College Football - Early Season Fun

[Guynemer]

And the MLB playoffs are probably the best in all of sports at attempting to arrive at a "true" champion.

How does that track? Far more teams make the playoffs in the other three big pro leagues.

I agree with your position in that far too many teams make the playoffs in every sport that has one. It dilutes the meaning of the regular season, and the validity of the eventual champions. If I had my druthers, every pro league would go down to four divisions max, with only each of the four division champs making the playoffs.

By that metric, yes, college football has by far the most meaningful regular season. However, it can continue to have that distinction while still providing for a "true" national champion with a playoff of only the best of the best, as I have described earlier. It's certainly "outside the box" as far as playoffs go, but that is the only way college football playoffs could work without ruining the regular season.

[Drake Tungsten]

How does that track? Far more teams make the playoffs in the other three big pro leagues.

More teams is bad, as it increases the chances that a merely good team over the course of the regular season can get hot at the end and win the championship. MLB's system is good because the teams play a very large number of regular season games (against every team in their league) to fill a small number of playoff slots, so you're reasonably sure that the four playoff representatives in each league are the cream of the crop. These teams then play multi-game playoff series, which increases the odds that the better team will emerge victorious. It isn't a perfect system and is still somewhat of a crapshoot when you get down to it, but it's miles better than the NFL or what people are proposing for college football.

However, it can continue to have that distinction while still providing for a "true" national champion with a playoff of only the best of the best, as I have described earlier.

College football teams play far too few games and don't have enough cross-conference interaction for there to ever be any high degree of confidence that you've included the "best of the best" in the playoffs.

[Imran Siddiqui]

How does that track? Far more teams make the playoffs in the other three big pro leagues.

Um... exactly. The only teams in the running are the few that have survived the long, grinding regular season (which tends to balance out streaks) with division winning records with one (regretably) Wild Card team. Then they play 5 to 7 game series to determine who moves on in the playoffs and wins the World Series.

[Guynemer]

My mistake, I misread Drake's post.

[Ming]

College football teams play far too few games and don't have enough cross-conference interaction for there to ever be any high degree of confidence that you've included the "best of the best" in the playoffs.

Using that same logic, it makes even less sense to limit the "championship" to only two teams, especially when the selection could be considered arbitrary. If you have three big conference champions with the same record (and this ignores the fact that mid conferences never get a chance) how do you really know the best/deserving teams are the two selected. Somebody is going to get screwed. The current system is a joke. Even a four team playoff system would be a step up.

[DanS]

It's Friday... and I'm amped for tomorrow's big game.

[SlowwHand]

Texas - OU weekend.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm amped for tonight's big game. Rutgers vs. Pitt

Btw, Cincy looked damned good last night, though Pike got injured & will miss the Louisville game next week... but at least it's against Louisville (famous last words? ).

[Drake Tungsten]

Bradford's hurt. Goddammit...

[Guynemer]

Texas still looks terrible.

[Drake Tungsten]

I know, but losing Bradford definitely hurts OU's chances of exposing these frauds...

[Guynemer]

Sooners settle for another FG. Troubling.


In other unbeaten news, Wisky has gone up 3-0 at home against Iowa, early in the second quarter.

[Guynemer]

I am positively mortified by Michigan playing Delaware State. ****ing embarrassing.

[Guynemer]

This game has Wisconsin-Ohio State written all over it.

Oklahoma is completely dominating the Longhorns in every aspect, and has only a 6-0 lead to show for it.

[DanS]

What an atrocious half of football played by Texas and Oklahoma.