You either get a meaningful regular season or a more inclusive, less deserving playoff format. Hell, the NCAA basketball tournament can't even decide on just 64 teams. They have to have play in games. They might as well tank the regular season and just start the tourney on day one and make it double elimination or something.

I have always loved that college football regular season games are super important. As Ohio State found out, one bad regular season loss, and you are out.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

But the point is that there may be systemic underrating of the quality of lower division teams with the heuristics we use to evaluate teams each season. Just saying "it's a new season" doesn't mean the criteria used to evaluate teams each season shouldn't ever be updated. As it is, it seems to me to be a situation where any loss by UCF in bowl game will be used to demonstrate they didn't belong, whereas any win by them will just be a nice story that doesn't mean anything. Seems like loading the deck to me.

Also quick note, but UCF defeated the number 7 team in their bowl game last year, whereas OSU beat the number 8 team.


I can say top 25 teams would be favored to win games on their schedule while also recognizing the unlikelihood of those teams actually going undefeated through that schedule. The biggest pieces of evidence for the latter are the lack of similar streaks in recent college football history and the fact that the majority of the top 25 has dropped games they were favored in this year already.

It seems to me this argument is very much in tension with arguments against paying players that cite the lack of sustainability for the entirety of NCAA instead of just focusing on the P5 teams. If we're already treating the P5 conferences as separate and above the pleb conferences on that basis anyway, then they absolutely should be paying the players.

You are arguing against a point I never made in regards to bowl results. However, lower division teams are in general worse.

Also quick note, but UCF defeated the number 7 team in their bowl game last year, whereas OSU beat the number 8 team.
Once again, just rank the wins by UCF this year. Give me the top 4.

Also, there is a fallacy there about P5 teams not having similar win streaks. Even subpar teams(like Purdue) have more talent in general than a large majority of the UCF schedule. Most of the teams they beat are teams that the big schools pay to come and get beat a large majority of the time.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Sure. Pay the players, or at least let them profit off of their likenesses which would be far more valuable than the set rate for labor they would get.

That still doesn't change the fact that there are 64 P5 teams, and logically when you are playing in one of the conferences that isn't part of the P5, and a large majority of your schedule is made up of teams that play in the lower divisions it is going to be hard to compare your season to a team with higher difficulty.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Honestly tho, one non power conference team getting into the 8 team playoff isn't the end of the world. That university would get a major payout that would elevate their school and program. How is that a bad thing for the overall NCAA?

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Agree with this do I.

Who says that part is bad?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

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Why are you obsessed with him?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

He just has a noticeable disdain for non power 5 schools.

I'm an NIU fan.

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He sure was a shitty QB. Couldn't beat Illinois.

Yup. It's supposed to be hard to make the playoffs.

That's why I hope they don't expand the playoff, because if they expand, then the SEC title game wouldn't have mattered because both teams would have gotten in.

I don't know how much people will care about the Heisman, to me Tua was the best player all year and may still win it, just seems like because of Saturday, hearing a lot now Kyler Murray will win it.

Kyler could have the body of work and the number for the season, but Tua didn't play much of these games in the 4th quarter because Bama up big already, if he had, could be no discussion.

Regular season games will still be extremely important.

We aren't talking about expanding to 16 teams.

8 gives you more games between talented teams.

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My early thought on the playoff games, Alabama vs Oklahoma- is Tua injury going to be a big thing, I think if plays and healthy there defense would make enough stops to beat Oklahoma.

Notre Dame vs Clemson- I give Notre Dame a real shot to win this one, especially if close, I don't completely trust Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence yet and I know he was brought in to win in this spot.

We will probably again get Clemson vs Alabama though.

I work with an serious Alabama fan who went to Tuscaloosa for a game this season. He said Tua has been hurt for longer than reported. Since the first few weeks of the season.

I don't think that ankle will be near 100%, but Saban and Tua's dad will force him to play.

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A lot of 2 loss teams in the CFP if they go up to 8. A lot of 3 loss teams in the CFP if they go up to 16.

Going up to 8 games only adds 4 more games to the schedule too and normally a couple of the conference title games have good drama anyways.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

I think we'd actually care about seeding with 8 teams as well.

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If they would just re-organize NCAA football into 4 super-conferences with 2 divisions or 4 divisions each, the whole CFP would not be necessary because the division winners would play each other to win the conference and the conference winners would play each other for the NC.

This could still happen, but a couple years ago, this almost seemed like a reality with all the talk you heard when having conference realignment.

It's the way it should be. Add relegation to it, as well, so school's like Illinois can be competitive playing Div II schools instead of attempting to field a team that has to compete against real schools.

I really don't care that much who wins the national championships by the time they finally get to the game but I love college football. I think that is a testament to the excitement of the regular season

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Correct, and that wouldn't be changed with an expansion to 8 teams.

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It certainly could. How about the win that my team had over Ohio State? That loss literally knocked them out of the playoffs. With an 8 team playoff, it is plausible they could have lost that game and another game to someone like Michigan or Penn State and still gotten in.

Once again, let me point out that an 8 team playoff adds a total of 4 games, and subtracts the conference championship games which at least a few of them are normally compelling.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Where are you getting they would scrap the conference championships?

In my scenario the best teams are potentially playing 16 games a season.

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Um...

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Oh my bad.

That was more about my hatred for Notre Dame provoking any sort of change.

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I could do without the conference championships.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.