Football Play Off = Big 10 Demise?

[NebrClone]

Ran across this really interesting article.

Sharp: College football's playoff system will hurt Big Ten ? USATODAY.com

Basically says Big 10 and Notre Dame lose on this deal and Big 12 and SEC win. Funny they don't even mention the Pac 10 or anybody else?

The SOS part of the selection process will kill ND, they will have to drop all the service acadamies and search hard for tough teams to play. Big 10, Pac 10, ACC and Big East will all suffer on SOS. The rest of the conferences will be non existant because of SOS. The SEC has a lot of tough teams for SOS even though they do not play all the other teams and the BIG 12 by playing all the teams every year will have a good SOS.

[Clark]

Selection committee will have people from all regions/conferences and programs like Mich, Ohio St, Neb and Penn St will get the benefit of the doubt often. They are money makers. The Big 10 will be just fine. It's top team will be in the playoffs often.

Exactly. Somehow I find it really hard to believe that USC, Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan ND, etc will be left out in the cold if/when they have the record to warrant being selected.

[Clark]

The SOS part of the selection process will kill ND, they will have to drop all the service acadamies and search hard for tough teams to play. Big 10, Pac 10, ACC and Big East will all suffer on SOS. The rest of the conferences will be non existant because of SOS. The SEC has a lot of tough teams for SOS even though they do not play all the other teams and the BIG 12 by playing all the teams every year will have a good SOS.

You really should have checked out ND's SOS ranking before posting this.

[Senolcyc]

43% of the time is often?

The article says 6 of 14 years in final four of polls. Before or after bowl games? I don't know. But it doesn't matter. Selection committee is not the same. Ohio St will get chosen over a better team with a lesser name. So will Mich. So will Penn St. So will Nebr. That is how CFB works. Always has, always will.

[RayShimley]

Selection committee will favor the Big Ten more than the BCS did, but not radically.

The BCS was 33% computers and the Big Ten teams were almost universally ranked higher by voter polls than computer formulas.

It's not a radical change, but selection committee is a moderate win for the Big Ten and a moderate lose for the Big 12. Just looking at how polls and computer polls almost always work out. If everyone gets on the same page with 8 or 9 conference games it'll be less of a change, but the human voter bias will always favor Big Ten somehow.

Right, but even a moderate improvement on the straight computer ranking wasn't enough to bump a B1G team into the Top 4 in 8/14 years of the BCS. That's the point. If your conference can't even get a team into the play-offs over 50% of the time, it's going to lose a lot of credibility.

The line between the elite and lesser BCS conferences was blurred by all the BCS bowls and the AQs. That safety net is gone now. Your champion is in, or it's out.

Additionally, I think having the Rose Bowl involved in the play-off will actually backfire for the B1G. If no B1G team cracks the top 4 not only are they out of the championship, they are also not going to get to fall back on the Rose Bowl and their "tradition" with that bowl will slowly erode.

[RayShimley]

Exactly. Somehow I find it really hard to believe that USC, Oregon, Ohio State, Michigan ND, etc will be left out in the cold if/when they have the record to warrant being selected.

They won't all be out in the cold every year. But there are only 4 spots. SEC getting two in again will almost assure that the B1G or the Pac-12 will be left out. Conferences with a championship game not named the SEC (fair or not) will seriously screw themselves when the higher ranked team goes down in the CCG.

[rebecacy]

Time will tell

[Senolcyc]

Most years it will be one team each from SEC, Big 12, Big 10 and Pac 12. The faulty presumption is that the SEC will have a two-team combo every year like LSU & Bama last year. It won't.

[CyBer]

Would it not be funny if the Big 10 got ruined and we started inviting big10 schools?

[Clonefan94]

I don't really agree. The media still loves to jack up the B1G in every way possible. They always get big time Token rankings at the beginning of the season. If they can just keep one of their big 4 from losing 2 games, they'll end up with the token #4 spot, imo. As long as there arn't 2 undeeateds from other conferences along with another 1 loss SEC team.

I don't see the big hubub about it really, yeah, they always got their token BCS bowls for 2 teams, but in reality, they just doubled their opportunity of making it into the NC game. As far as getting a championship, if I were in the B1G, I'd be much happier with this 4 team scenario than I was when they only picked 2 teams to play for it. It's a tougher road for them, than the Big XII or SEC, but I really think they have a better shot of getting in now than they did before, at least for the foreseeable future.

[Clark]

Looking through the end of season (pre bowl game) rankings I come up with the following:

2011: LSU, Bama, Ok St, Stanford/Oregon

2010: this year was a cluster!#$%. The first three were easy: Auburn, Oregon, TCU. Then you have 3 11-1 teams (Stanford, Wisconsin, Ohio St)

2009: Another tough year to pick final 4: Bama, Texas, Boise St, TCU, and Cincinatti all undefeated. Then you have a one loss Florida team as well.

2008: Undefeated Utah and Boise St. along with 7 1 loss teams (OU, Florida, Texas, Bama, USC, Texas Tech, PSU)

2007: weird year. Undefeat Hawaii (weak schedule though) and 1 loss Ohio State. Then you had a host of two loss teams (LSU, Va Tech, OU, Georgia, USC, Mizzou)

2006: Top 3 fairly straight forward: OSU, Florida, Michigan. Then it's between 10-2 LSU vs 10-2 USC

2005: Easy choice for top 2 here with undefeated Texas and USC. Tehn it's between 10-1 PSU, 9-2 OSU, 10-1 Oregon, 9-2 Notre Dame, 10-2 Georgia.

2004: USC, OU, and Auburn are all undefeated and clear cut choices. Then it comes down to a 10-1 Texas, 10-1 California, and undefeated Utah and boise st teams.

2003: LSU, OU, and USC all have one loss and are locks for the playoff. Then it comes down to two loss Michigan, Ohio St, Texas, FSU, Maimi, and Tennessee teams.

2002: Ohio St and Miami are the two locks with Georgia being a near lock. Then it comes down to an 11-1 Iowa vs a 10-2 USC

2001: Miami and Nebraska are near locks. Then it's 1 loss Oregon along with 2 loss Colorado, Florida, UT, Texas for the final two spots.

2000: Undefeated OU followed by 5 1 loss teams (FSU, Miami, Wash, Va Tech, Ore. St)

1999: FSU, Va Tech, and Nebraska are easy choices. Tough choice for the last spot between 9-2 Bama, 10-1 KSU, 9-2 Wisconsin, 9-2 Tennessee

1998: Undefeated Tennessee is only easy choice. They are followed by 1 loss KSU, FSU, OSU, Wisconsin teams and 2 loss A&M and Florida

[Clark]

There were no years where the top 4 were clearly seperated and very few where there was a definative top 3. People going back and just looking at the top 4 of the BCS standings are being silly.

For instance last year Stanford was the #4 team in the BCS standings but they were smoked by Oregon and Oregon was the conference champion. No way Stanford gets in ahead of them.

[ISUCyclones2015]

I can't wait until its 2 Big 12 vs 2 SEC teams every year

My actual question would be if the BCS rankings will still exist.

[Clark]

I can't wait until its 2 Big 12 vs 2 SEC teams every year

My actual question would be if the BCS rankings will still exist.

Nope. There will be no BCS therefore no BCS rankings. There will still be rankings like the AP and coaches presumably and I'm sure guys like Sagarin will still be doing their rankings as well.

[Senolcyc]

My actual question would be if the BCS rankings will still exist.

No they will not exist. But a selection committee might use some kind of "RPI" rankings.