I hear you. But please don’t put words in my mouth about the SEC. You brought them up in one of your earlier posts first then I commented. It could easily be Ohio St. #1 and Penn St. #2 in a few years. Or Clemson and GT (ha). I don’t care about the teams but that common sense is used rather than an arbitrary “conference champ” argument. Im glad to use the conf champ argument when it’s expanded. That’s why I find it funny that this alliance was formed to stop the SEC. What will the alliance do when the SEC drops and the BIG has Ohio St, Michigan, and Iowa all ranked the top 5? Will they stop the best teams from getting in the playoff and give the weaker SEC a team or two? That’s why I say there isn’t really an alliance. It will change the minute the paradigm shifts.
As to your example, why do you think baseball changed their playoff format? The public was tired of seeing sorrier teams get in over better teams just because they were in a weak division. Baseball also realized it was bad for business to have 80% of your teams eliminated by the half way mark. Look how many teams were still alive the last 2 weeks of this season with the expanded playoffs. I believe we’ll see a playoff number of some sort (NCAA or other entity) in the 20’s. That gives all conference champs an auto birth and higher seed for round 1 home games, and still allows 2-3 loss teams a chance to make the field which keeps interest up. Let’s face reality - college football is quickly becoming a regional sport with large swaths of this country tuning out. It’s a southern and Midwest sport today. Like baseball has shown, you breathe life into a sport by giving fanbases the most important thing in the world - hope. Think about Wake Forest right now. They are having their greatest season in decades yet they have absolutely zero chance of making the playoffs. None, nada, zilch. You’ll say if they win their conference they’d get in an 8 team playoff. Fine. But what were to happen if Clemson was normal and Wake went 11-1. They wouldn’t get in. College football is the only major sport that leaves money and hope on the table.
I would think of any fan base in the country that the GT fan base would be for a big playoff more than anyone. It’s as if people don’t realize we only shared a Natty because of a single vote in the UPI poll (847 to 846). That means if 1 coach or grad assistant filled out the form differently that we would have lost a Natty to a 1 loss, 5th down team all because the western press voted for Colorado and a lot of the SEC footprint press didn’t want to vote for GT either. Then add our run in 2014 when you can’t convince me we wouldn’t have made a run in a playoff that year as we were rolling.
I know my opinion means nothing but as a fan of a team firmly planted in the mediocre 50% I want a big playoff to give me hope for those 1 of 10 years we are very good. But the good news for me is that money talks and the playoffs will expand way beyond 8 within the next 15 years. I’m still shocked we got the BCS after 80 years of back door dealing between the big coaches and press. How interesting would those phone tapes be if they existed between media members and Bryant, Dodd, Hayes,Leahy, Wilkinson, Osbourne, etc.
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