Bowl System Heading Toward Extinction?

Toulon · 2018-12-08T20:19:26+00:00

This is the GREATEST thing to happen for college football in a long time. More and more top players are foregoing their opportunity to play in a meaningless...

johnnydoom

Toulon Why are you saying someone has to take a bowl away? Just make the playoff games and leave the bowls alone. They'll dry up on their own if they have to compete with playoff games.

High school, and division II and III college are by and large not playing in front of the audiences that FBS is, they aren't playing to attract the attention of pro scouts (how many former division II and III players are in the NFL?), and they don't have the incentives to put their own bodies at the risk the kids at the top schools do. Yes they get hurt as is the nature of the game, but I would argue (without any facts since there are no numbers to look into), that they do not have as much incentive to put their bodies on the line as the guys hoping to make pro contracts in the near future do. But division II and III are on a 10 game schedule already for the most part. I don't know about most high schools. My son's played 12 and the state has an 8 team playoff for his division - so the state champion did play 15 games in their format. The equivalent for FBS would be 12 games, no conference championship, and an 8 team playoff.

sdandrea1

The current bowl system involves 4 teams in a tournament for the national championship and all the others playing so the TV ads will sell. 🙄

Toulon

...but, JD...your point was about the toll on the bodies. HS kids do it...and have for DECADES.

Honestly, the bowl games are such a scam I can see why goofy things like Camping World Bowl becomes reality. The folks at Camping World must be thinking...if people are dumb enough to watch these meaningless corporate shill bowls, they're certainly dumb enough to buy our product. Signed on the dotted line.

johnnydoom

Toulon High school kids do it, but at an entirely different level. The level of violence I’ve seen at Mississippi State practices is far above what I’ve ever seen in any actual high school game. The skill level of the players, particularly on defense, tends to result in much more well directed hitting with greater transfer of force more often.

johnnydoom

Toulon I’ve said many times in this thread that I’m fine with a bigger playoff as long as the number of games is kept the same for the eventual finalists. This year, the finalists will have played 14 or 15 games. If they want to do an 8 team playoff next year, they just have to eliminate the conference championship games and nothing else would change. If they want to do a 16 game playoff, eliminate one game from every team’s regular season schedule also and nothing else would change. Both moves would negatively impact school and conference revenues in big ways, but you’d get the satisfaction of seeing the number 1 - 3 seeds kick the heck out of 14 - 16 seeds most years while 4 - 8 and 9 - 13 beat each other to death in the first round. And many years are likely to have 4 or 5 SEC and/or B1G schools that have already played each other within their conferences. This year 13 of the 16 teams would come from just 4 conferences.

Toulon

johnnydoom

Conference Championships games are STUPID. Eliminate them...yesterday.

Season should be mirrored after what they do in every other league.

One of these things is not like the other and it needs to change to reflect sports...not corporate shill world.

ode

In the end d1 College football is the anomaly. Every other division has a real playoff!

D3-32 teams
D2-32 teams
D1AA-24 teams

They settle matters on the field!

NFL-12 teams

High School-every state I know of has a huge playoff. In Wisconsin you barely need to be over .500, and I don't even know how many divisions there are but there are several.

I know there are lots of excuses to be made. Change is tough, but its around the corner IMO and I can't wait. We'll be kicking ourselves for having to wait so long! And the money that stands to be made. Big $ being left on the table by not expanding!

ode

And for the record I'm not for bowls becoming extinct, have at it with bowls! I'm for playoffs deciding a champion, a real playoff where the #/of teams included is legit!

Guess what the following number represents-

3.10077519% (I guess this would be an easier # to take a guess at vs. .0310077519🙂

First one to guess gets a 👏

johnnydoom

ode The diameter of Nick Saban's anus?

ode

johnnydoom lol, no but a very interesting guess!

LBlack14

johnnydoom

Can’t wait for the last game of the regular season when several teams at the top realize they can rest their starters and still make the playoff.

Toulon

johnnydoom

Why would they do that? They'll have seeding on the line. If they lose they drop down and play a tougher team. Who would do that?

ode

johnnydoom I'm all good with that, but they may shoot themselves in the foot with losing and getting a worse seed, losing out on a bye, etc etc. College football, at least right now, is based on rankings, which would determine a teams seed, it would be silly to jeopardize this by sitting players.

johnnydoom

Going to need to play the tougher team eventually anyway. If you actually think you're the best team, why worry about who your first round opponent is. Better to play the harder team in the first round with rested players than play them in a latter round with banged up players. If only 1st place matters, why worry about whether you lose in the first round or last round?

Toulon

johnnydoom

This is hard to come across the right way, but I have to ask? Did you ever play competitive sports? Some of the things you've typed here go against everything that has to do with sports.

No team honestly believes "gotta play them anyway" and doesn't shoot to be the highest seed it can.

johnnydoom

I've not played team sports. I've coached kids in organized baseball and soccer, and I've boxed. I am well aware of seedings and the tremendous advantage the higher seeds have. See post about NCAA basketball tournament above where I pointed out, after you tried to use it as an example of how things are better when every game matters, that in 39 years not one team in the entire bottom half of the seeding bracket has ever won. You rail on about meaningless games while calling for a playoff filled with early round meaningless games. Why play for a top seed? To get a patsy that you can easily defeat in the first round of course.

Toulon

You still fail to understand CHANCE. There is NO chance...ZERO...that a win in a bowl game outside of CFP counts toward a chamionship. It's a one-off EXHIBITION game.

The way you speak it's as if March Madness should play all seeds not 4 or higher in one-off games with fancy names.

With March Madness when 16 beat 1... When UMBC beat Viriginia what happened? UMBC played another game toward a CHANCE at a championship. That scenario NEVER plays out in the bowl system. Ever.

Sports are about chance when it comes to winning it all. Buster Douglas can beat Mike Tyson. Bowl system takes that possibility away. Ruins it. If we had it your way, we should go back to poll voters and let them decide becaus whomever is ranked #1 should just be given the trophy.

That is NOT sports and never will be. There is no HOOSIERS movie in a bowl system. You don't seem to get that.

johnnydoom

ode They might, but if they’re undefeated and just went through a grueling stretch it could be worth a chance. If extended to 16 teams the playoff will probably start the week after the regular season ends and if my team is beat up and I’m one or two, I might very well opt for rest for my starters and game time for my backups knowing that I need to win 4 weeks in a row against top 16 teams. A couple of teams did in the NFL last year even though they didn’t have a specific seed locked up yet. It didn’t end up working for the Steelers and Rams, but they obviously felt it was worth a try.

professor

Isn't it just GREAT?! Yippee - let's watch Alabama vs Clemson, again... Sure, expand this playoff system. For what reason - to see the semi-pro Crimson Tide play for another title? Somebody wanna suggest any other top 8 or 10 team that's gonna knock off 'Bama?

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