re: Indiana is not only the only Conference champion left in the playoff

quote:

---

The only argument killer is that Alabama shut out LSU in that game. If that ended up being a very close game, this would've been a nonstop controversy.

---

This was never even thought about from the stance of what had happened.

LSU had ended the season expecting to play some new team and the media forced a rematch. Alabama goes into the game angry and LSU has no way to match that motivation. This is what the constant second chances has done to college football. Everyone knows if the situation was reversed the media was not giving LSU a rematch. The shite was dumb.

Stop giving second chances to teams as it creates the controversy. It should have just been conference champions. Win your conference and you are in. There is no argument. If you can’t win your own conference then what is your argument for being #1?

Now the conference have done something even dumber. They made them too big to properly schedule everyone. Before they started cannablizing each other’s conference they could have done a 6 seed tournament of the best conference champions. It would have been super legit.

What happened was that conferences expanded too large to the point that ordinary head to heads not only couldn’t establish a champion, they couldn’t pick two teams to play each other. Every conference had some wacky tie breaker scenario resulting in one of their potential best teams not making the game. The ACC was the worst about this.

When conferences were 10 teams, there were occasional bad tie breaker scenarios (like the infamous 3 way Big 12 tie back in the day), but every team had actually played one another. In the 12 and 14 team conferences, the division set up ensured that if there were two great teams that had never played each other before championship weekend, they were about to.

Ohio State never played Oregon or Indiana. Alabama never played Ole Miss or Texas A&M, and A&M never played Georgia, Ole Miss, or Oklahoma either. Miami never played Duke, Virginia, or Georgia Tech in conference play.

The conferences have grown too large for the current system to reasonably crown an obvious champion. We need to return to smaller, regional, geographically concise conferences of preferably 12, but definitely no more than 14, teams each.

quote:

---

You’re right. It should have been Alabama vs. Oklahoma State.

---

LSUDS

The top college football programs should break off and go independent. Form their own league and play each other. Conferences only serve to benefit the bottom feeder programs and subsidize them with money that they cannot earn through their own success. It’s a socialist structure. I am befuddled why people love it so much.

quote:

---

But, I've always thought that a scenario where you play every team in your conference, and no out of conference games, where conference champions would be the only teams to move on would be the best system.

---

It should absolutely be the way

Winning your conference then is still bad arse and would have you almost exited as the natty every year

quote:

---

I’ll die on that hill that there shouldn’t have been a rematch

---

It went against all common sense and natural fairness. But the beginning of the Decade of the ESPN-fix was now upon us.

Its amazing how we let one entity with substantial financial interests run and control this Sport for that Decade, being inundated with yearly propaganda.

quote:

---

Why else do you watch college football, if it isn't for entertainment?

---

College football is a cultural proxy for war between the states. It is a mostly peaceful means by which tribal rivalries are expressed. It’s basically a way for Americans to vent out their frustrations without dissolving into civil war.

quote:

---

And Oklahoma State would have given Alabama a far better game than LSU did.

---

LSU would have smoked Oklahoma State

quote:

---

Sure, just like they smoked Bama right?

---

Oklahoma state was the 2 ranked offense and the 61 rated defense.

LSU was the 17th ranked offense and number 2 defense.

Oklahoma State lost to 6-7 Iowa State

That system wouldn’t be awful, but my preference would be this:

6 conferences of 12 teams, each with 2 divisions of 6 (like you said). Notre Dame must join a conference.

11 game regular season, but only 8 conference games (you play everyone in your division annually and everyone in the other division every other year)

3 OOC games against other teams in those other major conferences. It is optional for one to be a permanent OOC rival.

1 preseason game against a team outside of the 6 major conferences (an in-state rival rent-a-win, or something similar)

First round of post-season is conference championship games.

The four major bowls then pick from the 6 conference champions and two at-larges to fill the four big bowl games on NYD (Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, Fiesta). These matchups (beyond the at-large teams) are not based on computer rankings or human polls, but based entirely on traditional bowl tie-ins (i.e. the Big 10 and Pac 12 champs play in the Rose Bowl, the ACC Champ goes to the Orange, the SEC to the Sugar, etc).

After the bowl games are done, you end up with 4 winners in a playoff, seeded based on rankings, played at the higher ranked team’s home stadium. Championship game is played in a neutral site that rotates around like the superbowl.

It’s effectively a 14 team playoff. You could even take it a step further by having 4 at large teams playing each other during conference championship game weekend with two of them making the major bowls. You could even make these the Citrus Bowl and the Cotton Bowl or whatever.

So, in this way:
1. OOC games matter because they will factor in seriously for rankings of at-large teams. Teams want to improve their chances of making the playoff by beating good teams OOC.

2. Every team has a path to the playoff by winning their division.

3. There’s enough at-large slots not to punish great teams that occasionally miss their division championships via weird tie-breakers, but not enough to devalue the regular season or manufacture too many rematches or mulligans.

4. The bowls are maintained as they seed the “playoff”.

5. Regionality is preserved.

6. Pollsters still have some say, but not all the say.

Downsides:
Conferences would have to be massively realigned and tv deals renegotiated.
Potential cold weather home games in January.