Welcome to the New Era of College Football (Peaking in the Playoffs)

Ldlane said:

Not really you just have win your conference championship. I don't see how it becomes "less important". You still have to win.

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Suppose Florida has already won the SEC east going into the FSU game. They don't have to win the game to go to the SECCG.

Go Bama said:

Suppose Florida has already won the SEC east going into the FSU game. They don't have to win the game to go to the SECCG.

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Right now I think the committee would drop them for losing to FSU. There has been no clear "you must win your conference" from the committee. I don't see what the problem is. You lose, you go home.

A question I would like to pose after reading some replies in this thread is this:

What defines the 'best' team in a given season?

I saw a couple of people say that while tOSU was not the best team, they got hot at the right time. I claim hogwash. The 'best' team cannot be determined by it's early schedule. That often consists of 1, maybe 2, OOC games and a couple of cream puffs. With the advent of the conference championship games, and now the playoff, it would be difficult to say that the best team could be determined by just the middle of it's schedule since you'll likely face 3 highly ranked teams to end the season. Add to that your in state rival which is often the final regular season game of the year and it's clear that if you wanna sit at the big boy table then you need to finish strong.

The first half of the season is about positioning and fine tuning your game. The 2nd half of the season, and especially the last 1/3 - 1/4 is where the money is made. No team played better through the 2nd half of the season that tOSU. Because of that finish, no other team in the country could present a total-body-of-work resume that can match tOSU.

It seems like people want to act like the entire landscape of CFB has changed. I don't believe it has. It's always been better to lose early than late. That's still true. It's always benefited you to finish strong. Also still true. The only difference is that instead of a 3 game finale (rival, conf champ, BCS bowl), it's now a 4 game stretch.

In the end, there were 2 primary changes to this season and both were good:

1.We didn't have to watch FSU get a pass as the undefeated reigning champ while a more deserving team got left out. If this was a typical BCS year, Oregon would have been left out and everyone would have wondered if Bama could have beaten them.
2.The playoff added actual suspense, surprise, and a true undisputed champion. As many as 8 teams had a viable shot at the playoff with just 1 or 2 weeks left in the season. While we all felt that tOSU maybe didn't have a shot, or even deserve one, they did the thing that makes CFB so wonderful. They beat all the odds and left no doubt about who the best team was.

I can't wait for next season.

I prefer a Bama dynasty to a tOSU dynasty any day of the week. Bama fans have got class. tOSU fans, not so much.

oregonbltzkrieg said:

I prefer a Bama dynasty to a tOSU dynasty any day of the week. Bama fans have got class. tOSU fans, not so much.

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Blitz, sorry for your team's nightmare finish. I know you were expecting a lot more.

CrimsonEyeshade said:

Blitz, sorry for your team's nightmare finish. I know you were expecting a lot more.

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Thank you. If this program has any resilience left it will be back to try again sometime in the near future. Oregon is a bit bipolar and I don't like it. You never know which Oregon team will show up to play. Good Oregon showed up in the Rose Bowl. Bad Oregon came to play in the big game. I hope to see Oregon toughen up, it hasn't got what it takes to go all the way at this point in time.

Bamabuzzard said:

It is a smaller model of the NFL and as the playoff expands will be just like the NFL. Ultimately we'll have an 8 team playoff that guarantees five conference champion tie ins and three "wild card" teams. Teams that have the best regular seasons are rewarded with bye's and those that simply survive are rewarded with a place in the playoff. But ultimately the teams that "get hot" at the right time will win. Not necessarily the best team.

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8 team playoffs would not have bye slots.

Makes a good case for front loading the schedule.

AgentAntiOrange said:

A question I would like to pose after reading some replies in this thread is this:

What defines the 'best' team in a given season?

...

I can't wait for next season.

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There has never been a best team in college football, only the most impressive and the team that won the right games under the current system at the time. Even this year, Ohio State didn't play Baylor or TCU. How can they be the best? They did win the right games and beat the current system and are no doubt National Champions, deservedly so. Best team? Who can say?

BamaMoon said:

We got a glimpse of the "future" on Monday night but I'm not talking about anything specifically related to OSU or Bama.

What we witnessed in OSU was a team that played their worst early in the year against Va. Tech. and then from that moment continued to play better throughout the rest of the year, adjusting to injury problems and then they "peaked" at just the right time during their last three games - Wisconsin, Bama, and the Ducks.

A bad team won't ever win the playoff, but what the playoffs offer is for a team which is peaking to make a run if they make it into the playoffs and that is exactly what happened with OSU....they barely made it in and they took advantage of it.

This doesn't mean Bama won't win more NCs in the playoff era, but now it becomes a matter of peaking during the last 4 games of the year for us...against the Barn, SECCG, Semi game and NC game.

We have arguably "peaked" against LSU in many past seasons and then managed to pull out a win against the Barn at the end of the regular season only then to pull it all together in ONE big win in the BCS.

Now, we'll really need to peak in a different way while still managing to "get up" for some big games early.

Welcome to the New Era of College Football!

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Imo that's the way college sports in general have been since their inception. With new recruits coming in, existing student athletes graduating, transferring in/out, etc., every school starts a brand new team every year. It's only natural that they'll play their worst in the earliest games and improve as both individuals and teammates as the year and season progresses.

Bamabuzzard said:

Sorry for your loss OBK. I'm not going to talk any trash to you. You've hung around long enough and having the guts to come back on the board after Monday's game garner's respect from me.

I'll tell you what my eyes saw and what I think needs to be done for your team to get over the hump. It seems Oregon still is inferior in the trenches. With all the flash and dash at the skill positions championships are won in the trenches and I think we saw that again on display Monday night. Both your lines got overwhelmed Monday night. Y'all HAVE GOT to get more physical across the lines to compete with teams built like OSU. To be honest, I don't think it would have mattered one bit whether it was Alabama or OSU Monday night. The outcome would have been similar.

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And - maybe I'm wrong - but, slowing down would help some. I couldn't help but notice how many injuries Oregon had and the first thing that comes to my mind is... "well, of course. They've played 1.5 seasons' worth of football in 1 season." Oregon appears to be the sprinter in a marathon. They start out impressing everyone. They're so fast you can't keep up with them. But then the slow and steady gains speed toward the end while the sprinter is running out of air.

Bamabuzzard said:

Sorry for your loss OBK. I'm not going to talk any trash to you. You've hung around long enough and having the guts to come back on the board after Monday's game garner's respect from me.

I'll tell you what my eyes saw and what I think needs to be done for your team to get over the hump. It seems Oregon still is inferior in the trenches. With all the flash and dash at the skill positions championships are won in the trenches and I think we saw that again on display Monday night. Both your lines got overwhelmed Monday night. Y'all HAVE GOT to get more physical across the lines to compete with teams built like OSU. To be honest, I don't think it would have mattered one bit whether it was Alabama or OSU Monday night. The outcome would have been similar.

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Thanks for the kind words. I agree the lines are the problem. Is there any way you could loan some Bama lineman to us?

If it eventually goes to an 8 team playoff, which I think most of us on here think it will, the top 4 teams should host the bottom 4 teams the week after the conference championship games and then have the break to the New Years bowls like we had this year. They need to put the fans first instead of the corporate dollars.

B1GTide said:

It has always been important to peak at the right time. Early season losses have always been easier to overcome than late season losses. A 4 team playoff didn't really change any of that. But, as many of you have pointed out, as more teams are added to the playoff pool, less value will be placed on individual regular season games. Remember, a 2 loss LSU team won the BCS title a few years back, so even that has always been possible under the right circumstances.

I don't see teams with more than 2 losses making into an 8 team pool, so I don't have a problem with that number. My preference would be a field of 6, with the top two seeds getting a bye in week one. It forces teams to try to land one of those two top spots to avoid a third playoff game - placing real value on all regular season games again.

But, no matter what method we use to crown a champion, late season performance will always be more important than early season performance.

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This is a good thought process.....I can see where making a 6 team playoff would still allow for the regular season games to carry importance....not playing a 3rd game would be a huge goal to shoot for! Thanks B1GTide

I just can't wait until a 3-loss team wins the National Championship...........& before you give me some half-baked response along the lines of "that will NEVER happen" type thing, I guess 9-7 teams don't win the Super Bowl either....do they.......

This thing is / was a bad idea from day one, simply because the temptation to expand it to more & more teams is irresistible to far too many....

Bama Czar said:

I just can't wait until a 3-loss team wins the National Championship...........& before you give me some half-baked response along the lines of "that will NEVER happen" type thing, I guess 9-7 teams don't win the Super Bowl either....do they.......

This thing is / was a bad idea from day one, simply because the temptation to expand it to more & more teams is irresistible to far too many....

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Yep, sky is falling!

Someone name me one type of major playoff, from the professional sports, even down to FCS, where all participants are deemed "worthy". Really great teams. Etc....

Didn't think so.