Stage is being set for playoff expansion

STONECOLDSABAN

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I get what you're saying, and in general I agree, but 2012 A&M, 2013 AU, 2014 OM, 2015 OM, 2017 AU, and 2019 AU are all examples of Bama losing to lesser teams. Yeah, they were all ranked, some highly, but these were regular season losses against teams Bama should have beaten.

Adding to the difficulty of the schedule isn't going to help Bama much as Bama hasn't been on the outside looking in very often.
That kind of proves his point though. That’s 6 times in 126 games. And it’s hard to say for a few of those teams that they were so much lesser than us. A&M 2012 and Auburn 2013 finished their seasons 5th and 2nd in the country respectively. IMO it actually gives Alabama more breathing room if they drop a game like that. I have a hard time believing that in 2019 they would have dropped Alabama as far as they did with a 12 team playoff after losing to auburn. I still don’t think we would have won it all in 2019 (we were a crippled mess by the end of the year).
 

TideEngineer08

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That kind of proves his point though. That’s 6 times in 126 games. And it’s hard to say for a few of those teams that they were so much lesser than us. A&M 2012 and Auburn 2013 finished their seasons 5th and 2nd in the country respectively. IMO it actually gives Alabama more breathing room if they drop a game like that. I have a hard time believing that in 2019 they would have dropped Alabama as far as they did with a 12 team playoff after losing to auburn. I still don’t think we would have won it all in 2019 (we were a crippled mess by the end of the year).
Without Tua at that point I have a hard time seeing how we could have beaten LSU in a rematch, and LSU was ultimately going to be the best team that year and the team anyone would have to go through to win the title. Barring an injury to Burrow, LSU was winning that title in whatever playoff format you want to create. We may have been able to win a game or two though.
 

STONECOLDSABAN

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I think a reporter out there with a big pair of brass ones needs to corner Gus Malzhan and ask him if he actually thinks playing EXTRA GAMES potentially results in more injury?

And then corner him with his moronic suggestion MORE PLAYS DOES NOT increase injury risk.

If you play more games, you have more plays unless maybe you're the 1990 New York Giants.
Not to get off topic but can you explain to me the 1990 New York Giants reference?
 

Crimson1967

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It will be interesting if a situation arises where a P5 team wins their division but has an overall record of 7-5, either due to being in a crappy division or someone is on probation. Then they pull an upset in the CCG.

Obviously, they wouldn’t get an autobid as one of the top six conference champs, but would they get an at large? Probably impossible to answer such a hypothetical, just throwing it out there.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Not to get off topic but can you explain to me the 1990 New York Giants reference?
In 1990, the New York Giants had one helluva defense. Their offense was doing, well, okay - until starting QB Phil Simms went down for the year with an injury late in the season. The Giants were 15th in a then 28-team league with 335 points scored and tied for 16th in yards per play with 5.0.

But the Giants also went 13-3 in the regular season. Their entire strategy was based on the notion that from the very first play of the game, they were draining clock. They would run the ball on first down almost every single time - they may as well have told everyone they were going to do it - and start the clock running. They would then run EVERY PLAY OF THE GAME where they would run the play clock all the way down to one before taking the snap. The Giants were 27th in the league in passing attempts (398, an average of 25 per game when the average team threw 30). But they were also second in the league in rushing attempts (541, behind the Bears), and it's not like Ottis Anderson was Walter Payton or Jim Brown. (He was serviceable and decent, but he wasn't a superstar).

The Giants that year played the high octane attack of the Buffalo Bills - and held the ball for 40 minutes and 27 seconds, a record. They were helped by having a stellar defense coached by some young dude named Belichick.

The point being that about the only way some of those teams have a prayer to beat the big dawgs is to invoke a game plan like that.
 

selmaborntidefan

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Since this issue continues to unfold, I want to share some quotations that I keep unearthing that show how long this whole.....for lack of a better word 'debate' has continued regarding this subject. I already covered the proposal in 1961 for a four-team playoff by the Ohio State President. These will not necessarily be in order, and I didn't want to start another "Selma Posts Useless Information" threads, so I'll post the useless information right here.

"The first small college football playoff in NCAA history will become a reality in 1964, it was announced today by Dr. Don Adde, athletic director at Chico State College...Jake Lawlor, University of Nevada Athletic Director, said, 'we are very happy about it.'...Lawlor said the NCAA small colleges started basketball playoffs about eight years ago along with baseball playoffs, but this will be the first time two teams will be selected for a championship football game...A selection committee will pick the two teams from among 41 college division schools in (note: lists the Western 1/3 of the USA)...the game is awaiting official sanction at January's NCAA convention..." (Reno Evening Gazzette, December 18, 1963, page 33).

"A special committee studying the proposed NCAA small college football playoff for next December today recommended the Tangerine Bowl in Orlando, Fla., as the choice of site for the first two years." (Bonham (TX) Daily Favorite, January 13, 1964, page 6)

Note: the original proposal in the first article was going to use a stadium in Sacramento to stage the game. Some nuts apparently come up with the idea of, "Hey, let's take our ALL-WEST COAST football teams on a trip to Orlando!"


This led to the discussion of a STATE JUNIOR COLLEGE playoff in California to be unveiled in 1966. A committee studied it and rejected it for the following for reasons on April 14, 1965:
1) Bowl games (even in JC) are traditional and promotional and should remain
2) it would extend the season too long
3) it would require a new organization to manage it
4) it would place too much emphasis on football

Joe Kroll, chairman of the committee, dissented on all points as follows:
1) the bowl games would be included in any playoff
2) this would provide an ACTUAL champion, not a MYTHICAL one
3) the bowl games extend the season 3 weeks - which would only happen for the two teams in the title game now
4) the hosting school could manage the playoffs just as happens (at that time) in swimming and baseball

But there's on in every crowd for crying out loud - and this one was Calvin Flint, whose rebuttal sounds as ridiculous as.....
1) the number of junior colleges is growing, which will increase the teams necessary to weed out
2) the public is not as interested in sports as it used to be (yes - he actually said this)
3) the STUDENTS are not as interested in sports as they used to be (note: I hear sexual intercourse was invented around this time by listening to old Elvis records, but I'm sworn to secrecy on that)
4) the pressure to win will increase recruiting violations and cheating
5) Flint also called for the elimination of the bowl games, too, which would "remove this evil from us" (Flint apparently believed that Paul Bryant was the Antichrist)

But let's get into the meat of the issue as it was laid out in 1966 by - of all people - Michigan State Coach Duffy Daugherty.
 

selmaborntidefan

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It will be interesting if a situation arises where a P5 team wins their division but has an overall record of 7-5, either due to being in a crappy division or someone is on probation. Then they pull an upset in the CCG.

Obviously, they wouldn’t get an autobid as one of the top six conference champs, but would they get an at large? Probably impossible to answer such a hypothetical, just throwing it out there.
I seriously doubt it.

It would depend. In theory, a 7-5 team in the SEC that had five three-point losses, three on the road COULD be one of the 12 best teams in the country. They'd never be one of the four best, but you could make an argument for them as one of the 12 best, especially if multiple opponents made the tournament ahead of them.
 

CrimsonNagus

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But here's something that in my view ought to happen but won't: maybe the NFL should be ponying up some money for their FREE MINOR LEAGUE SYSTEM that they've gotten away with using all these years.
I think the NFL should actually create its own minor league system and drop the play 3 years in college rule. Let the players that are NFL ready, or think they are NFL ready go straight to the minors.

Then leave college for the rest of us. Yes, there would be less talent at the college level but, I'd still be just as passionate about Bama as I am now.


This will never happen though because, like everything, money. This would decrease the value of everything at the college level, from coaching salaries to TV contracts.

We all know that this playoff expansion would never have happened if there was not any money to be made, regardless of how much the G5 whined. Someone finally should everyone a spreadsheet detailing how much money they could make by adding "this" many games to the playoffs. That probably took 10-15 minutes. The rest of their meetings were spent high fiving each other, yelling cha-ching, and creating their "fake" reasons for expansion that were released to the public. You know the ones; fairness, inclusion, and all that bull.
 

TideEngineer08

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I think the NFL should actually create its own minor league system and drop the play 3 years in college rule. Let the players that are NFL ready, or think they are NFL ready go straight to the minors.

Then leave college for the rest of us. Yes, there would be less talent at the college level but, I'd still be just as passionate about Bama as I am now.


This will never happen though because, like everything, money. This would decrease the value of everything at the college level, from coaching salaries to TV contracts.

We all know that this playoff expansion would never have happened if there was not any money to be made, regardless of how much the G5 whined. Someone finally should everyone a spreadsheet detailing how much money they could make by adding "this" many games to the playoffs. That probably took 10-15 minutes. The rest of their meetings were spent high fiving each other, yelling cha-ching, and creating their "fake" reasons for expansion that were released to the public. You know the ones; fairness, inclusion, and all that bull.
You can think of it like this. If there were a true minor league system, depending on how large it was (how many players it would take to fill the teams of said league), Division 1-A (FBS) college football would look like the current Ivy League. Well that's dramatic. But probably a lot like current day FCS. I tried watching the FCS title game between South Dakota State and Sam Houston State a few weeks ago. It simply wasn't that entertaining. I could grow used to it I guess, if it was the best available. I don't think a majority of fans would though.
 

selmaborntidefan

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The amazing thing is that Duffy Daugherty did not succeed in overthrowing the CFB structure - particularly when you remember he had the backing of Walter Byers, the most powerful man in the history of the NCAA, the guy who blocked televised games beyond a limited token amount for over 30 years before his oversight got whipped by Georgia and Oklahoma in front of the Supreme Court (the last meaningful victory for Georgia, quite frankly).

In 1966, Daugherty made a proposal that would have abolished the bowl games BEFORE they took ahold. Daugherty proposed an eight-team playoff consisting of the six conference champions and two independents. The six conferences at the time were - the SEC, the SWC, the Big 10, the AAWU (now the Pac 12), the Big 8, and the ACC. The first round would be played at the HOME FIELD of the higher seed.

Who makes the 1966 playoff?
Michigan State (9-0-1)
USC (7-4)
SMU (8-3)
Clemson (6-4)
Notre Dame (9-0-1)
Alabama (11-0)
Nebraska (9-2)
Wyoming (10-1)

So now let's see..
Notre Dame thumped USC, 51-0
Notre Dame and Michigan State tied at 10
Alabama beat Clemson, 26-0
Georgia Tech would make such a tournament despite losing to Georgia, who also had a better record

Of course, if this had happened, we wouldn't have anybody now saying, "But four-loss teams shouldn't be in the playoffs," either. And it would have been modified at least a bit so that maybe a conference could send a 9-1 team whose sole loss was to a 6-4 team that went undefeated in conference.

Daugherty's points:
1) would provide an undisputed national champion (remember - we're getting split titles every few years)
2) would include the bowl games
3) would be a financial windfall for schools because the TV revenue would be enormous
4) could be structured to allow participation of new conferences
5) all 120 NCAA schools (this is pre-1978 division) would share in the financial windfall
6) bowl games extend the season six weeks for 24 teams but the playoff would reduce this to four weeks for two teams and less than that for the other six
7) Daugherty credited Bud Wilkinson for first suggesting the idea a few years earlier (more as I find more)

Naturally, the dictators administrators got involved and you can figure how this was gonna end:

Colgate President Everett D. Eppy Barnes - "It would extend the season a full month"

(It never ceases to amaze me how even though that's the FIRST argument Daugherty addressed, the Kool-Aid drinkers come right back with it as though it was not addressed. This is how cults work btw).

But that wasn't he only objection. Former Florida and Georgia Tech assistant coach Arthur Marvin "Tonto" Coleman - who rose to become commissioner of the SEC in 1966 - objected to the playoff as well. Tonto would have made a fun poster on Tidefans if he could have just....well, lived to be 114 years old and coherent. Coleman objected thusly: "Who's going to decide which independent team is selected? There might be four teams in the Southeastern Conference stronger than any representative from any other part of the country. We'd have nothing to gain."

Bear in mind he said this mere days after Alabama had been robbed of the 1966 national championship and was clamoring for a game with Notre Dame.

In May of 1967, there was consideration of forming a committee to study a playoff that would include the bowl games.

In September of 1967, though, Daugherty developed his plan some more, stating that what would have happened the week after the 1966 Iron Bowl would have been the following:
UCLA vs Nebraska
Alabama vs SMU
Wyoming vs Notre Dame
Michigan State vs Georgia

(Hilarious to me that he completely ignored the Athletically Challenged Conference, but I digress).

He also me the arguments head-on:

1) "You're going to ruin bowl games" - 100,000 fans tuned in to watch the Rose Bowl, and it was between a 9-2 Purdue and a 7-4 USC with nothing on the line (a bad argument since other games determining a champion changes interest in particular games)

2) "It will hurt academics" - he points out the games will be played while teams are already in condition and on the go without a layoff, and only 2 teams will play at the end.

3) "this is a gimmick for a better TV contract" - Daugherty denies it's a gimmick but DOES say it's going to increase the TV revenue inevitably.

Within a month, though, Daugherty was conceding defeat, with the language generally associated with whomever loses a battle: "It makes so much sense, I doubt it will be accepted." (For all the bashing I do of the Big Ten - pretty much all of it justified - I have to tip my hat to Daugherty and Dr. Novice Fawcett of Ohio State for their efforts to avoid what eventually happened).

In January 1968, the NCAA announced the formation of a special committee to develop a "Super Bowl of College Football" playoff system that would encompass all 600-plus schools then aligned in some way with the NCAA.

On May 4, 1968, the NCAA special committee announced a playoff was dead. This time it was the coaches who killed the idea. In fact, it was the SEC and Tonto who (largely) killed the plan, and it makes sense so long as one is talking money and not trophies (again - is any of this sounding familiar?). Tonto's stated excuse was the notion the SEC might have the four best teams in the country (a truly laughable idea in 1966, when most of the SEC was still lily white and never played against teams with African-Americans - ever). But if you look at some simple geography, it's completely understandable why the SEC bull snotted their way through this one.

The SEC - unlike most of the other conferences - supplied the bulk of bowl teams. The Big Ten and AAWU refused to participate in anything but the Rose Bowl. So the SEC was providing the muscle and TV viewers in games played in Texas (Bluebonnet and Cotton Bowls), Louisiana (Sugar), Florida (Orange and Gator), and Tennessee (Liberty).

Why would the SEC give up all of that when they didn't have to do so? Because the SEC was far ahead of other leagues in a number of areas, they had already figured out revenue sharing to the point it always made sense for Tulane and Vandy and Mississippi State to vote as one bloc unit and protect the monies. The plan as it was developing would have rotated the championship game amongst seven different bowls over a seven-year period of time.

Paul Bryant - no surprise here - was the dominant voice. He was all for an undisputed national champion, but he also did not want to "hurt the bowl games." Nobody ever benefited more from his negotiating savvy or relationships with the bowl powers that be, and Bryant knew what he had to do to placate everyone. It was left to Purdue Head Coach Jack Mollenkopf to explain the six objections to the "Super Bowl," and he actually managed to make Kirby Hocutt sound like Hocutt has a lick of sense. Here are his objections, some of which are ludicrous:

1) it's actually better to have a bowl game with a break, a playoff would be too hard on the players
2) teams in the north would have difficulty practicing for 2-3 weeks (not practicing in December would explain their wretched Rose Bowl performance of the 70s and 80s I guess)
3) Mollenkopf does not feel players want another game (he's a Purdue, he's not gonna have to worry about it)
4) it would interfere with academics
5) there's no "equitable way" to determine the teams
6) the school faculties would not permit such a game

(I'm still trying to figure out how if faculties are THIS POWERFUL, how in the world did we ever have football wagging the dog of the school at Penn State, FSU, and SMU, and how did Georgia manage to push Jan Kemp around?)

Indiana Coach John Pont - who had just been to the Rose Bowl - mouths the all-too-familiar, "Well, I'm for a playoff so long as it includes the bowls."

Then there's every Bama fan's favorite yutz, Ara Parseghian, who stated his opposition was because Notre Dame wasn't allowed to play post-season games by admin. This same admin, of course, made a dramatic 180 the moment the AP said they'd include bowl games in their final poll, which suggests this objection was meritless in the first place.

The word "unworkable" was being tossed as a typical objection, particularly from the head honcho of the Sugar Bowl. From another high-ranking employee of the Sugar Bowl came this thought - the kind that reminds me that while I'm proud to be from the South, I honestly wish we could keep some of our weirder spokespeople buried in a basement with a pet python: if college football "gives up January 1, the NFL will move in and take it over and we'll never get it back." Tonto opened his yapper again with the observation that Super Bowl I was "the most advertised sporting event in history" but four bowls with SEC teams in the game drew bigger crowds and a fifth would if only the stadium was bigger.

I think it's important to admit that:
a) it was actually the Big 10 who first favored and proposed a playoff
b) it was actually the SEC who opposed it

What's amazing is that it won't take long and the two teams will...shall we say.....switch sides and make the same dumb arguments in reverse.
 
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