ACC Commissioner John Swofford Already Calling for 8 Team Playoff

Yeah, that would make a lot of people happy and a lot of people rich at the same time. ESPN is paying over 600 million per year too televise three playoff games. What would seven playoff games per year be worth ? :smile:

DocCrimson said:

And it's pretty fun to watch in my opinion. I'm not against a larger playoff bracket myself, and it's easy to forget that the numbers are exponential. 32 teams would be only 3 more games than what we have now. Personally I think 6 or 8 is the sweet spot.

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One good thing about going to eight teams is that they could give every champion of a major conference an automatic birth and then have three "wild cards". Sure, you'd occasionally have a team in the playoff that was 8-4 or 7-5 over some other teams with much better records and resumes, but I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it.

crimsonaudio said:

Yah, I'd argue that if you can't make the top four, you have no claim to being the best. I can possibly see six, for years like the one we're having right now, but not really any more than that. The last thing we want is for a team to be 'pretty goof' but get hot just when the playoffs start and win them all, essentially minimizing the regular season games.

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I agree - I like the NFL, but I don't want college football to become the NFL. 8 teams is my max before I would feel that the regular season has been almost completely invalidated. That would eliminate any team with 3 losses (other than a P5 conf champ), and most with 2 losses.

Catfish said:

One good thing about going to eight teams is that they could give every champion of a major conference an automatic birth and then have three "wild cards". Sure, you'd occasionally have a team in the playoff that was 8-4 or 7-5 over some other teams with much better records and resumes, but I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over it.

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If they did it that way, the weak conference champions would lose in the first round so I wouldn't sweat it either. College football doesn't have the type of parity in talent that we see in the NFL. A weak conference champion will be easy prey.

I like the idea of 8 teams with a "Power 5" champion guarantee, a guarantee for any non-power 5 team in the top 8 of some balanced metric, and then 2-3 wild cards for the most deserving (SEC, of course) teams...

If nothing else, it'll be so much fun to see the #1 seed pound the daylights out of the ACC representative...

I do not want an 8 team playoff but if they do expand that would be my limit.

I look at basketball, I do like to watch the tourney but I hate it for deciding a national champion because there are way too many opportunities for the best teams to have one bad moment. You have an idea about who the best teams are in the country when the brackets are made, it turns more into who can survive than the best teams facing each other. Unlike most I hate cinderellas (unless it's Bama) because it just eliminates the better teams from facing each other.

B1GTide said:

There will always be controversy, but an 8 team playoff would certainly require the inclusion of all of the power 5 conference winners, so the whining would be really just that - whining.

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That's only if you accept the absolutely absurd notion that winning a conference championship actually means anything.

Really, it doesn't. Take the Big-12. They have ties! So what does it all mean really? Nothing, nothing at all. What did it really mean when Auburn and Alabama had the same record in the SEC? In and of itself it meant nothing, the conference champion part of the equation wasn't important, it was when the loss occurred that mattered, and for winning a conference championship it doesn't matter if the loss is the first game or the last. Placing a value on winning a conference also devalues the season significantly, considering most have a championship game. This means you can go undefeated in the regular season, trip up to a multiple loss team in your conference championship game, and then suddenly everything you accomplished is seriously devalued. Finally, this is all also built on the belief that winning a particular conference holds more value than finishing second, or even third in a better conference.

Do you recall the teams that played in the BCS under that silly nonsense? Uconn... unranked teams, there were some real jokes and we're actually talking about sending them to play for a championship? 4 loss teams and the like? You really think the far more deserving teams, who had say 2 losses and watched a 4 loss team go play in a playoff would be whining if they said how messed up that was?

But, we do get to the core of what a playoff is about. Inclusion over excellence.

He better be careful. 8 teams in would only give the SEC a better chance of winning it all. What if Bama, Miss State, Ole Miss and/or UGA were in an 8 team playoff this year. They couldn't put them all in the same bracket. An SEC team on each side is better for our chances. BRING IT ON!!!

I'd love to hear the SEC haters then! Be careful what you wish for.

KrAzY3 said:

But, we do get to the core of what a playoff is about. Inclusion over excellence.

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I think you meant to say "money" over excellence.

KrAzY3 said:

That's only if you accept the absolutely absurd notion that winning a conference championship actually means anything.

Really, it doesn't.

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Winning the B1G has always been the most important thing to Buckeyes because it meant the Rose Bowl berth. From reading the thoughts of posters on TideFans, I think that winning the SEC is pretty important to your fans, too.

Yes, winning national championships is the ultimate goal, but winning your conference should be first and foremost in every players mind, IMO. When it really means nothing, college football has become the NFL. We are not there yet.

B1GTide said:

Winning the B1G has always been the most important thing to Buckeyes because it meant the Rose Bowl berth. From reading the thoughts of posters on TideFans, I think that winning the SEC is pretty important to your fans, too.

Yes, winning national championships is the ultimate goal, but winning your conference should be first and foremost in every players mind, IMO. When it really means nothing, college football has become the NFL. We are not there yet.

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Context means everything. It means something as a point of pride, but it should mean absolutely nothing when determining a national champion, which was the entire context of my statements and I assumed yours, since you were talking about a playoff. Conference championships are incredibly arbitrary, semi-random schedules, weird tie-breakers, etc... and of course they don't include OOC games. They simply have no place in determining a national champion.

Having said that, if we had to choose between winning the SEC and winning a national championship, I don't think that's a hard choice for any Alabama fan. The two should have no direct correlation, if they do, then it is in fact like the NFL and no different from winning a division (Atlanta and New Orleans say hi).

KrAzY3 said:

Context means everything. It means something as a point of pride, but it should mean absolutely nothing when determining a national champion, which was the entire context of my statements and I assumed yours, since you were talking about a playoff. Conference championships are incredibly arbitrary, semi-random schedules, weird tie-breakers, etc... and of course they don't include OOC games. They simply have no place in determining a national champion.

Having said that, if we had to choose between winning the SEC and winning a national championship, I don't think that's a hard choice for any Alabama fan. The two should have no direct correlation, if they do, then it is in fact like the NFL and no different from winning a division (Atlanta and New Orleans say hi).

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We are on the same page - thanks for the clarification.

B1GTide said:

The ACC is the weakest of FIVE conferences with only FOUR spots available. Of course he wants to add more teams.

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True, but his conference is probably going to have a representative. By his reasoning, though, eight wouldn't solve it either. Then they would just say that teams 9 and 10 will be unhappy. That's our problem in our whole society; we worry too dang much about who is unhappy instead of just rewarding those who are deserving. Thanks, judicial branch. There will never be any system where everyone is happy. You can't strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. Take the ncaa basketball tourney for example. They had a perfect set-up with 64 teams. What happened? People whined and moaned, and they added the stupid extra four teams or eight teams or whatever they have now. It is absolutely stupid. Hey, you couldn't make the final 64, so let us create an extra round for really sucky teams to feel included. Yaaayyyy, everyone gets a trophy. Please, give me a break.

JBama_in_PCOLA said:

While not perfect, it was better than what we have now. I think we should have just added a one more game to it.

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I tend to agree except I would've made the extra game conditional. In the previous 2-game playoff format, it should've been about advantaging #1, so an additional game should've been added in only the most extreme of circumstances such as there being more than 2 undefeated teams. JMO

Tide1986 said:

I tend to agree except I would've made the extra game conditional. In the previous 2-game playoff format, it should've been about advantaging #1, so an additional game should've been added in only the most extreme of circumstances such as there being more than 2 undefeated teams. JMO

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TV contracts would prevent that. The networks are going to know what they are paying for each year, and they are going to want more, more, more.

B1GTide said:

I don't see the conferences giving them up - especially if they know that it will not cost them an entrant into the playoffs. Too much $$$.

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You can help that situation some by allowing the top 4 ranked teams to host the first round. That would also help keep the regular season relevant...as in playing for home field advantage.

I'm in favor of the idea....as long as it stops with 8.

KrAzY3 said:

But, we do get to the core of what a playoff is about. Inclusion over excellence.

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QFT

B1GTide said:

TV contracts would prevent that. The networks are going to know what they are paying for each year, and they are going to want more, more, more.

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I don't agree -- one or more contracts could be written to cover the option in my opinion.

We all saw this form of whining coming, didn't we? This "fairplay" nonsense has to go. If you're not good enough to get into playoffs then you are not good enough. I didn't want a playoff, and I hope one day this playoff format---however unlikely---go away.