Solar No. 1 Share Posted January 21 (edited) With a 4 team playoff the conference championships often played a role as a playoff eliminator, effectively being a quarterfinal round, in many years and conferences. However with the 12 team format (which I'm really excited for) the B1G and SEC are expecting that their top 3 teams will likely make the playoffs. So what are the implications of that? Compared to the 3rd best team in the conference: 1. If you win, you just played an extra game to get a bye week in the playoffs (+1-1=0), yea! 2. If lose, you played an extra game to potentially get seeded worse than what was the 3rd best team in the conference that didn't have to play, and more importantly, potentially lose a home field seeding, maybe even against the 3rd best team in the conference! Idiocy! I think the only people happy conference game week will be Fox/ESPN and conference money grubbers, oh yeah, and the 3rd best team in the conference happy to get a bye. And because of the former, it's going to be nearly impossible to get rid of the conference championship. The only likely way is to expend the playoffs to replace conference championships with real playoff elimination games. I think the long term answer is to get rid of conference championship, and take the 12 team format and double it. It will only add one week to the playoffs, which will simply replace the conference championship week. And best of all, 24 almost equals 25, so basically the top 25 that everyone pays attention to gets to battle it out on the field. Edited January 21 by Solar 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JabbaNoBargain No. 2 Share Posted January 21 I agree, but I think going 16 or even staying 12 is enough. Most years if a team finishes at #24 we’ve seen enough. They’re probably 8-4 and it’s time to move on. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Moderator No. 3 Share Posted January 21 Until the next media round, if then, Conference Champ Games are not going away. These games are built into broadcast packages. All media packages end in 2030 or 2031 except for the ACC which is locked in with ESPN and CW through 2036. Although, FSU and its lawyers may have something to say about this. The Power 4 conferences all play without divisions beginning in 2024 when the B1G and the SEC drop divisions. Especially in the SEC with 8 conference games, a champ game will often be needed to settle tie-breakers and to see which team, at least in 2024/25 and 2025/26, wins the title and scores the 1st round bye. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Fischer Administrator No. 4 Share Posted January 21 I'd like a 16 team playoff, thus anyone who has a chance to win the 'Natty--will be in it, and there would be room for perhaps two G-5 teams? 1 1 Mr. FishDuck Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Just Ducky No. 5 Share Posted January 21 Just like we see in the nfl adding more games only increases the possibility that your best players won’t make it to the big games. The body can only take so much pounding. Only teams that are deep at all positions will make it to the end. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Moderator No. 6 Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 2:13 PM, Charles Fischer said: I'd like a 16 team playoff, thus anyone who has a chance to win the 'Natty--will be in it, and there would be room for perhaps two G-5 teams? Agreed! No 1st round bye. Spot reserved for G5 if not in the top 16. Other than that, playoff teams seeded as teams are ranked by the Committee, 1 vs. 16, etc. I'd like to see the 1st 2 rounds on campus and SoFi, Las Vegas, Minneapolis, Indianapolis, and Detroit added to the existing bowls in a rota that does not favor teams located in the south. With the money to be made when ESPN's exclusive goes away after 2025/26, I think expansion to 16 is inevitable. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Moderator No. 7 Share Posted January 21 On 1/21/2024 at 10:58 AM, Solar said: I think the only people happy conference game week will be Fox/ESPN and conference money grubbers Like it, or not. The media pays a high percentage of the bills of college sports. However, the number of games played by playoff teams may become an issue. Injuries definitely will increase. That may be the catalyst for changing the number of games played, but won’t eliminate the conference championships. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Moderator No. 8 Share Posted January 22 Drake, roll this season back with a 12-team playoff. If Oregon had played in the champ game it would have been Oregon's 17th game of the season. So spot on! To win it all you will not only have to be good, and lucky but also deep. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MicroBurst61 No. 9 Share Posted January 22 I do believe that the conference championship games are going to be worked into the "playoffs", as the first round games, as soon as TV execs and money managers finish "trimming" the conferences down to 3...two Super conferences and the third "farm conference" to feed the two Super conferences with players and coaching staff. With the NCAA (a completely neutered association) unable or unwilling to bring some order to the changes in college football, then a NFL-lite league with a comparable number of games played similar to the NFL will happen, because each game played generates more TV money, thus feeding the beast. Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate being able to watch every game of a full season of Duck Football (unlike the lean TV years of Root TV with occasionally an appearance on a major network), but having that reality means the "beast" dictates the terms of its feeding regardless of how it effects conferences, coaching staff, players health, fans, program continuity, and college football culture. This is nothing new in the larger system that all of our other systems operate under. We Love it when we perceive the systems benefiting us, but Hate it when those systems only truly benefit themselves in the end. We grudgingly adapt and accept what is fed to us, and as human nature dictates, completely forget what we hated about it in the first place. The Beast will Always get what it wants over all other concerns. So, I have (grudgingly) accepted that, but I Always remember that. I believe that Duck Inc. realizes this also. So, bring on the 12, 16, 24 team playoffs, and let's all watch the Ducks rise to the top of the heap and make a run at several B1G AND National championships over the next 10-15 years! Go Quackers, a NFL-Lite prepped football team! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Moderator No. 10 Share Posted January 22 In fairness, new NCAA president Charlie Baker 'gets it.' He has already called for a separate division for big-time CFB with said division regulating itself. Add Notre Dame and one other program (UNC, Kansas?) to the B1G. Add Clemson, FSU, and 2 others to the SEC. Other than for antitrust reasons, why invite any other team to a playoff beyond the 40 B1G and SEC teams? What team is going to win it all outside of a 40-team Power 2? Cal? Utah? OK State? Wake Forest? And why split the money with bowls and perhaps even the media? Combine the Big 10 and SEC networks and stream the playoff games. Play all PO games on campus except for the CFB Super Bowl. It's headed in this direction. Probably sooner rather than later. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
