Jon Joseph No. 1 Share Posted February 19 With apologies to The Bard and the Women on the College Football Playoff Committee (Committee), will the Play's, the number of games played by a conference in 2024, the B1G and the B12 nine, the ACC and the SEC eight, have any impact on how the Committee will grade the season's results on December 8th, 2024, the Sunday after the conclusion of the 2024 Conference Championship games. From 1998 through 2013, the BCS era, the number of conference games played had no impact when deciding on the Final 2. (It might have had an impact but computer algorithms in place during the BCS era were never disclosed.) From 2014 through 2024, the decade of the 4-team Playoff, teams that played eight and not nine conference games were not penalized for doing so. The ACC's Clemson and the SEC's Alabama, Georgia, and LSU, arguably benefitted from playing eight conference games. In 2014, playing eight games did not hurt 4-seed and eventual Playoff champion (Sigh) Ohio State. Ohio State's 9th game in 2014, the B1G Championship game in which the Buckeyes destroyed the Badgers, allowed Ohio State to capture the Playoff's 4th seed. This post is not a dump on the ACC and the SEC for playing eight conference games. The SEC is considering going to nine conference games in 2026, but until we see if the Committee in a 12-team Playoff world will place a premium on strength-of-schedule and not simply wins and losses, whether the Committee will penalize the ACC and the SEC for playing 8 games, why not continue to do so. The B1G, an 18-team conference, is playing nine conference games. The 16-team SEC is playing eight. Percentage-wise when determining a champion, both B1G and SEC teams will play fifty percent of conference members. Eight instead of nine games helps get the mid to lower-rung teams bowl eligible, but with the NY6 bowls being Playoff sites beginning in 2024/25, does the number of teams a conference sends to bowls outside the Playoff matter? Perhaps it matters for Coaches' bonuses, but Mississippi State playing in the Southern Belle Bowl is not going to drop money to the SEC's bottom line or improve upon how the world views the SEC. Conferences will be measured by the number of teams that make the 12-team Playoff field and not by the number of 'who cares except for ESPN execs,' irrelevant bowl games. It does help even up things with four conference road games and four conference home games instead of five/four in the B1G and B12, but today's mega-sized conferences, without divisions, will have intra-conference scheduling disparity whether eight, nine, or ten conference games are played. Welcome to the SEC Oklahoma and Texas! Texas, here's a Burnt-Orange scheduling gift for you. Oklahoma, we'd Sooner give you something easier but ... Oklahoma - 7.5 Wins. Why? This team defeated Texas (10.5 Wins is the Over/Under line for the Horns) in 2023, did it not? Here's why: Away - Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, and Missouri. Home versus Alabama and Tennessee. Texas in Dallas. Houston, which had a late lead vs. Texas in 2023, and Tulane, a legitimate contender for the Playoff G5 spot, are not out-of-conference layups. Texas - Playing Michigan out-of-conference is not a piece of cake. Of course, SEC HQ had nothing to do with scheduling this game. But Texas has one SEC road game against an outlier contender for the SEC title, Texas A+M in College Station and that's it. Texas plays Georgia and Florida in Austin and misses Alabama, Auburn, LSU, Ole Miss, Missouri, and Tennessee. Texas will, of course, match up as always with Oklahoma in Dallas. A game that does nothing to change the overall scheduling calculus. The B1G playing nine conference games does little to alter the intra-conference scheduling disparity in the conference in 2024. Ohio State will play 8 games in Columbus. USC will play 6 home games. USC's 2024 opponents finished a collective 106-53 in 2023. Oregon does play Ohio State in Eugene in 2024 as one of its 7 home games. Oregon's opponents in 2023 finished a collective 101-57. Ohio State's 2024 opponents finished a collective 83-71 in 2023. Out-of-conference games are not scheduled by B1G HQ, but in 2024, the Buckeyes play three G5 opponents out-of-conference, and all three games will be played in Columbus. Akron and Western Michigan did not go bowling in 2023. Marshall lost its bowl game vs. UTSA 17 to 35 and finished 6-7 in the Sun Belt conference. Out-of-conference, USC plays bowl team Utah State which finished 6-7 in the Mountain West, LSU, and Notre Dame. Oregon out-of-conference plays No. 4 FCS Playoff seed Idaho, 2023 Mountain West champ Boise State, and what will be a fired-up Oregon State team, which finished 8-5, in Corvallis. (In 2025 and 2026, Ohio State plays Texas. In 2027 and 2028, Ohio State plays Alabama. It's not like the Buckeyes are scheduling a bunch of out-of-conference stiffs season after season.) With the B1G at 18 teams and the SEC at 16, and bowl games other than Playoff games even more irrelevant than was the case before Playoff expansion has the time come for the Power 2 to play 10 conference games, one out-of-conference game B1G vs. SEC and an out-of-conference game as independently scheduled by the Power 2 teams? And to insist that the ACC and the B12 do the same and that Notre Dame plays 13 regular season games, 11 games against the P4. Get ready, come 2024 with an 18-team B1G, 17-team ACC, 16-team SEC, and B12 to see several tie-breakers come into play and the attendant fallout. Scheduling will never be 'even.' It's not 'even' in the NFL. Hopefully, the Committee will pay attention to the strength of schedule on Selection Sunday. I'm not holding my breath. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drake Moderator No. 2 Share Posted February 19 No matter how many teams are in a playoff, and how many games each conference plays. Invites and seeding by committee will never be without some type of controversy. However, the CFP has taken steps to be more entertaining. Not that I think a 12th seeded team will have a chance to win, but because there will be interesting matchups. The playoff showcases meaningful games with top teams from around the country that normally may never play each other. Should be fun. 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jon Joseph Author No. 3 Share Posted February 20 (edited) I hope Fiutak is right in his opinion. Before things get to the final Committee ranking, I see a lot of potential chaos with the tiebreakers trying to figure out the 2 best teams that will play in a conference champ game in an 18, 17, and two 16-team Power 4 conferences. Especially in conferences that play an even number of conference games. https://collegefootballnews.com/news/college-football-playoff-committee-wont-matter-that-much-now-daily-cavalcade-02-08-2024 Edited February 20 by Jon Joseph Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
