus #20 Kansas, because they are 4-0 which knocks out Florida, which is 4-2.

I know many fans would be screaming, especially Florida fans, but hey,

1) Florida lost 2 games and Kansas is undefeated,
2) like you, I think the top 16 teams would seem to be enough 3) it has plenty of competitive incentives such as scheduling at least 10 FBS Div. I teams and more competitive teams to earn more BCS points.

Of course, you have to take the creator's idea with a grain of salt and consider what biases he might have. Outside of the Army (and even 2 years in it), I have lived the rest of my life in Texas and I attended college at the University of Houston.

Answer 7

Well coming from an Oklahoman who had lost to Boise state last year i would say no but if i was going to be real about it then yes becuz i woud like to see how far boise state would have gotten plus in the past the were countless undefeated team hu had to go the the crappy bowls becuz their scedule was not hard enough

Answer 8

it could.
i dont like the bcs system but a playoff wouldnt hurt, but only in the situations like a couple years ago when lsu won the actual title game but USC got half of that and they didnt even play in the title game. Or how about auburn when they went undefeated and didnt even get a shot.
so its a good idea but some kinks might need to be worked out.

Answer 9

I completely agree and i think taking this much time and putting it into this question is a heroic act. No, but there definitely should be a playoffs. I mean think about USC if they would have gotten to the championship game they have a very easy scedule compared to some other teams so they dont deserve it at all. (If USC would've won) =)

Answer 10

Yes they should and it should be the playoff format that NCAA Division 1-AA(Championship Subdivision) has. D1-A(Bowl Subdivision) is the only level of NCAA football that doesn't have playoffs.

Answer 11

i agree i would love to c playoffs in college take the winner of every conference and put them in the tourney and then allow 1aa and div 2 and 3 champs too get one spot each in the tourney so they can get in too the mix also cuz look at appalachin ova michagan and im sure there are def d2 schoola as good as them such as north dakota