Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Arkansas Sports What would a college football playoff look like?
Posted by Lindsey Millar on Tue, Dec 6, 2011 at 5:19 PM
Last night at the Clinton School, Yahoo journalist Jeff Passan offered the lecture-version of the argument against college football's post-season that he and two co-authors make in the book "Death to the BCS." Gordy outlined the argument in a review of the book he did in his column earlier this year. But the gist is this: All other college sports have playoffs; the major bowls are led often by profligate directors under the guise of a non-profit, and, ultimately, the major bowls are massive scams, which through forced ticket buys and other activities, cause many schools to lose significant amounts of money (ASU almost certainly, UA not so much).
The solution, according to Passan? A 16-team playoff, where the winners of the 11 FBS conferences receive automatic bids and a tournament committee selects five at-large teams. Higher-seeded teams would get to play at home, while the championship would be held in the Rose Bowl or possibly some sort of rotation. For fun, Passan sketched out what this year's tournament might look like. Here it is in PDF form.
Based on what advertising analysts told him, Passan said the playoff could be a billion dollar enterprise, which would make it the second biggest sporting event in U.S. sports behind the Super Bowl.
Comments (9)
Showing 1-9 of 9
I want to go back to the pre BCS days when all the big bowl games had a chance of meaning something. How is it that the Honey Badger owes us 4 more games for free anyway?
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So the eventual national champion would have to win 4 games. Not all of the 11 FBS conferences deserve automatic bids. Under dum dum's plan, Arkansas State would get an automatic bid this year, while a far superior team UA would stay home - that really makes sense. I suppose that's one way to motivate schools to play in weak conferences.
Arkansas State has a fine team, but they would have been blown out this year by UA.
The plus 1 system would have been very efficient this year. Alabama would face Oklahoma State, and LSU would have to face Stanford on neutral sites with the winners playing for the championship. Mike Slieve of the SEC argued for a plus one system several years back, but it was rejected by the other commissioners.
The top 8 teams in BCS standings wouldn't be bad for a playoff. However, I see no good reason to award automatic bids to weak conferences.
Just the chance of U of A - Fayetteville .vs. Arkansas State - Jonesboro would be enough to put Frank of the Hills into his grave (he is still alive, isn't he?).
. . . and there in the header, Aurelius . . . shh . . . lurks an EXTREMELY rare sighting of a double future subjunctive. Don't breathe . . . don't move a muscle . . . .
No, we wouldn't want an in-state game when the hilltoppers can PAY some team $200-350,000 to come to come and lose to the Razorbacks. What an incentative for their players-get the hell beat out of you so your school can make some money. They are lucky anyone wants to play. And beating three high schools early in the season and then we have to listen to all of that "we're nuber 1" stuff until they play a real team.
Way back when, Tulsa was one of the designated "losers" until they got a quarterback named Jerry Rhone and the Hilltoppers lost to the surprise of everyone, and probably Tulsa fans also.
Real football schools don't have creampuffs in their schedules. Just how did that early game with UCLA work out? (or was it USC?).
If you want to see great football, go to a Division III game where the players don't have scholarships, actually study serious subjects, and play for the fun of the game and you can actually walk up to the fields and your kids can actually talk to a player.
There is sufficient time for a single elem bracket. Hogs have a 42 day rest from LSU game to Cotton Bowl.
But either way there will always be "bubble" teams that scream "Unfair"!
Basketball was 16 but someone 17 always thought they should be 16.
Then went to 32, then 33&34 said they should be 32.
Then went to 64 and 5 or 6 teams 65through70 thought they should be 64.
No matter how large the ocean, there will always be a shore at the edge.
See, Aurelius? The Double Future Subjunctive ("What would a college football playoff would look like?"), virtually unseen since the early seventies outside of Typogonia, and notoriously reclusive, has disappeared into that flock of Thin-Skinned Non Sequiturs o'er yonder.
Pride go with you, boy, all of your days. Your eyes have beheld what few men ever will. Your lips shall whisper it to your children's ears, and theirs to theirs, unto generations.
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