College Football

[Feathers and Fins]

Al, why shouldn't 10 down be in it?

College sports is Business in all respects accept paying the players which may soon be over..... Most athletes leave college much sooner than Football because of draft eligibility age requirements. Its a Sport and business no other way to say it and not have your nose grow.

Picking who is simple Top 16 teams based off strength of schedule ( ranked opponents played ) and Win/loss record..... I throw in strength because there are teams that in no way should be in the runnings each years because they play weak opponents or have automatics if they win x-amounts of games.

[Al Agnew]

Only really fair way to do it would be to realign all the conferences so that you only have four or eight conferences, and only the conference champions go. Let the regular conference season and conference championship BE the early round of the play-offs.

Failing that, and it ain't gonna happen, I just think that a team like Mizzou who is now ranked about 17th but would be ranked higher than 16th if they bear Arkie, has simply not shown themselves to be worthy of being in the play-off. But if they beat Bama or whoever in the conference championship game, then they should automatically qualify. You're always going to have controversy. The 5th through 10th ranked teams are going to think they should have gotten in this year, the 9th through 15th ranked teams are going to think they've been screwed if there was an 8 team play-off, the 17th through 25th ranked teams are going to feel the same in a 16 team play-off...

[Quillback]

My dream would be to see four 16 team conference, each conference having two 8 team divisions. Division winners meet for the conference championship, 4 conference champs playoff for the title. I know, it's just a dream.

[Flysmallie]

I don't see the benefit in letting conference champions in. No reason to let in a weak conference champion when there are better teams out there. Base it off of strength of schedule and start playing real football. I don't care how many teams are in it but it has to be based off of strength of schedule to make it legit. If that's hard on the small conferences then tell them to step up their game.

[Wayne SW/MO]

Trying to compare conferences is no better than just picking a national champion abritarily. Teams evolve during the season and trying to second guess is futile. A conference may appear weak, but there isn't enough cross conference games to ever be sure about all of them. To leave no doubt, play it out.

[Feathers and Fins]

here is how I believe College Football Championship Game should be decided.

#1. We would have to take the current 128 teams and break them in to 8 conferences.

#2. Each conference would have 16 team in it. ( Break the down by region, geography however )

#3. Have two conferences play each other ( no games out of those two conferences ) For you NFL fans that’s 32 Teams same amount as in the NFL.

#4. Now Play those two conferences against each other just as they do in the NFL ( the prototype or if you will well established model for football )

#5 Using the NFL model again you play the regular season and a post season just like the NFL and you end up with a champion for those two conferences.

#6 Take those 8 champions and play them in a final play-off till there is only two teams remaining.

#7 The final two teams play for the National championship and we have a true National champion.

That is a total of 23 games still below the average for most other college sports regular season and far below the average when you take in tournament play. The season would start the first weekend of September ( Traditional start date ) and be completed by the second weekend of February.

Each year you rotate conferences so they don’t play the same conference each year. Making it more competitive and removing some of the weaker schedule arguments.

Just for the record the NFL season including Pre-season ( 4 games ), Regular-season ( 16 games ) and Post-season ( up to 4 games ) then SUPERBOWL for a total of for the Super bowl champion of 25 games.

[ness]

That would sure be nice, but we'll never see it ... or anything close. With the contractual obligations of conferences and bowl games, and power/money concentrated in a minority of the conferences and teams, it will not happen.

But, wouldn't it be sweet to have a single elimination tournament, with conference champions and a few wildcards to round things out, playing to a national championship? National interest would be HUGE, and they'd make more money overall. Problem is, big-money conferences and bowls don't want to share. Which is why it sucks.

[stlfisher]

8 teams seem like it would work with 5 conference champions and 3 at large bids. It really depends on what you want though....the best teams in the playoffs or the most deserving...IMO often those are two different things. At least with 8 teams and the 3 at large bids you could accomplish a little of both. I don't want anymore than 8 and 23 games in college is not remotely doable.

[ruthead]

8 teams seem like it would work with 5 conference champions and 3 at large bids. It really depends on what you want though....the best teams in the playoffs or the most deserving...IMO often those are two different things. At least with 8 teams and the 3 at large bids you could accomplish a little of both. I don't want anymore than 8 and 23 games in college is not remotely doable.

Agreed. The best teams at the end of the year may not be the best deserving.

[ness]

So we're back to picking deserving?

Let 'em play.