The College Football Playoff is sending so many mixed signals right now. But here’s a couple that stick out: What is the point of conference title games? Winning it is about as important as winning one in college basketball.
It doesn’t get you into the playoff and losing harms a lot more than winning. If the Big Ten did not play a game, Wisconsin would be in the playoff.
Also, why play a tough nonconference schedule? It doesn’t seem to benefit teams. USC lost to Notre Dame. What if it played Fresno State instead?
I say all this as someone who believed Alabama deserved to be in the playoff. But I don’t see the point the conference title games other than as a way to make money.
USC should schedule UNLV, and other Moutain West School every year, because dice Alabama gets away with it
Mercer
Alabama treated Clay Helton like they did Mercer. Mercer might have scored more points against Alabama than Helton’s offensive play calling did.
Quite honestly, I never knew Mercer played football until this year.
From somewhere around WWll up until around 2013 they didn’t.
Painfully honest, I didn’t know they were a college until they played at Alabama
they didn’t until about 4 or 5 years ago….
Is this university named after Johnny Mercer, the singer and songwriter ? Known for that lullaby ” Fools Rush In.”
How about Santa Monica College, Fred?
Your comments make too much sense for the committee to consider, Fred. First they say don’t schedule cupcakes, then they punish you for scheduling stronger opponents.
Good grief.
So I found USC a defensive coordinator who is a secondary specialist who would be the perfect compliment to Kenechi Udeze who currently coaches the Trojan defensive linemen.
Kris Richard Trojan alumn who is currently Pete Carroll’s defensive coordinator up in Seattle.
Why would he give up a pro gig for a college one?
Richard could hone his skill as a head coach at USC once USC wises up and gets rid of Helton.
Lame!….Did a 10 year old fill your head with these thoughts
The playoff was made for benefiting conferences, NCAA, and media outlets rather than a team. When they said a committee was going to pick the playoffs the fix was in.
The fix was in the previous week when they made Alabama # 5
Dump the committee, polls, smoke filled back rooms and win it on the field already.
The Big 10 getting left out will cause changes to be made. Expect the 5 Conference Championship games to be replaced with 4 Quarterfinal Games in a 8 Team Playoff very soon.
Umm, the PAC 12 was also left out.
Never mind the college playoff committee is designed to reward you for how you finish instead of how you start. Alabama did nothing to prove that Auburn loss was a fluke. Never mind that the system was supposed to reward strength of schedule over wins. System only counts number of losses. So the more you play the more you risk.
Even on Sunday, the dummies on ESPN were talking about the college football playoffs already happened? Yeah, but usually when you win a playoff you go to the next round, you don’t wait for a committee to pick who they like best and put teams in that didn’t qualify during the regular season for the playoff. The NFL would look great if they did it this way. And no, every game doesn’t matter with this bogus system, it actually proved that the most important games in college football don’t matter, CCG’s, The Iron Bowl, head to head big time match-ups, nothing. Just a group of 10 people that think they know something, but don’t know anything. And unfortunately can’t be exposed as the fraudulent know-nothings they are.
USC has to stand up for itself. PAC 12 damaged us more than helped. We need to either have more leverage or seek independence. We don’t need to depart, but at least repeat what Texas did in Big 12.
What did Texas do? Somehow get their own network, that I’ve never seen, and wouldn’t be surprised if it went out of business, while at the same time their Longhorn football team went down the toilet forever and became less relevant than FAU. Even though I don’t believe the Pac-12 network exists either, USC should probably stick with the conference and lift them up. Better together.
True, Texas forced A&M, Missouri and Nebraska out. But a little bit of leverage would have helped with no bye with this year, all PAC 12 teams having an additional days of before they playing USC a year ago and USC loosing to WSU because of a Friday night game?
how did that work out? A&M left with Missouri–Texas has the same mentality as the Trojans–its all about me–screw the long standing teams that they play every year! The PCC broke up in 1956–that went really well.
FOR AT LEAST ONCE I AGREE WITH SCOTT WOLF… !
“Also, why play a tough nonconference schedule? It doesn’t seem to benefit teams. USC lost to Notre Dame. What if it played Fresno State instead?”
This “system” is about as “screwed” up as anything could possibly can be !!!
Now, USC, drop the USC x Notre Dame rivalry, no more Western Michigan / Utah State, AND…
From now on the Trojans open up the Season against California Technical Institute and finish the Season against Whittier College (Just like the “very” Old Days) with NO-MORE Thursday/Friday games period !!!!!!
It’s been long-time too-long not to become a “Sudo” member of the SEC !
STRENGTH-OF-SCHEDULE-MEANS…….
nothing
SpotOn
The SEC has gamed this whole thing since the early 2000’s, and ESPN & CBS love it
Since 1998. 20 years of SEC scamming. Pac 10 Commissioner Tom Hansen was the fool who gave away the Rose Bowl to the SEC hucksters.
Yes! You are right on the money!
Killer you are the man! This is what I have been saying since the Rose Bowl people let the others in! They sold out to tv and pressure from the coaches afraid of missing players due to the national championship BS!
Let’s get out of this football playoff rigged system and go back to the champions of the Pac-12 and Big-10 playing in the Rose Bowl.
Like I said earlier, make it 8 teams and all of this goes away
The PO system will always be flawed as long as teams play different schedules and judged by humans presiding in a committee that selects which teams are in and out. This is actually no better than the dreaded BCS system that left teams crying foul every year.
An 8-team PO might reduce the noise around the selection process, but even that wouldn’t be perfect with teams playing vastly different schedules.
Guaranteed #9 would be outraged but they would have less credence than #5 or #6 now.
LMAO…That’s guaranteed to happen!
But league champs would be rewarded.
They could easily put SOME standards in this thing. Like is anyone seriously going to argue that you HAVE to win your conference (or your freaking division at least) to qualify for the title of national champion? It’s seriously a minimalist pre-requisite for an elite position.
That’s a good point you make. The system needs a lot of improvement.
Actually, implementing the prerequisite of winning the team’s own conference for an inclusion in the PO might be a real good start for making the system more logical.
That will discourage scheduling Mercers.
It’s actually fairly easy. Make the CCGs the first round of playoffs. Win your conference, continue playing.
Colorado was punished for playing in the playoff last year but nobody cared. SC finished second in the Pac 12 South and yet leapfrogged the first place Buffs into the Rose Bowl after UW routed them in the Pac 12 championship game. The Buffs were relegated to the lowly Alamo Bowl while UW went to the national championship semifinal playoff game. Now that Ohio State and Wisconsin were cornholed the powers that be will act and set up a 8 team playoff.
Good stuff, GT. But won’t the full-blown 8 team PO sit uncomfortably with those nice folks in the NFL?
Why the NFL!
You mean you don’t know? What’s the matter? I thought you were my football and gambling professor.
Sorry, I can’t dumb-down my thoughts to reach your mentality.
Why the NFL?
Hey Gabbler, I see that you’ve been laboring quite conspicuously with your overheating computer making new handles, voting your own fake handles up, and even more hilariously, staging dialog between one another. You must understand that all you’re fooling are a few gullible ones in here, and you’re failing miserably in differentiating what you type because they ALL regurgitate the same f’g things from the bits and pieces you’ve managed to have collected from the old newspaper and the internet articles and other participants in the blog. Yep, you’ve been exposed a long time ago, and yet, you’re the only one who doesn’t realize it. Get a life, won’t you? LMFAO!!!
Hey regal retread. You need to relax keyboard tough guy. Another pointless rant consistent with a person suffering from narcissism(must suck to be you)
It’s extremely idiotic of you to constantly make unsubstantiated allegations against me and others who post on this blog. Your detective skills are limited, much like your football IQ. ” You’re the only one who doesn’t realize it. Get a life, won’t you? LMFAO!!!”
Here’s a little saying that’s consistent with your posting – If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, than baffle them with bull$hit.
Get back to work collecting bits and pieces from old newspaper articles and internet articles that fuel your forced and biased agenda. When you’re done with that, heads #3 and #5 need polishing and more PT(use the new stuff thanks)
LMFAO…Hey! It certainly would be unsubstantiated if you didn’t make it so f’g conspicuous. I suggest you to try harder. MUCH harder!!!
Lame!……Back to the original question….Why the NFL
Need you ask? Ask one of your alter egos to dig up what’s been copied and pasted from someone else’s comments several years ago. LMFAO!!!
What?….details!
It’s been said God’s in the details, but it’s been also argued Devil’s in them, too.
No BS…..what was copied and pasted…I have limited resources
Difference was, we beat the Buffs on the field, and so deserved the higher ranking at the time. Auburn was punished for winning the bama contest, there isn’t that much similarity.
Colorado was 8-1 in conference and ranked # 9 and USC was 7-2 in conference and ranked #12 before Colorado played the Pac 12 championship game. Colorado was punished for playing the additional game.
Yeah, I know, but there was some underlying logic involved with that decision, none in the case of Auburn and bama, bama was clearly beat on the field one week earlier.
By doing so, then it would actually make the conference championship games part of the playoff system.
And it might be a good solution.
It is a sad irony that USC got screwed so many times with the BCS system because the P-12 didn’t play a conference championship game, that they went through expansion to get enough teams and just when that happened the committee changed to a system that favors teams that don’t play in a conference championship game, even if by losing to avoid risking an additional difficult game. Let’s face it, Alabama would have lost if they played the championship game instead of Auburn, and Auburn was a lock to get into the playoff with 2-losses had they won the game against Georgia. A week later Bama is no better or no worse than they were because they weren’t in a conference championship game, but the team that proved they were better on the field, Auburn, is out.
What’s your point Mr. Nappies?
If it’s bozo u belongs in the playoffs, don’t make me laugh. As I recall bozo u went to Tixas intending to shock the world, and they did: Alabama 52 – Mighty bozo u: a FG in each half.
bozo u vs Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia or Alabama would considered a virtual bye. Consider, ND defeated the bozo’s by 35 points; Stanford defeated ND; and the bozo’s on 2 weeks rest had to hold on to defeated Stanford on 5 days rest by 3 pts.
Slink back into your Rah-Rah gopher hole and be happy bozo U finished 2nd in the NCAA WP NC game.
My point is that the playoff is not fair or organized in any way, it’s just a group of people picking the teams they like the best and then rationalize the decision with flimsy arguments. Stanford blew the Domers out and USC beat Stanford twice, which is two more times than UCLA has beaten Stanford in the last 10 tries, so I get your bitterness and jealousy. Go back to the parade celebrating UCLA’s watersports, PS, there’s a reason all the guys at your parade are wearing leather and sporting bushy moustaches, but I’m not gonna spoil it for you.
USC gets scheduled to play Ala in a season opener, no top school even talks to sUcla about scheduling a football game
USC played 12 power five teams this year. Alabama played 9. USC played 12 straight weeks, with 5 true road games and no bye week. Alabama had a bye week before playing LSU, and played FCS Merc er the week before playing Auburn. Alabama played 4 true road games. These schedules are night and different. My “eye” test says Alabama is a better team than USC, but if USC had a schedule like Alabama, and Alabama had a schedule like USC, there is a good chance that their records would be different.
Your well thought out comments just made me more angry.
#Bamastinks
USC’s problem was that Clay Helton with all the talent thats on this Trojans team shouldnt have lost to WAZZU, shouldnt have lost to Notre Dame, but to get blown out by the Irish the way Helton and his staff did really didnt look good and Helton underachieved vs a lot of bad teams where the games were too close with a couple of games he should have lost.
It’s a tired argument….
You should be tired of having USC settle on second rate coaches who will never bring the Trojans football program back to national prominence.
Everyone should have to play 9 conference games, and you should have to win your division and conference to be considered. Teams like Alabama shouldn’t be able to schedule a “Mercer” as a defacto “bye” late in the season while other conferences are playing their own
The committee never had to face such a huge wad of teams jammed up together before. They being highly intelligent individuals needed to sit down in mid November and ironed out their ground work for what was important and what wasn’t. They don’t appear to have at this time come up with a formula of weights and measures that could give them credence in their selections. Who leads this and why can’t these great minds work it out and then make it public.
ESPN showed their bullet points of what they look for in determining the Final Four, and then they had Corky the chairman of the board on to say, “Awww you’re still reading that silly old thing from September? Alabama is unequivocally better than every team ranked behind them.” Which is amazing because Auburn is two spots behind them and we just seen them whip Bama’s butts on the field a week ago.
All that could be solved if they would just get rid of the conference championship games, reduce the season to 10 or 11 games like it used to be and put in a ten team playoff with 4 wildcats that play first reducing the number teams to 8 and then have an 8 team playoff. You could still have all the bowl games and the teams wouldn’t be playing any more games than they do today.
Not happening—-too much money left on the table–fewer games!
8 team playoff system. 5 conference champs are automatic qualifiers, plus 3 at-large spots. For consideration as an at-large, team must win at least 10 games.
This now makes the CCG games relevant, the winner movers on
G – great idea – might consider fine-tuning the requirements for the at-large teams. 10 win requirement might trigger more weak non-conference games. Perhaps put emphasis on wins and also SOS.
SOS definitely needs to come into play. How that would implemented is a good question
How original, that proposed format has only been floated around since before the BCS era.
LOL!
You have a better idea
Can’t you come up with your own idea instead of one thats been passed around as much as you on a Friday night on the street corner?
LMFAO!
Hey big boy, stop by Friday night, and I’ll make sure you get the Friday night special…..well worth your money
LMFAO!
Lavar Ball saying he’ll be pulling his son from the ruins???
Oh well.
If you look at the weekly CFB polls going back decades, one of the unwritten rules was that a team who won never jumped teams in front of them if those teams won. You usually only moved up if there was a loss in front of you. That style put alot of emphasis on the pre-season rankings too because it determined who started where in the polls.
One of Tommy Tuberville’s complaints about his undefeated 2004 Auburn team was they never had a chance to jump into the top two because USC and Oklahoma went undefeated and his team started too low.
Now, if a highly ranked SEC team loses to another SEC team, some pollsters will simply put the SEC winner in the higher spot, even if no team in front of them (other than their opponent) lost. The case was when #4 LSU lost to #10 Florida in 2012. Florida didn’t have to worry about teams in front of them because they simply replaced LSU at #4. That’s a poll jump of seven spots.
It’s a way to always have an SEC team somewhere near the top and to try to avoid an SEC team getting screwed like with Tuberville’s Auburn team in 2004.
It’s mostly a recent SEC tactic but it also is a cheap way for the SEC to make people believe that all their teams are nearly equal powerhouses when that is not the case at all. And if you do believe all SEC teams are nearly equal powerhouses, then it is an easier road to justifying two SEC teams in the playoff.
marvienna, you also have include SEC scheduling as well. They have 16 teams and only 8 conference games. That already allows more teams with less losses. But the main trick is to start the season with non-conference games. And delays their possible losses as long as possible. If you look at the beginning of October, PAC 12 already had almost was on onslaught, while SEC hadn’t even started their conference games.
That may very well be a valid point but my post is about how teams are reshuffled in the poll.
The old way I described above factored in late season losses. If you lost sometime in November, well then that was held against you because you would be dropped with little time to move up the polls again. (Think something akin to a marathon).
Even if the SEC delays conference play and their losses as long as possible into a season, they still don’t get penalized for losing in November. If the Pac-12 is punished in the polls for beating each other up early in the season, then the same rationale should apply to SEC teams who beat each other up BUT later in the season. The thing is, a highly ranked SEC team that loses in October somehow stays up around the 5-6-7 spot which is a prime position for the CFB playoff should there be a discussion about one SEC team and another qualified team from around the country.
In other words, CFB is a multi-headed monster…always has been…with no legitimate means of determining it’s “champion” without relying on the ineffective, mostly biased polling of coaches and sportswriters, convoluted computer machinations, pathetic attempts at a playoff system (BCS and current aberration), all against the howling and screeching of fans.
Maybe it’s just the way it should be. Just to keep it crazy.
Joel Klatt made that exact point this morning on Cowherd’;s shwo when he was asked to repeat his idea of a true 4 team playoff.
Klatt’s proposal –
All 5 upper division conference champions are the pool to cull the 4 from and the weakest ‘SOS’ conference is tossed. He was emphatic is tating the 5 conference CCG act as a 10 team playoff and once again. toss the weakest of the 5 out the door.
He made no mention of the con game in So. Bend – IN ‘the princess’ which for me means those cowards should join or get lost.
How I loath the fraud called ‘Our Lady…blank the alcoholic mick potato pickin’ paddies.
It would force teams to eliminate the cupcake OOC games and schedule more Power 5 conference opponents…….Saban would veto this idea until his face turned blue
Scooter, why the change of heart? Did u finally get away from the sEc spell? Sis reality set in and realize sc had a tougher schedule, played 9 conference games, and won the conference title while bama had it thumb up its a#s?
Maybe after getting hammered by guys that played high school, and pro on this board, I’m glad to see u might be listening to the people who played compared to the little pencil neck geek fairies.
It’s not confusing…
Cupcake schedule gets you in. Saban cracked the code.
USC should have had more respect from the pollsters. However, when you listen to the TV/Radio analysts explaining (in their judgements) why USC dropped like they did in the polls, they (like the game-day crew on ESPN), state USC played sluggish & sloppy in games. Also, why is the PAC-12 considered the least powerful football conference among the Big 5 conferences? It is probably because they are the least supported by their school presidents versus other conferences. And finally you look at the buffoon commissioner of this conference and all of his failures. It all adds up.
So, is the answer to all this gamesmanship from the SEC solved by taking USC football to an “Independent” status like the Irish ? Frankly, I see no real argument about where we landed in the Cotton Bowl. All of us who attended games saw his team as sluggish, sloppy, very lucky in some cases, and downright flat. Those T.V. pundits have been around for years and they see tons of other teams on a weekly basis. Who could argue that SC was shafted this year in the polls ? I would not make that point. There were just too many games where the team was sloppy, the play calling was sloppy, no coaches wanted to admit who was calling the plays, and too many times players like Jack Jones and Chris Hawkins were left in games where they should have been pulled and replaced with better talent, or players with better attitudes. My view ? Helton got really lucky this year to end up at 11-2. This buys him another year of coaching.
Buys him another year? What are you smoking? Finished both years ranked in top 10 maybe top 5. He’s got many years. Fans don’t have vote.
Pat Haden set the trend for the NCAA and all future bowl alliances and or CFP organizations to walk all over USC. The PAC 12 having a weak commissioner doesn’t help either.
Pat Haden obviously never believed in the Spirit of Troy and what it means to Fight On!
Haden was always a pinko lib.
1st of all ncaa and Pac 12 is all about mediocrity…of course they call it parity…nfl is the same ,even baseball. Why else would they tell schools and teams they have caps…caps on success is what they mean. Caps on competition,being to talented or successful. It is the old equal out come no matter the effort. We can’t have one team winning or getting trophies, they all need trophies…just show up.In the pro draft they reward the losers, build your team by losing.SC used to dominate track and field, there were no scholarship limitations, all the great athletes came to SC for school and to go to the Olympics…well the ncaa put a stop to that,which gave all the advantage to public schools.Pac 12 shunned SC in the ncaa investigations which now are being exposed as to them still going after one of sports true long time power houses in all sports…they still are…they want mediocrity .