Also, and more generally, far from “season-marginalizing” a college football playoff would have a salutary effect on the regular season: there would be less incentive for BCS aspirants to pad their non-conference schedules with sacrificial lambs. The NFL playoffs don’t marginalize the NFL’s regular season, and the NFL regular season about a third longer than the typical college team’s regular season schedule.

I addressed it in the ensuing discussions (which I do not blame you for not reading), but basically I believe the creampuff problem can be mitigated by alternative means. Heck, it could be eliminated tomorrow if the pollsters would stop rewarding it.

By my account, the NFL season is marginalized to near uselessness when a playoff puts 9-7 teams up against 16-0 teams. The NFL has a lot of good games between good teams, but the games among the really good teams are utterly irrelevant. They get a do-over.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wayne-winston/why-the-bcs-must-go_b_381669.html

I address most of those arguments in my Ordinary Gentlemen post, so I won’t rehash them here. Needless to say, I believe Wayne Winston is wrong on numerous fronts.

It’s honestly the sort of only-the-national-championship-matters mentality that college football, unlike other sports, has managed to avoid. The current system is great for the top three teams but understandably leaves teams 3-8 dissatisfied. His model leaves 1-8 happy but 9-16 dissatisfied (Georgia Tech and Ohio State in particular). It would actually leave 9-16 in a far worse place than they are now because right now things other than making the playoff is considered relevant, which would cease to be the case in the event of a playoff.

As it stands, teams with little hope for the national championship still have something to play for. Once you institute a playoff, it becomes all that matters.

-{This comment was modified when Trumwill realized that Georgia Tech made the “simulated playoffs”}-

I can’t see how you can argue with a straight face that the NFL’s regular season is marginalized by the playoffs. 16-0 teams are exceedingly rare (we’ve had two so far in the last 30 years or so) and for most teams it will be tough to get in the playoffs with a 9-7 record.

Re the ‘college Superbowl’ rules, I think they were agreed upon by the respective teams ahead of time (but after the bowl season).

BTW, another benefit of a mini college football playoff, i.e., 8 teams, 3 games, would be that it would keep the final two teams fresh and playing through December.

The NFL could have an important regular season and a playoff if it wanted to. The parity makes it so that you could have four divisions of eight and go the route that MLB used to go. But they chose not to go that route. Why? So that they could get more teams into the playoffs. Why? Because once you have a playoff system, everything else becomes marginalized.

I could actually live with a 4-team or 8-team CFB playoff, but it would not last. A 4-team playoff would have left out Boise State this year. Eight teams is not enough to include both conference winners and the best non-conference winners most years. The result would be a 16-team playoff, which would give 9-3 teams the same shot at the title that 13-0 teams have. If you want that sort of thing, then you already have a league for that.

You should read my LoOG post. I actually have a playoff system that I would support with between 5-8 teams in it* but that assures that doesn’t allow 9-3 teams a chance at the title. But a substantial portion of college fans would reject it. To satisfy both the camp that want non-BCS teams to have a fair shot at it and the camp that believe that a playoff should consist of the best teams, you need 16 teams. Then you have non-best participants that get in only because there are slots to fill.

I think there’s something from the Vegas game that you’re missing. If it happened in the way you describe, I am pretty sure I would have heard about it or it would be a part of the discussion right now. Maybe they scheduled each other at a neutral site for the next season?

The Giants lost to them by three points in a shootout, but I would argue that hanging with the Pats in that loss gave the Giants the confidence for their great post-season run.

“How is it again that the regular season is relevant?”

It’s relevant in that it determines who gets into the playoffs, for starters. For many teams that goes down to the wire. For those that lock up a post-season bid early, subsequent regular season wins can determine their seed, which in turn determines whether they’ll get home field advantage, a bye week, etc. In the event a team has all that locked up and remains undefeated going into its last game, as was the case with the Pats, that regular season game was relevant in that it gave them a chance at a historic 16-win season. That’s why they played their starters. Do you think the Giants should have rolled over for them in the Superbowl because the Pats had gone 16-0 in the regular season?

For the rare team that goes into the final game 14-1, I guess that last game wouldn’t be terribly relevant, but overall, nearly every regular season game is meaningful and relevant in the NFL.

“A 4-team playoff would have left out Boise State this year.”

Why?

“Eight teams is not enough to include both conference winners and the best non-conference winners most years.”

But it would be enough to include the undefeated teams most years, and it would be hard for any team not included to argue that it had a claim on being the #1 team in college football.

Well then, good for them that they get a do-over wherein they decide to suddenly be a really good team .

Do you think the Giants should have rolled over for them in the Superbowl because the Pats had gone 16-0 in the regular season?

No, but I don’t think that they should have been allowed in the playoffs to begin with. I don’t blame the Giants so much as I blame the system. That’s not to say that the NFL should adopt college football’s system. They’re different entities with different kinds (and volume) of teams. And maybe, given what the NFL is the system they have actually is better than something I might prefer. But it’s not something I want to happen with college football. Different leagues require different systems.

For those that lock up a post-season bid early, subsequent regular season wins can determine their seed, which in turn determines whether they’ll get home field advantage, a bye week, etc.

And yet first-seed teams (in the last decade) win the Superbowl at a rate barely exceeding random probability In the last four seasons, 6th-seed teams are just as likely to make a conference championship game and more likely to win a Superbowl. That’s not to say that 1st seed teams don’t generally outperform lower-seed teams (nearly 50/50 on making the Superbowl, though 10/90 of winning it), but that’s pretty much what you would expect since theoretically they are the best teams.

But I’m not convinced that the things you talk about are ultimately all that important. Lose a game here, lose a game there, no big deal provided that you make the playoffs. Alabama loses to Auburn? Championship dreams are over.

Why?

Because there are five undefeated teams.

But it would be enough to include the undefeated teams most years, and it would be hard for any team not included to argue that it had a claim on being the #1 team in college football.

It would be enough for the undefeated teams every year, but that doesn’t mean that they would be included. Undefeated Hawaii was ranked #10 last year going into the bowls. Boise State was ranked #9 last year. If Ball State had won the MAC championship game against Buffalo, they probably would have been #10.

But even if we had a rule saying that undefeateds have to be included, you will still get arguments from 9-12 at the very least. They won’t even have to argue that they’re as good as #1. They just have to make the case that they are better than #7 or #8. How do you pick between Ohio State and Georgia Tech? Texas Tech and Penn State last year? It’s nearly impossible. Instead, you expand to 16 so they can “settle it on the field.” Some people are already saying 32.

Playoffs expand. It’s what they do.

“And yet first-seed teams (in the last decade) win the Superbowl at a rate barely exceeding random probability”

That’s because promoting parity (via equal sharing of TV revenues, salary cap, worst teams getting highest draft picks) is a league policy.

“Playoffs expand. It’s what they do.”

If that’s the biggest fear regarding an 8-team playoff, I say bring it on. But I still think an 8-team playoff would satisfy a critical mass of people and be enough, particularly if undefeated teams are all included.

That being said, (a) there are still way too many teams that make the playoffs as far as I am concerned and (b) they still render the regular season relatively meaningless.

That second may not be as big a deal in the NFL, but it’s the one thing that makes college football so unique, fascinating, and intense on such a monumentally wide scale. It is the only league where the best teams are not allowed any margin of error without the potential for significant consequences. And the lack of a centralized post season make it the only league where things other than making and winning the post-season tournament constitute success and failure (unless you count the NIT or CBI, which people actually pay less attention to than they do bowls).

Even if I were inclined to be optimistic and believe that 8 would be satisfactory, I would be disabused of that notion by looking at the other college football tournaments. Given the stakes involved, do you think it is more likely or less likely that more teams would insist on being allowed to play in the tournament? Division I-AA has 16 teams. There’s no way that Division I-A fans and schools will be satisfied with 8. It’s more likely that they will want 32 than that they will be satisfied with 8.

Is there another professional sports league that has, in your estimation, a more meaningful regular season than the NFL?

The regular season as a collective entity? Major League Baseball. It’s the most stingy with its playoffs and so the regular season is more important. Back before they added the third divisions you used to have these things called “pennant races”, which were extremely important. Now they have wild cards, so the pennant races are not so important. Even so, each league gives only one wild card slot away.

Of course, the individual games in MLB are not so important because there are so many of them. The same goes for basketball. The relative scarcity of football games makes football leagues the only leagues where the individual games take on great importance. Of the three (recent) major professional football leagues, the NFL is the stingiest. The Arena League has to put a lot of thrust into the playoffs because that’s what the networks will televise. Don’t know if the same is true of the Canadian Football League, which allows 6 of its 8 teams to participate.

That’s my point. If the individual games take on great importance (which they do, in most cases) then so does the regular season.