Let's FIX the College Football Playoff!

[Steven Buhr]

 

I confess. It's been a while since I posted anything on this site. Like... a couple of years maybe? There are reasons for that, but you honestly don't care.

Anyway, I had some time today while I was waiting for the Vikings game to start. For the last couple of years, I would typically use that free time to work on one of the books I've been writing. But I'm taking a little rest from all that for a few days.

Instead, I had a thought... Let’s FIX the College Football Playoff!

I mean, the first weekend of the CFP is in the books, and almost nobody is happy, right?

Okay, as a Hawkeye fan, I'm not all that interested in the whole topic, but it's all over my social media timelines, so I can't avoid the complaints.

“It’s not fair!”

Alright, SOME of that whining is coming from Alabama and Mississippi because they felt that even after losing in embarrassing fashion to Vanderbilt and Kentucky, their SEC membership status should have gotten them into the playoffs. Well, boo-hoo, go away.

But, sure, the bracket was flawed.

The primary reason is that the negotiations that convinced all the conferences to sign off on this thing in the first place resulted in a provision that the four byes should automatically be reserved for conference champions (but I bet nobody in that room would have predicted Boise State and Arizona State would be two of the first set of teams to get byes out of this deal).

So, yes, as soon as those two teams got the 3^rd and 4^th seeds, there were going to be problems.

But we can fix some of them, at least.

What if… instead of simply seeding the playoff, and sending the teams on their way to play their assigned games, we let each team, in order of their seed, decide whether they want to trade spots with another lower-seeded team?

Oregon thinks Penn State got a better deal because they got a walk-over warm-up home game and a quarterfinal matchup with Boise State? Fine, Ducks, Tell the Nittany Lions (or any other team on the board) that you want to swap places with them. Then, we’ll move on to Georgia and ask them… and so on, until 12^th seeded Clemson finds out what slot is left for them at the end.

Sound ridiculously impossible? It’s not. Well, it may be ridiculous, and it may be impossible, but it’s honestly not both.

Let’s imagine how it might have played out this year.

Set the stage:

The CFP Committee starts calling the lucky 12 schools bright and early on Sunday, December 8 (or maybe even late Saturday night). They tell each program what their seed is and tell them to get their head coach and maybe two other people on a plane for New York to participate in the “CFP Bracket Extravaganza,” the live television rights to which the CFP has sold for a zillion dollars to Disney/ABC/ESPN.

The format is simple… and dramatic.

At the appointed prime-time hour, Oregon will go “on the clock.” They will have FIVE MINUTES to announce whether they wish to keep the spot in the bracket that they’ve earned by being the 1-seed (and host of the Rose Bowl in the quarterfinals) or TRADE that spot for any other spot in the bracket.

Once they make their decision (or the giant clock above the stage in Madison Square Garden hits 0:00), Emcee Scott Van Pelt announces, “The Georgia Bulldogs are on the clock!” and cameras focus in on Kirby Smart, his Athletics Director, and the M.I.T. kid they’ve hired to quickly analyze their chances of beating every other team in the CFP field.

You have to admit, this would be great theater!

Not ready to admit that? Okay. Let’s play it out. Here’s the “big board” we start out with:

 

Everyone just assumes Oregon’s Dan Lanning and his cohorts will keep the Ducks’ spot and then take in a Broadway Musical, but just MAYBE they’ve looked at the board and feel envious of Penn State’s route through the bracket.

“We sit around for three and a half weeks getting rusty and then get Ohio State or Tennessee after they’ve worked their kinks out against one another the week before? Meanwhile Franklin’s guys at PSU get a home walk-over game and then Boise Freaking State in the quarters? That’s not right!” Lanning complains to his AD, although there would be conflicting reports concerning whether he actually said “Freaking.”

The intern they brought along from Microsoft can be seen on camera nodding his head at Lanning.

He also doesn’t have to work too hard to convince his AD. After all, swapping with the Nittany Lions means the Ducks will get an extra home game out of this deal! And we all know that there’s NOTHING Athletics Directors of big-time college football programs covet more than an extra home football game.

So, the fifteen talking heads that ESPN has on hand get their first shock.

“Oregon swaps their seed with Penn State!” Van Pelt announces and then has a laughing fit before composing himself to add, “The Georgia Bulldogs are on the clock!”

Cameras switch to the Georgia table where Smart and buddies are also laughing. Then, he doesn’t even fill out a card or press a button or whatever method the Disney people have come up with to communicate the teams’ decisions. He just stands, waves his hand at the stage and shouts, “No, we’re good! Thanks!”

Instead of walking to the microphone, Van Pelt just takes one step onto the stage and shouts, “Boise! You’re up!”

Now, NOBODY is going to expect Boise State or Arizona State to give up the byes that, let’s be honest, they did not earn on the football field. But Spencer Danielson has done some homework. Well, that or he just looked up at the huge display board and realized that instead of facing the winner of Penn State and SMU, he’s looking at the prospect of a quarterfinal game against Oregon!

“Boise State swaps their seed with Arizona State,” Van Pelt announces. “What say you now, Sun Devils?”

The cameras immediately pan to the ASU table where one member of their contingent is shown saying one word. It clearly started with an F, and it probably wasn’t “Frig.”

They chat about it, but the reality is, they can’t make a move. In all likelihood, someone at that table said (or at least silently thought), “Hell, we’re not going to beat anyone we play, anyway. Let’s just stay where we’re at. At least now we’re going to play in the Fiesta Bowl. So, we’ll get Oregon in our back yard. Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

“Arizona State keeps their current spot. The Texas Longhorns are on the clock!”

The cameras show Steve Sarkisian in a heated debate with AD Chris Del Conte.

Kirk Herbstreit states the obvious to the TV audience (hardly a rarity, I know) “The Longhorns should move up and grab that bye away from Penn State.”

“They should, yes, but there seems to be some disagreement at their table,” Rece Davis points out. You don’t think Del Conte is refusing to give up that first-round game in Austin, do you?”

The rest of the panel laughs.

The clock shows less than ten seconds left when Sarkisian leaps to his feet and yells, “We’ll take that bye from Penn State!”

Del Conte stands up and stalks out of the room.

“The Texas Longhorns will swap with Penn State. Penn State is on the clock,” Van Pelt announces. Then he adds, “Stay tuned to learn whether Coach Sarkisian will be coaching that game for the Longhorns.”

Once again, the talking heads are unanimous concerning Penn State keeping their new spot and hosting Clemson.

“Ironically, that would give them a potential quarterfinal game with Boise State… just like they would have had if everyone had kept their assigned seeds,” Nick Saban points out.

Five seconds later, Van Pelt announces, “Penn State has swapped their seed with Notre Dame.”

“What!?” several voices cry out into hot mics.

“They must have really wanted to get a shot at Indiana,” Desmond Howard laughingly comments.

In an interview with Holly Rowe after the announcement, PSU coach James Franklin did, indeed, say, “We simply felt more comfortable with a first-round matchup against the Hoosiers than with Dabo Swinney’s group at Clemson.”

Asked by Rowe whether the difference was great enough that they were willing to accept a potential quarterfinal game against Georgia rather than Boise State, Franklin replied, “Honestly, you know, five minutes isn’t a lot of time, and things were happening so fast. We started as the six seed, then we were number one, then we dropped to five. It was hard to keep up. And then we were on the clock! So we didn’t have an opportunity to discuss that aspect of the decision. But at Penn State, we’ve always preached focusing on one game at a time, without regard to whoever might be next on our schedule.”

“Well… clock management has never been Franklin’s strong suit,” Saban comments after Rowe’s interview concludes.

As the telecast cuts to commercial, the entire table of ESPN analysts are laughing.

On returning from commercial, Rece Davis catches the TV audience up.

“While we were gone, Notre Dame decided they are not afraid of the 12^th seed in the playoff and will happily host the Clemson Tigers that Penn State wanted no part of. Immediately after that announcement, Ohio State indicated they would stand pat with their number eight seed. Ninth seeded Tennessee is now on the clock, and are considering whether they are fine with their contest with the Buckeyes or would prefer to try their luck elsewhere.”

“Tennessee has swapped its seed with Indiana. Indiana is now on the clock.” Van Pelt announces.

Nobody on the telecast blamed the Vols for choosing a date at Penn State over traveling to OSU. The consensus being that, seedings aside, almost the entire panel would have preferred playing Penn State rather than the Buckeyes.

The Hoosiers immediately decided they wanted no part of a rematch with Ohio State, opting instead to swap with 12^th seeded Clemson.

SMU, faced with keeping their new matchup with Oregon or swapping with the only team seeded lower than they were, Clemson, decided to take their chances against the Buckeyes. That left Clemson pitted against Oregon.

Confused? Don’t be. Here’s the resulting CFP bracket (pardon the low-tech effort):

Some interesting results to note:

Only Georgia and Ohio State retain their original seeds. Everyone else either elected to swap or were given no choice but to do so.

Indiana still goes to Notre Dame for a first round game and embarrasses itself. Lane Kiffin still shares his ignorant tweets, rather than spending his time game planning for that big rematch at Kentucky he’s got coming up on September 6.

SMU most likely gets blown out even worse by the Buckeyes than they did by PSU.

Clemson gets what a 12^th seed deserves—a total thrashing by the number 1 seed.

We may get at least one competitive game out of the first round this time. Tennessee possibly may give Penn State a better game than they did OSU. But don’t count on it.

This time, it’s the Fighting Irish who get some help in the quarterfinals, facing Boise State in Atlanta (instead of Georgia in New Orleans).

Likewise, Oregon avoids a clash with Ohio State in the Rose Bowl, getting Arizona State, instead. It’s essentially a home game for the Sun Devils, though, so there’s a reason to watch the first half anyway.

Penn State’s clock-management issues once again bite them in the butt. Instead of a quarterfinal game against Boise State (which they would have had in the existing format OR if they hadn’t chosen to swap spots with Notre Dame to avoid that pesky 12-seed Clemson squad), they go to New Orleans to get their butts kicked by a rested team of Georgia Bulldogs.

Ohio State has an even easier time with SMU than they did against Tennessee. Their resulting quarterfinal matchup against Texas is no cupcake, but at least they avoid Oregon (unless/until both teams reach the championship game).

So, not a bad result, right?

And here’s the best part… nobody gets to complain!*

No “It’s not fair that they got a warm-up game and we hadn’t played for three weeks.”

No “That worse-seeded team got an easier path to the finals.”

You literally had the chance to swap with EVERY team assigned a worse seed than you were!

Too confusing? No. That's part of its beauty!

It’s confusing enough that anyone who tries to complain will assume they’re missing something obvious and won’t want to sound stupid by bringing their gripe up.

 

*Well, yeah, Kiffin and the other SEC coaches that didn’t get in will still complain. They’ve never cared about how stupid they sound by complaining. But nobody outside the south listens to those guys anyway. They still think the SEC should get 8 of the 12 CFP spots… or more.

 

Oh! Vikings game is starting! See ya!

 

[Parfigliano]

I agree.  Alabama and Mississippi should go away.  Notre  Dame should be out too due to their humiliation by Northern Nobody earlier in the year.

Whatever the system schools will cry and moan due to the money involved.  

[nicksaviking]

It's only one year. I wouldn't mess with it off of this small of a sample size. In the regular season, teams ranked 12th and higher beat teams ranked in the top five all the time. 

If anything, the NCAA is probably drooling over the consternation of teams like Alabama not getting in because in the end it's just going to fuel the request for MORE teams to get into the playoffs. Even if some of the games aren't exciting, they are still drawing more fans, and can be sold to networks for significantly more money than the non-playoff bowl games.

[Mike Sixel]

Eliminate it! Go back to bowls! Hahaha, not gonna happen....

[chpettit19]

1 hour ago, nicksaviking said:

It's only one year. I wouldn't mess with it off of this small of a sample size. In the regular season, teams ranked 12th and higher beat teams ranked in the top five all the time. 

If anything, the NCAA is probably drooling over the consternation of teams like Alabama not getting in because in the end it's just going to fuel the request for MORE teams to get into the playoffs. Even if some of the games aren't exciting, they are still drawing more fans, and can be sold to networks for significantly more money than the non-playoff bowl games.

And the reason the seeding won't change is because they want the conference championship games to matter so they can keep selling those to the networks to continue to make crazy money off them in order for those teams to get those byes.

The vast majority of the games during the 4-team playoff setup were blowouts, too. There's going to be very few upsets and a whole lot of blowouts. But people will keep watching and the networks will keep paying. It's shocking to me that it took this long to get the playoffs in college football with the money they're making off this stuff. With the greed involved in everything they do I can't believe this hasn't been in place for decades.