Pac 12 ending on a sweet note by playing a big game on a Friday night that everyone will forget is being played.

I think Texas ends up winning the weekend by getting into the top four. I really hope Louisville takes care of FSU. They would be a terrible in the final four with that backup qb and I want to see good games.

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

There were a lot of good/close games last weekend with the contenders. But in the end, none of the results actually cleared up the playoff picture. Looking like at least 1 team is going to be pissed at noon on Sunday.

I think the cleanest results, to get the best 4 teams, (factoring in FSU injury), is Louisville beating FSU, Georgia beating Bama, and Oregon beating Wash.
Final 4 of Georgia, Michigan, Texas, Oregon

The "root for chaos" part of me wants FSU, Mich, and Wash to win. Also, Bama to beat Georgia, and Texas to win (even though I hate Bama and Texas). I want to see the mental gymnastics the committee does to ignore an actual game that was played, and still put an SEC team in the playoffs.

I'm not much of a college football fan, but Rivalry Week and Championship Week are great. College football is really going to screw itself when its expanded playoff system renders both weeks irrelevant.

Championship week has always been pretty terrible. They are lopsided blowouts more often than not.

Rivalry week isn't going to have any change. As OSU is proving, even if you make the playoffs your season is still hurt significantly if you lose to your biggest rival. I would think winning the national title is the only thing that would make that irrelevant for that year.

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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!

The first round of the playoffs has mostly been pretty awful. You're taking consequential games between rivals and replacing them with meaningless matchups that, if history is any indication, will not result in good games.

Also, Rivalry Week will be completely disrupted. Because they lost, OSU has virtually no shot at the national title. In the expanded playoff format, the only consequence will be playoff seeding.

An undefeated Michigan OSU winner playing some 7-4 loser from the other division every year is pretty cool actually

It's not replacing anything though. No team is going to say "We lost to our biggest rival but we get to travel to Clemson for the first round of the playoffs so it doesn't matter".

OSU and Michigan isn't important because of the national title implications. Last year, both made it anyways.

OSU-Michigan is a big deal no matter what happens after or before.

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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 disagree. The expanded playoff format is going to take the OSU v. Michigan game and make it analogous to one of those late season NFL games where two playoff teams meet, but they don't really care about the outcome and just want to make sure that they stay healthy for the playoffs. Stated another way, if the loser of the OSU v. Michigan game is assured of making the playoffs, you will eventually see both teams start to rest players rather than risk injury.

Also, yes, I know there has been at least one year where the loser of OSU v. Michigan still made the playoffs, but that is the exception, not the rule. Also, under the current format, any team that loses one game is taking a tremendous risk that it will miss the playoffs.

Wouldn't it be something if this were the year the Iowa completely fucks up the college football playoffs.

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I think you will be completely wrong. First of all, winning the OSU-Michigan game likely gives you a bye in the CFP unless you lose in the BTT but that also takes a spot away from the loser to make it as an at large pick.

But still, it's OSU-Michigan. Winning that game defines their season more than any other game outside of the national title. They aren't going to rest players in it ever.

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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!

Do you think it hurts Purdue basketball "significantly" to lose a regular season Tuesday game to Indiana?

I'd say no because there are 30+ games in a season. It hurts them in the polls until they can string some more wins together but long term they are still likely to be a top seed in the NCAAs.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

The Mich/OSU game is kind of the outlier of 'Rivalry Week' though. None of the other rivalry games had 2 potential playoff teams facing each other. If anything, the expanded playoff will make rivalry week better. Might end up with more games becoming an extra round of "playoffs" for the potential teams fighting for the 6 thru 12 spots.

It's changing with the PAC going away, but this year could be a great example of needing expansion. Likely going to have an 11-1 Power 5 Champion that doesn't even get a chance at the playoff. The more I think about it, I want chaos. Oregon, Louisville, Bama, and Iowa to win. Give me eight 1-loss teams for 4 spots...

No doubt it does. They won the Big Ten by about 15 games, won the BTT tournament too, and the two losses to Indiana still hurt. Luckily for Purdue, one game was an even worse loss that year.

OSU-Michigan football isn't going to be a game that matters because one team gets a bye to the CFP quarterfinals and the other gets to play a road game in SEC country to make it is just a bad take.

Now, the Big Ten title game may be meaningless but those have never been good.

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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 don't like the 12 team expansion because there really aren't 12 teams who are valid wearers of the national champs title. You could make a case for 8 this year and it is a wide open year. Four is fine and I'd be more than comfortable with two. Most years it is evident who is the best after the regular season. All this tournament would do is see if someone can pull off an upset on a bad day

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

It works a lot better when you view the first round as basically a play in round played at the schools. There isn't that much difference between the 5th and 12th best teams and outside of teams from the same conference the schedules are vastly different. How do you compare PSU and Oklahoma and know who is better? So, do your best and let them figure it out on the field and then the real battles start when the top 4 starts playing.

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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 may be in the minority, but I don't care who is better between PSU and Oklahoma. Let them play a fun bowl game. These playoffs generally have been bad in the first round even with only four teams.

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

Expanded playoffs always reduces the value of the regular season. College football will be losing what makes it great.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

It was better when it didn’t even have a playoff. 2 teams was fine. 4 is acceptable since there’s usually 3 good teams at most. Anything more than that sucks.

This might be the first time this year an Over for an Iowa game hits.

You all just hate football. I want as many games as possible. 2 teams, 4 teams, 8 teams.... many games aren't close.

9 years of the current 4 team system, 6 years the championship game has been at least a 3-score difference, including the last 5 years. Who cares if there are first round blowouts, the final is typically a blowout.

There aren't more games. It's just replacing bowls...which, seem like they are better games as one offs. WHy would you want more of what assuredly going to be blowouts?

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

Yup

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Bowls have almost reached NFL preseason level of play. All the portal players miss them, and any of the good junior/senior players looking to play professionally skip them. I'm not ripping on the players, I completely understand them making a business decision. Selfishly, my hope would be the players would stick around for playoff games.

This is it right here.

Indiana isn't winning a national title under any system in college football, they just aren't. Under the prior system, and maybe the 4 team playoff Indiana knew that they'd have a shot at Michigan and Ohio State each year, and Penn State in certain years and if they beat one of those teams they put the killshot into those school's national title chances.

In 2025 if Indiana beats Ohio State it's just a shoulder shrug because Ohio State is still going to make the playoffs.

Doing some "waste time at work" research, and looked up the 12 team format. Interesting bit that I didn't know:

Top 4 seeds (byes) are reserved for conference champions.
-So if this year was 12 teams and Okla St or Louisville were to win their games Saturday, they'd be seeded top 4.
-Notre Dame could have a season where they go 12-0, and win their games by a combined 600-0. Best seed they can have is #5.

No Purdue fan in the world other than those that have a reputation for a certain discussion style on a message board give more than two shits about the losses to Indiana in the regular season. Without looking it up you probably don't even remember the scores of those games. College basketball has the greatest postseason experience of any sport. They also have the most worthless regular season. It's a tradeoff they made a long time ago.

College football used to have the most valuable regular season in all of north american sports. They are trading that off for a more valuable post season, which as Denis points out, devalues the regular season. That is a choice they are making.

It works better if you just ignore what it actually is doesn't seem like the argument you want to be making here to support that something for what it actually is. I mean if you have to pretend something isn't what it is to fully enjoy it, what is the point?

Like yeah, you can pretend that a Purdue- IU game on a Tuesday in January is a batter for the galactic soul, but that doesn't change what it is, just another rote college basketball game in a string of 35 or so that lead up to the best postseason tournament in all of sports.

I think there is some balance point in determining a "worthless regular season" though. Maybe 12 playoff teams is too many, maybe not, but I don't feel like 4 is enough.

For example, let's say we still had a 2 team playoff that some people here want. Assuming Georgia and Michigan win this week, they would be the 2 teams. So basically, every Div-1 game played in 2023, outside of the 26 games involving Georgia/Michigan, were "worthless". FSU and Washington could go 12-0 or 0-12, not making playoffs.

This is just a terrible though. In 2025, if IU beats OSU, it will be celebrated like they won the Super Bowl. They don't care in the slightest about how that game effects the odds of making the playoffs. IU's biggest regular season game in basketball this year is going to be the Purdue game. The biggest highlight of the season last year for IU was sweeping Purdue. It didn't matter that Purdue still not only made the NCAA tournament but got a 1 seed.

I cannot think of a single win ever as a Purdue fan where I was more or less excited about it because of the way it effected the other teams postseason plans. I guess the closest would be the Purdue-IU football games where IU was 5-6 and needed a win to go bowling. However, if they were 6-5 instead I still would have wanted to win that game just as much.

This thread is basically just people that don't understand what it is like to root for a team in college sports with a rival because they are casual observers who watch the games with no real stakes. A Michigan or OSU fan would laugh at the idea that the game only matters because of the odds of making the playoffs for the loser are lessened now. Even then, the winner of OSU-Michigan gets a bye in the first round whereas the loser not only has to play that first weekend but also may be playing a road game against the SEC or Big 12 team. If both Michigan and OSU come in undefeated then the loser likely gets a home game.

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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!