Playoff format has been extremely bad at producing exciting football games. It has been extremely good at its true aim, ensuring the ‘best’ team (Bama in our timeline) is never knocked out of contention with a late-season loss.
But who gives a shit about e.g. beating Bama in the SEC title game now when Saban is just going to re-group and pound you a few weeks later.
It seems college football has two issues: (1) trying to find a compelling way to crown a champion, and (2) lack of competitive balance. They are somewhat related, but somewhat interdependent.
But I’m not sure if it’s really a problem at all, because while I’ve more or less lost interest in anything but the playoff bowls, folks seem to eat up even the turrible bowls. I guess people really hate their families 
(says the guy who spends way too much time on message boards)
College football is almost like 2 separate worlds for me. Alabama and whoever the 3-4 other contender teams are in a given year, and everyone else.
There’s a ceiling we’ll likely never hit in FB, which is why I’ll be in heaven if we can ever consistently win 8-9 games, contend for the Coastal, and go to a decent bowl every year.
I’m interested in all of the bowl games because every year I’m in a bowl pool with a group of friends. The way the pool works money is involved for every game. I’m assuming gambling is the biggest driver for interest in the games.
Fair point.
College football reminds me of the NHL. The majority of fans are tribal they love their team follow them closely have a working knowledge of their conference and the league. But their team comes first and once they are done the rest of the games are nice to watch but not necessary.
Overall I’d argue for expanding the playoff to 12 or 16 and give the top 2 teams a bye. I still think we end up in the same place because the gulf between the haves and have nots in college football is massive and cant be fixed without completely overhauling everything.
In no world should Bama UGa etc be in the same league as Vandy UConn etc.
If we expand the playoff to 8 or 12, 90% of the time the eventual outcome/champion will probably be the same as if we just picked the top 2 teams for the final game, because the top top teams like Alabama are just so far above everyone else.
But the other 10% of the time something crazy will happen and it will be great. You never get huge upsets if you don’t play the games. Expanding the playoff would also mean more teams could reasonably hope to make it, making more games in the regular season exciting and helping more teams recruit top talent. Plus more top teams would avoid having their best players opt out, because guys aren’t going to opt out if they have a road to a championship.
I just think playoff expansion is a win-win. Only legitimate downside is players having to play additional games, but it’s not that many more games - we could figure something out. In other sports we don’t go “No, shrink the playoffs because the best teams are too good!” Playoffs are fun, and having more teams feel like they can actually compete for at least a shot at the title - however remote it may be that they actually win it - is good.
I’m all for that 10% chance of chaos and Bowling Green playing for a Nati
For anyone who wonders why players opt out of bowl games or leave school early see Matt Corral on crutches on the sidelines of the Sugar Bowl. Young man likely cost himself a few bucks tonight
Did I read correctly they didn’t come to close to reaching an agreement to expand the playoffs? That’s disappointing. I can’t see UVa being in the final 4 anytime soon. In the top 12 is at least in the range of “maybe.”
Yup you read it right and you’re right Uva has no chance at a top 4 under current situation.
Was having an argument recently with a buddy of mine who is a big Tech fan. I was saying in this day and age I’d rather have an elite basketball program to follow because neither of our programs are going to win a title in football. Our reality is that we are competing in a bad Coastal division and with so little parity in the sport, there’s really not many teams that can conceivably win the title. I also added that the NCAA tournament is the most exciting spectacle in all of college sports, recruiting is much easier to follow in cbb, and you have a lot more games to get excited for over the course of a season.
His argument essentially boiled down to football being the only sport that actually matters (classic Tech fan lol) because it brings in so much more revenue, blah blah blah. I just personally can’t get but so invested in following a sport when I know that our ceiling doesn’t even equal a chance at winning a national title. I didn’t tune in for a second of the playoffs this year but maybe that’s just me.
I totally get that argument. I don’t agree with it 100% but I get it. I prefer Virginia basketball over Virginia football because of what you said. It’s great watching the team compete at the national level and knowing they have have a shot at a title. I haven’t even had a dream of that in regards to football since mid Schaub era and even then I knew it was a pipe dream. Now if the team was good on a national level and played intriguing games (the coastal bores the hell outta me because it’s so mid) then I could see my interest in football increasing.
On the whole, I think I mentioned this in another thread but for me I love college football probably my favorite sport of all. It’s the only one where I don’t mind watching random games and I follow more than just my own team. But the way the playoff system is set up it creates this strange mental trickery because I know from week 1 110 out of 120 teams have 0 shot at the national championship. But that does not cheapen the game for me. I was glued to the national title game last night.
I assume by current situation you mean nowhere near good enough. But our path is infinitely easier than, say, Vanderbilt. Hell, Cincinnati’s path was harder this year than Pitt’s.
Not good enough and even the path while clear isn’t crystal clear. Winning the ACC doesn’t guarantee a spot in the playoff. But yes the ACC is about as soft of Power 5 as you can play in and have a shot at the playoff.
But I meant more with NIL shifting how teams are built and set to perform, there’s 0 chance Virginia gets positioned to compete in those recruiting wars. There’s a reason Saban and Smart came out two days again shouting for NIL reform and it’s because they know even with the money their programs have they can’t compete with the oil money of the A&M LLC, the shoe money in Oregon, or the pure splash and flash of Coach Primetime. If the golden standard of college football is firing off warning shots about that, what chance does a UVa have?
Pff, you say that like its complicated to solve.
All we need is for a UVA alum to start a global, multi-billion dollar sports/sports related company (probably apparel, but there might be other options) and then whole-heartedly (and wallet-ed-ly) support investing in UVA athletics AND make UVA sports part of their overall marketing strategy.
Easy-peasy.
Yeah, it’s ironic that a school with a $15 billion endowment won’t compete in that game. Just not in our DNA to throw money willy nilly at sports.
Solution: PTJ’s wife likes yoga so PTJ buys lululemon and all the teams wear yoga pants for uniforms (hear me out…they’re orange yoga pants).
I’m listening…
Well the pitch to recruits is pretty simple: “ok so you get mad NIL money and all you have to do is wear these yoga pants.”
But then of course the rationale for PTJ to get behind this idea is also simple because lululemon sales will go through the roof because of the marketing value of 350 lb offensive linemen in yoga pants.
I really think this could work.