Sign up, and you'll be able to customize your font size and more! Sign up
Sep 19, 2014
4:59:17pm
Conference playoff games make seeding CFP much more complicated
Expanding the number of teams to 4 in the playoff expands the number of teams that will appear to be inequitably left out of the playoff. Many more teams have a good argument to be the fourth best team than the second best team.

This is especially true to the imbalances from year to year in the divisions of conferences with playoff games and the high likelihood of upsets in at least one of games.

Here is a possible scenario that is fairly likely for at least a couple conferences.

Let's say that the top 2 teams(by whatever measure we use to assess best teams) in a conference are in the same division and the 3rd or 4th (or worst) best team is in the other division but happens to win the conference title game. The lower ranked team has won the conference title game about 25 to 30% of the time in the P5 conference history. Using a 25% chance of an upset in the title game then over 2/3rds of the time there will be at least one upset in the 4 conference title games.

The committee includes championships won in its criteria, so if the conference is perceived as a strong one( SEC always or PAC 12 this year), it will be hard to leave the title winner out, even if its resume is otherwise spotty. You could have a 3 loss team win a title over an undefeated team and a one or two loss team with a strong resume not even having made the conference title game. So, in that case where does the team that didn't make the title game stand (and if could be the number 2 ranked team in the country if its an SEC team behind the number 1 team in the country.)

So the committee is faced with punishing a team for losing a title game, or not making a title game because it was in the tougher division or not rewarding winning the title game or taking more teams from one conference. This will make selection Sunday look small time in terms of accusations of bias and poor decisions.

Without the title games would be more straightforward because divisions would not factor into the rankings via the title game implications.

I think we'll be to 8 and then 16 teams in pretty short order.
TomPetty
New username
Great Wide Open
Bio page
TomPetty
Joined
Sep 7, 2003
Last login
Oct 13, 2021
Total posts
0 (0 FO)
Messages
Author
Time

Posting on CougarBoard

In order to post, you will need to either sign up or log in.