Is the bye in the College Football Playoff a detriment?

[OconeeTide]

Small sample size, but in the 2024 playoffs not a single team won with a bye. Now, in 2025 we have one team already with the bye and a loss.
Is this a pattern, or an aberration?
Its gonna be real telling today if all the Bye teams loose again.

 

[CoolBreeze]

Small sample size, but in the 2024 playoffs not a single team won with a bye. Now, in 2025 we have one team already with the bye and a loss.
Is this a pattern, or an aberration?
Its gonna be real telling today if all the Bye teams loose again.

I sure hope they all do.

 

[Elefantman]

Yes,no, maybe. Obviously a different set of challenges when you have almost a month off.

Not likely to be an issue much longer. The 16 team playoff with no byes is going to be the next step.

 

[81usaf92]

Byes aren’t the problem. Neutral sites and long layoffs are. If the quarters were on campus then it might be different results.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Definitely starting to look like it. It makes me happy.

 

[colbysullivan]

I think it’s clear when people ask “are byes the problem?”, what they’re really asking is “are the long layoffs the problem?” The answer is undoubtedly yes.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Who cares?
I, for one, I am sick of all the whining. And the ultimate demolition of the sport and every argument would be Alabama winning the national championship this year, which I predicted long ago would happen when they expanded the playoff. Alabama will be the first non-conference champion three-lost team to win a national title, and the funny thing is it could happen as soon as this year.

Ohio State fans are whining on Twitter about how the game should’ve been on campus or about how the bye hurts them, but it is the same system They won the championship under just less than one year ago. So they can get bent. Media pundits, mostly graduates of Midwestern schools, are saying Alabama should have to play Indiana in Bloomington.

It was unfair under the BCS that teams like 2011 Oklahoma State or 2008 Texas were excluded so we had to expand the playoff to four teams. And then when we did that it was unfair that UCF was excluded in 2017. Or Ohio State in 2015. So again, we had to expand the playoff.

So let’s see:
- Whined about poll championships, changed
- whined about BCS, changed
- Whined about conference championships, not making playoff, changed
- whined about lack of access for lower level teams, changed

Every single thing that everyone is complained about has been changed and people are still not happy with the outcomes.

In the process, we have destroyed the most beautiful regular season of any sport in existence, as well as the most beautiful pre—championship (bowl) season in existence.

And it is the people who were complaining the loudest that now act like they bear no responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

If this were another time in human history, every one of them would be lined up in front of machine guns and dispatched with extreme prejudice.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Yes,no, maybe. Obviously a different set of challenges when you have almost a month off.

Not likely to be an issue much longer. The 16 team playoff with no byes is going to be the next step.

I’m telling you right now, that guy who had things to say about you and me better hope to God Indiana wins this afternoon.

If he doesn’t, he’s gonna get a tidefans post in his email courtesy of me pointing out that one of us knows something about college football and the other one is him.

I reiterate: I have never said Indiana is not a good team or that they will lose the game. I have not even dismissed them for playing in a top heavy, poor conference, but it sure becomes easier after what happened yesterday.

 

[DzynKingRTR]

First round byes about to be 0-6.

 

[rolltide_21]

I’m hoping for a Miami/Bama national championship game for multiple reasons one being to drive the whiners crazy.

 

[FaninLA]

Who cares?
I, for one, I am sick of all the whining. And the ultimate demolition of the sport and every argument would be Alabama winning the national championship this year, which I predicted long ago would happen when they expanded the playoff. Alabama will be the first non-conference champion three-lost team to win a national title, and the funny thing is it could happen as soon as this year.

Ohio State fans are whining on Twitter about how the game should’ve been on campus or about how the bye hurts them, but it is the same system They won the championship under just less than one year ago. So they can get bent. Media pundits, mostly graduates of Midwestern schools, are saying Alabama should have to play Indiana in Bloomington.

It was unfair under the BCS that teams like 2011 Oklahoma State or 2008 Texas were excluded so we had to expand the playoff to four teams. And then when we did that it was unfair that UCF was excluded in 2017. Or Ohio State in 2015. So again, we had to expand the playoff.

So let’s see:
- Whined about poll championships, changed
- whined about BCS, changed
- Whined about conference championships, not making playoff, changed
- whined about lack of access for lower level teams, changed

Every single thing that everyone is complained about has been changed and people are still not happy with the outcomes.

In the process, we have destroyed the most beautiful regular season of any sport in existence, as well as the most beautiful pre—championship (bowl) season in existence.

And it is the people who were complaining the loudest that now act like they bear no responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

If this were another time in human history, every one of them would be lined up in front of machine guns and dispatched with extreme prejudice.

Reminds me of a Thomas Sowell quote, where basically the "powers that be" never suffer the consequences of their decisions.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Reminds me of a Thomas Sowell quote, where basically the "powers that be" never suffer the consequences of their decisions.

I could comment on that, but this would wind up on the NS board, but you are 100% correct.

 

[OconeeTide]

Who cares?
I, for one, I am sick of all the whining. And the ultimate demolition of the sport and every argument would be Alabama winning the national championship this year, which I predicted long ago would happen when they expanded the playoff. Alabama will be the first non-conference champion three-lost team to win a national title, and the funny thing is it could happen as soon as this year.

Ohio State fans are whining on Twitter about how the game should’ve been on campus or about how the bye hurts them, but it is the same system They won the championship under just less than one year ago. So they can get bent. Media pundits, mostly graduates of Midwestern schools, are saying Alabama should have to play Indiana in Bloomington.

It was unfair under the BCS that teams like 2011 Oklahoma State or 2008 Texas were excluded so we had to expand the playoff to four teams. And then when we did that it was unfair that UCF was excluded in 2017. Or Ohio State in 2015. So again, we had to expand the playoff.

So let’s see:
- Whined about poll championships, changed
- whined about BCS, changed
- Whined about conference championships, not making playoff, changed
- whined about lack of access for lower level teams, changed

Every single thing that everyone is complained about has been changed and people are still not happy with the outcomes.

In the process, we have destroyed the most beautiful regular season of any sport in existence, as well as the most beautiful pre—championship (bowl) season in existence.

And it is the people who were complaining the loudest that now act like they bear no responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

If this were another time in human history, every one of them would be lined up in front of machine guns and dispatched with extreme prejudice.

Yikes.
No whining here, just wondered if it was a disadvantage for teams with byes.
Didnt mean to make you that mad i swear

 

[DzynKingRTR]

Apparently not for some teams.

 

[selmaborntidefan]

Yikes.
No whining here, just wondered if it was a disadvantage for teams with byes.
Didnt mean to make you that mad i swear

Nah, nothing to do with you.

You know how the world is full of those Facebook posts where some pinhead is showing something - pick something - about how things "used to be" and then it always has something like "This is what they took from you." In most cases, even the musing is DEFCON1 nonsense. Life went on and progress happened, but I'll stop at this point to keep it real.


But in the case of college football - where it had the SIMPLEST FIXES IMAGINABLE - they have managed to design a stealth bomber by committee that has resulted in four wings and no cockpit.

EASY FIX #1:
Take polls after the NYD bowls. If there's a different champion in each poll (1990-91), they play each other at a predetermined neutral site the second Friday night after the bowls. If those two teams played each other in a bowl game, it defaults to #2 or #3 in the AP poll. Bowls mean something for all of the contenders, very few opt outs, New Year's Day remains the college feast to end the season.

What they've done instead is continued to unroll the toilet paper to the point one of the dirty sheets insists it has as much claim to being in the championship hunt as one of the clean ones.

EASY FIX #2:
Instead of "if that player appears in a single play, his redshirt is gone," allow an injury exception starting with the conference championship game that includes the bowl games. So Alabama is playing Georgia in the SECCG and the QB gets hurt and the backup strained his eyes studying for a chemistry exam, you can bring in High School Phenom Blue Chip Daddy.

This stuff was going off the rails before the pandemic. Apparently, long Covid affected the brains of everyone involved in the decision making.