Running 2015 College Football Rankings thread

I agree with Dick here. Any of his eight COULD wiu. I think Alabama would, but that's just one opinion.

 

The national championship is basically getting determined by whether teams had to play their difficult games at home or on the road. That's insanity. You think Notre Dame loses to Clemson and Stanford at home? You think that Stanford loses to Northwestern at home?

 

Trying to decide which of the five conferences is "weakest" is dumb when fans do it. If the committee does it, it's needless stupidity. As for discussion, well that doesn't pay the rent a/k/a the coach's ridiculous salary. This isn't some abstract thing. The playoff is a business arrangement between five partners. It's not good business to always have one-pissed off partner.

 

I would say no to Notre Dame, Ohio State and Stanford. I'm also still unsure about Iowa but I'll gladly be proven wrong on Saturday. But obviously that is an opinion. I'll be the first to admit I thought Ohio State should have been left out last year.

So I would say there are five teams with legitimate claims. But that doesn't mean I think there should be an eight-team playoff.

 

The idea of eight teams seems to fit right now. You give automatics to the Power 5 champions and three berths to the next best teams. That gives you Notre Dame, a one-loss Big 10/SEC school who's only loss came in conference play like this year's Ohio State and 2012's Alabama. It puts a greater emphasis on winning the conference, so it won't punish you for scheduling harder games OOC. Seed teams accordingly. In the off chance USC beats Stanford, they would get an 8 seed and have to play Clemson/Bama to open the playoffs. So the eight teams this year would be (in a rough order) Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, Iowa, Michigan State (regardless of the outcome of the Big 10 game), Stanford, Ohio State (unless you cap the number of teams a conference can send at two) and Notre Dame/UNC. The debate is still there about whether Ohio State can get it, should Michigan State still get a bid if it loses to Iowa and opens the door to two loss teams who might otherwise be long gone. And again, it won't punish teams for putting a quality opponent OOC and possibly will punish those who have two FCS schools and an also ran to start the season.

 

Utah was undefeated in 2004 and 2008, Boise State was undefeated in 2006 and 2008 and 2009, TCU was undefeated in 2009 and 2010, Cincinnati was undefeated in 2009, and Northern Illinois was undefeated in 2013.

But yeah, it never happens.

 

Sorry, I meant from Power 5 conferences. Good point about Cincinnati. Forgot about that one.

But in each of those cases, that undefeated team would have a spot in a four-team playoff.

 

I have a huge issue with conference champions not getting in. I understand that no one is going to feel sorry for, say, USC. But TCU got screwed last year. You win a power five conference, you should get a seat at the table. Think about how exciting this weekend would be. It already is, but it would be even better.

 

Wasn't Hawaii undefeated one year, also?

 

In this scenario, I also wouldn't mind making the Big 12 hold a conference championship game.

 

Yeah, 2007 I believe.

 

I can definitely agree with this.