UGA prez: Bowls are "screwy", let's have a playoff

[novelist_wannabe]

http://www.ajc.com/sports/content/sports/stories/2008/01/08/cfbplayoffs_0108.html

 

[ondeadline]

Until you can take the commissioners of the Big Ten and the Pac 10 and the Rose Bowl honchos to the negotiating table at gunpoint, it's not going to happen.

 

[alleyallen]

Maybe not, but a few more high-profile university presidents could certainly help tilt the scales a bit more.

 

[Pancamo]

The UF president said the same thing last year and backed down after being ripped by other presidents.

 

[poindexter]

Start a national championship tournament and let the Big 10 and Pac 10 sit it out. The resulting "national champion" wouldn't be any more bogus than the current system.

 

[black dude with pompano]

I think Adams is drastically overestimating his support among fellow presidents.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

The UF president wasn't the chairman of the NCAA executive committee. Just sayin'.

Someone's going to just have to tell the Big Ten and the Pac 10 to pound sand. I'm not an Adams fan, but he might be the guy to do so. He hasn't let criticism stand in the way of his past decisions.

 

[Football_Bat]

Start a national championship tournament and let the Big 10 and Pac 10 sit it out. The resulting "national champion" wouldn't be any more bogus than the current system.

That's basically how it was under the old "bowl alliance."

Last time I checked, Nebraska was counting the 2 national titles it won under this arrangement.

 

[alleyallen]

Start a national championship tournament and let the Big 10 and Pac 10 sit it out. The resulting "national champion" wouldn't be any more bogus than the current system.

That's basically how it was under the old "bowl alliance."

Last time I checked, Nebraska was counting the 2 national titles it won under this arrangement.

But to Poin's, uhm, point....those titles are about as valid as some of the BCS ones.

 

[HoopsMcCann]

adams is just grandstanding

the ****in' ******* saw a chance to get his name out there and that's all he cares about. **** michael adams.

 

[FishHack76]

I agree with Adams that, if there's a playoff, it should go back to an 11-game regular season. Twelve games is just so the home team can beat up on Bumble**** Tech 77-0 and everyone can drink bourbon and be merry.
I disagree with Adams that the playoffs should start with the BCS bowl games. That's way too late of a start. There's about three weeks before the first meaningless bowl games start (Yay! It's the Poinsettia Bowl!). Why not squeeze in the quarterfinals/semifinals then?
In general, I disagree that a playoff would A. ruin the regular season and B. disrupt whatever academics Division I purports to honor. I covered DIII football for about five years. The push to get into the playoffs was just as exciting and would be just as exciting. Basically, you had to win your conference title to guarantee a spot or finish with one loss to a highly ranked team. Anything less and you're sitting at home.
The DIII playoffs covers five straight weeks. Those players aren't on scholarship either, and they seem to do just fine as far as I can tell. I imagine they also go to class more often along with preparing for these games.

 

[Ace]

Until you can take the commissioners of the Big Ten and the Pac 10 and the Rose Bowl honchos to the negotiating table at gunpoint, it's not going to happen.

Can we put the duct tape on real tight?

 

[micropolitan guy]

If there's an 8-team playoff this year (6 BCS conference champs, 2 at-large), Georgia doesn't even make the field since it finished third in the SEC. Hello, Citrus Bowl, or whatever they call it now.

If there's a 16-team playoff (11 I-A conference champs, 5 at-large), Georgia's just barely makes the field and most likely has to play a road game in the first round.

For a two-loss team that didn't even win its SEC division, I'd say Georgia did quite well under the BCS format this year.

 

[Ace]

If there's an 8-team playoff this year (6 BCS conference champs, 2 at-large), Georgia doesn't even make the field since it finished third in the SEC. Hello, Citrus Bowl, or whatever they call it now.

If there's a 16-team playoff (11 I-A conference champs, 5 at-large), Georgia's just barely makes the field and most likely has to play a road game in the first round.

For a two-loss team that didn't even win its SEC division, I'd say Georgia did quite well under the BCS format this year.

Yeah, well second place is just the first looser.

 

[HoopsMcCann]

If there's an 8-team playoff this year (6 BCS conference champs, 2 at-large), Georgia doesn't even make the field since it finished third in the SEC. Hello, Citrus Bowl, or whatever they call it now.

If there's a 16-team playoff (11 I-A conference champs, 5 at-large), Georgia's just barely makes the field and most likely has to play a road game in the first round.

For a two-loss team that didn't even win its SEC division, I'd say Georgia did quite well under the BCS format this year.

jesus christ, i can't believe i'm about to say this... ugh.. i really, really don't want to defend el presidente (good god, would he get a little delight to hear me defending him, the ****bag) but why do you say he's trying to get georgia in this year? good god, he says the future, and he says the same thing everyone else is yelling for

and, well, if there are two at-large bids, based on say a current bcs formula, i'm guessing they do make it. but that's a different conversation

 

[Twoback]

Until you can take the commissioners of the Big Ten and the Pac 10 and the Rose Bowl honchos to the negotiating table at gunpoint, it's not going to happen.

What if the other BCS leagues got with the NCAA and said, "We're doing it without them"? You think OSU fans and Michigan fans and SC fans are going to be cool with that just so they can keep going to the Rose Bowl?
To get a playoff through the governing structure, you'd need the votes of most of the Division I leagues. But not all. If you have four of the six bcs conferences, plust support from the fringe leagues, you could get it done. I'm not saying that's likely to ever happen, but I don't think Big Ten/Pac-10 intransigence is the only culprit.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Just saying, for all the bitching this guy does about the BCS, it sure worked out OK for Georgia this year.

Just using Georgia here as an example, but you could take virtually every team and the same holds true:

With playoffs, the bowls disappear (anyone who believes the Peach/Sun/Cotton, etc. bowl committees are going to work all year to stage an NCAA playoff game, you're crazy. The only way I-A playoffs work is with on-campus games until the championship, just like in I-AA, II and III).

So Georgia would have automatically qualified for TWO playoff fields in the past 25 seasons (SEC champs in 2002 and 2005). It might have earned one or two other at-large berths, in a 16-team field with 11 automatic qualifiers and five at-large selections, over that span.

So that's three, maybe four, postseasons since 1982, as opposed to how many bowl appearances? Which system has been best for Georgia football?

For 80 percent of Division I-A programs the bowl system, in which they get to participate at regularly, is far more attractive than a playoff, which 80-90 percent of the teams will seldom, if ever, qualify for, even under a 16-team format.

The team in Microville has regularly played in bowls, but would have made one 16-team playoff field in the last 40 years. I can tell you which way that president will vote, should it ever get that far.

 

[Captain_Kirk]

With the Big Ten being one of the major roadblocks, Adams' timing on this is pretty impeccable following Illinois getting the doors blown off and Ohio State losing in the title game to an SEC team two years running.

Amd micro--a playoff system doesn't mean the end of the bowls. You can still have your 6-6 Okla State against a 6-6 Purdue team in El Paso. Or Shreveport. Those teams can still play the minor bowls.

Incorporate the big boy bowls into a playoff--either as the quarters or the semis, and then fill in the additional games, could be at one of those locations, perhaps the site of the Super Bowl the week prior, etc.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Amd micro--a playoff system doesn't mean the end of the bowls. You can still have your 6-6 Okla State against a 6-6 Purdue team in El Paso. Or Shreveport. Those teams can still play the minor bowls.

Sorry, those games go away. Under the bowl systemn, there's enough local corporate/sponsorship interest and TV money to sustain them. With a playoff, there's not.

Incorporate the big boy bowls into a playoff--either as the quarters or the semis, and then fill in the additional games, could be at one of those locations, perhaps the site of the Super Bowl the week prior, etc.

The idea of using the current bowls as playoff sites is the biggest falacy in the whole equation. The bowls don't want to have anything to do with the NCAA whatsover.

If you think the Rose Bowl committee is going to be satisfied to work all year to hold an NCAA semifinal game, you're crazy. Because at that point it's no longer the Rose Bowl (or Sugar, or Orange, etc.) anymore. It's not anything special to the people of Los Angeles (or Miami, New Orleans, etc.).

It's just an NCAA playoff game, when the team shows up on Thursday or Friday, practices a couple times, and then plays.

I know some people on the Fiesta Bowl committee, some paid, some volunteer. They work because it's their deal, their game, something they take pride in and are invested in, because it benefits the greater Phoenix area. The minute you tell them, "This year what used to be the Fiesta Bowl is a quarterfinal game," they close up shop.

 

[Hammer Pants]

I was just driving back from lunch and heard Mike Tirico make a great point. The most pissed off person in the world last night could have been Tommy Tuberville, whose undefeated 2004 Auburn team didn't get to play for the national championship. Florida and LSU had to get some breaks the past two years and still couldn't avoid at least one SEC juggernaut ... and Auburn did and got nothing for it.