Ragin' Dave's Solution to the CFP Format

[Turbine]

we thought that from the butthurt number going from 5 to 13, but i don't ever recall their being more crying than from n.d. this year.

True.

Regardless of how many are allowed in, the complaints will never cease.

The number of those listening will surely shrink.

[CajunNation]

The P4 will NEVER do the right thing. The CFP will ALWAYS be an invitational for the "in" crowd.

The NCAA needs to step in here. Don’t forget, March Madness is officially the NCAA Division 1 Basketball Tournament.

Before March Madness, the NIT was the big tournament. Right now, the CFP is the NIT. The NCAA should roll out an NCAA FBS Football Tournament. Every conference champion is invited plus some at-large births, just like March Madness. P4 conferences will still do their CFP/NIT thing.

Over time. the NCAA FBS Tourney could outgrow the CFP/NIT, bit I really don’t give a damn. The NCAA needs to put a marker down right now.

[Grantvb]

Dave. Great perspective. My one problem is the same as has always been: the placement is done by vote. Not by record. The sports writers have the approval and the bias.

[zephyr]

Dave. Great perspective. My one problem is the same as has always been: the placement is done by vote. Not by record. The sports writers have the approval and the bias.

Bring back the old BCS style points system or some variation of it. Some sort of rankings system that is numbers based rather than subjective to the writers.

[RedBug58]

I was thinking about this, I think this would be a perfect solution for the NCAA and the CFP.

A 24-team format, that eliminates Conference Championship games, because for the most part they have become useless and starts the season 1 week earlier (remember you are already playing games in Week 0, just have everyone play that week, rather than just 4 or 5 games.)

The Power 4 conference Champions would get automatic bids plus the highest ranked Group of 5 champion. Every other position would be an At Large bid, just like you do in every other collegiate sport.

You would seed the top 16 teams, the top 8 would get first round byes. Seeds 9-16 would get the first-round home games. Based on the seedings of the week before conference championship games the following teams would get a first-round bye.

1. Ohio State
2. Indiana
3. UGA
4. Texas Tech
5. Oregon
6. Ole Miss
7. Texas A&M
8. Oklahoma

9-16 would get home games in round 1, but they would not be based on matching up with the worst ranked team left in the playoffs, instead you work try to base in on regional matchups that make sense, for instance lets say LSU would make the CFP as a 9-16 seed and Tulane or UL would make it as the top Group of 5 champion but would not be one of the top 16 National Seeds, in that case you would match LSU up with Tulane/UL in Tiger Stadium, another example would be if USC made the tournament and UCLA was unseeded you would try to match them up together at USC.

These matchups this year could be something like this:

9. Alabama vs Tulane
10. Notre Dame vs Michigan
11. BYU vs Georgia Tech
12. Miami vs JMU
13. Texas vs Houston
14. Vandy vs UVA
15. Utah vs Iowa
16. USC vs Arizona

Or something like this. Try to make these matchups as regional as possible or historic rivals. Could you imagine a first-round game of ND vs Michigan in the big house, or Houston traveling to Texas in week 1. USC/Arizona would be a good one. Obviously once week 1 is over then the matchups would be the regular matchups:

1 vs 8/9 or the lower seed
2 vs 7/10 or the lower seed
3 vs 6/11 or the lower seed
4 vs 5/12 or the lower seed

By starting the season one week earlier and eliminating the Conference Championship games, your season would still end on the same date and you would have most everyone that you would assume has a chance to win the National Championship and in turn give you some cool matchups in week 1 playoff which would give it a little bit of a March Madness feel.

Just my .02, it will never happen because it makes too much sense.

My other piece to this is you would pare down the bowl games to just maybe 16 matchups, in a NIT like format for those teams that just miss out. Eliminate all 6-6 teams and have the NIT format start on Thursday and Friday nights, not to coincide with the NCAA playoff games. This means that 56 teams would play in some sort of postseason game. Everyone else would be done after their last game. If a team chooses to not take part in the NIT format, that is fine, just go to the next available team on your list. You should have tons to choose from.

Alternate idea: based on mascot. Only 1 of each mascot. 1 Tiger, 1 bulldog, etc. since we are the Ragin Cajuns———we always in!!!

[MarlinMan3]

Alternate idea: based on mascot. Only 1 of each mascot. 1 Tiger, 1 bulldog, etc. since we are the Ragin Cajuns———we always in!!!

That argument is UN-Breakable

[Louisiana84]

NCAA is powerless to do anything about this, even if they were inclined to... which they aren't.

[CajunSaint08]

It’s still not a playoff if it doesn’t include all FBS conference champions. Make it 24 teams. 9 conference champs auto qualify. Get rid of committee. Use BCS rankings. After the conference champs take the highest ranked 15 at large based on bcs type metrics. Most certainly those next 15 will be majority P4. The little guys are included. The big guys who think they were left out this year(vandy, ut, nd, etc…) grab the at larges. This caters to everyone. Which is why it will never happen. It will just turn into the big boy invitational.

I've been preaching this same scenario for years. It makes way too much sense, but it would take money out of the P4's pockets and because of this, it will never happen.

[MarlinMan3]

Maybe pay less money to the participants....i cant help but wonder ifsome of the complaints from being left out arent really about not having more games but about getting less money.
Divide more of the money amongst ALL the member schools

[RaginCajun309]

I don’t really care how many teams are included or how they are chosen (polls vs BCS) as long as every conference champion is included. Without all conferences included I’m a hard no.