Maybe the bye in the playoffs isn't an advantage.
- Thread starter FeralFelidae
- Start date
Looks like we may turn out to have hosted the champ this year !
Boise and ASU getting 3 and 4 seeds in the bracket was silly. Conference champions shouldn’t have auto byes. Just play them as the committee seeded. Boise was 9. ASU, somewhere behind them. Both would have been on the road in round 1 had this happened.
While I do not think 12-16 teams have legit shots at the championship, I can see this thing being expanded to 14 or 16 very soon, just for the money it’s generating.
While I do not think 12-16 teams have legit shots at the championship, I can see this thing being expanded to 14 or 16 very soon, just for the money it’s generating.
I think it is fine, if they correct the seeding problem they created.
Let’s instead give Conference Champs the option of a bye or a home game. Zero programs would take the home game.
To say ASU didn’t deserve a #4 based on an OT loss to Texas — who only lost, twice, to Georgia — is silly. ASU was awesome, and also got robbed on the targeting call.
8’s enough, but also 4 was enough. The next option is 16 or perhaps 24, and I’ve got no interest in those.
Go Irish (ducks).
If the point is to make sure the tournament includes everyone who might reasonably be expected to win it, then 8 is the number. If the point is that, plus making more money, then there needs to be a play-in round for slots 5 through 8 so that the eventual winner, who will be one of the top seeds in all likelihood, doesn't essentially have to play a second season to get it.
I am skeptical the Irish can hang with Georgia if Georgia plays reasonably well. The Irish D is elite but Georgia is has elite talent on both sides of the ball and the Irish offense just isn’t at that level.
That said, Beck can get erratic and ND is definitely good enough to win if Georgia isn’t sharp.
Aaaaand just like that Georgia is in a get points situation and fumbles it away
That pass attempt by Georgia from deep in their own territory that resulted in the Irish taking command of the game at halftime reminded me eerily of the braincramp call in the Wisconsin game that turned a 7-0 deficit into a 14-0 halftime deficit right before the end of the first half.
Two disaster turnovers by Georgia - one in the red zone and one that put Notre Dame in the red zone - plus the disaster sideline penalty about qualifies as not being sharp.
Beck is not playing, which has been known for quite a while. Plus, Riley Leonard is good. ND wins easily.
2 of the byes were given to teams that were heavy underdogs, and one of them took their opponent to double overtime.
The other byes went to a Georgia team missing their QB (which made them an underdog on most books by a point instead of being a multiple point favorite as they would've been).
And Oregon which was a 2-3 point underdog to an Ohio State team that caught fire last week.
All the teams with byes were actual underdogs in this tournament. The problem was that they gave 2 teams (Boise State and Arizona State) byes which they either shouldn't have gotten or should have been reseeded based on the original standings.
So I don't think the bye has anything to do with this (in terms of rust), the problem was the seeding.
Oregon should have faced the winner of #8 Indiana vs #9 Boise State for example. Or if it was reseeded based on rankings, they would have faced Arizona State even though both got byes with Arizona State the lowest ranked team in the second round.
Having a fixed bracket with fixed seedings and giving byes to two of the lowest ranked teams was the problem.
The other byes went to a Georgia team missing their QB (which made them an underdog on most books by a point instead of being a multiple point favorite as they would've been).
And Oregon which was a 2-3 point underdog to an Ohio State team that caught fire last week.
All the teams with byes were actual underdogs in this tournament. The problem was that they gave 2 teams (Boise State and Arizona State) byes which they either shouldn't have gotten or should have been reseeded based on the original standings.
So I don't think the bye has anything to do with this (in terms of rust), the problem was the seeding.
Oregon should have faced the winner of #8 Indiana vs #9 Boise State for example. Or if it was reseeded based on rankings, they would have faced Arizona State even though both got byes with Arizona State the lowest ranked team in the second round.
Having a fixed bracket with fixed seedings and giving byes to two of the lowest ranked teams was the problem.
Yeah, I think ND would beat them 7 out of 10 times. I couldn’t resist this at +0.5 for ND. I think they have at least a 50/50 chance of beating Georgia WITH Beck.
A win is a win for ND but Georgia helped them out. A long drop in the first half, giving back 15 yards when they had it at the eleven, giving up the kick return, and jumping off-sides on the critical fourth down. I think I've got Georgia if they re-matched.
Georgia committed complete disasters repeatedly. I remain unimpressed by Notre Dame’s offense outside Leonard’s legs
What does that mean? Great teams (we are talking about national champion level teams here) either don’t make many of those mistakes, or they are good enough to overcome them. If Georgia falls apart without one player and gets shut down by an “underdog/overmatched” ND, then they’re not national championship worthy this year. I watched that UGA-GT game. Just like the Texas-ASU game, if a targeting call was appropriately called in the last 2 minutes, Georgia (and Texas) very likely lose.
So in other words, Notre Dame played better!
Honestly, this was an easy game to pick for a pick ‘em. I should have teased the game to the -9 at +240 like I said I was going to do.
I don't think Georgia was national championship material. I think Ohio State and Oregon are the top two.
I agree, not making mistakes is part of being good. Great baseball teams don't make errors at critical moments and great basketball teams don't leave their free throws on the floor.
However, if Georgia had their starting QB, and ND and Georgia were to play a series, I think Georgia wins. Overall, I think they have the better athletes and I think their peak ability as a team is higher than ND's even if ND did play a more disciplined game yesterday.
We got to 12 teams for a host of obvious reasons:
* Preserving the "value" of conference championship games and ensuring participating teams don't just bench their starters.
* 12 teams is more than 8...more games = more money.
* The 12 team model will forever inherently favor the Big 2, and they know it. In most years it will include no less than two (but probably three) teams from B1G/SEC.
* 12 teams significantly brings down the heat on the last team in. If it were eight this year, then we would've been debating the exclusion of Ohio State or Tennessee (under the current system, there is literally no difference being #8 or #9)...that ball could've easily bounced the other way since OSU was coming off a "bad" loss to Michigan. As it is, no one is losing too much sleep arguing over 12th/13th/14th.
...so I totally get why they included 12, and I'm fine with it. My favorite solution to the problem we think we're seeing right now: let the top three seeds pick their opponents coming out of the first round. So, in this case, Oregon would've been allowed to pick who they play between Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, and Notre Dame. And then Georgia, and then Boise, and then Arizona State would've gotten the last team left.
Or, if you don't like that...then let Oregon pick from any of the seven teams remaining after the first round...so they could pick Boise (who still got a first-round bye for being one of the highest-ranked conference champs). If logistics and planning are raised as a concern, then you can have Oregon submit its rank-order list once the first-round games are announced, so if they wanted Boise that could've been known on Dec. 8, regardless of the first-round results.
* Preserving the "value" of conference championship games and ensuring participating teams don't just bench their starters.
* 12 teams is more than 8...more games = more money.
* The 12 team model will forever inherently favor the Big 2, and they know it. In most years it will include no less than two (but probably three) teams from B1G/SEC.
* 12 teams significantly brings down the heat on the last team in. If it were eight this year, then we would've been debating the exclusion of Ohio State or Tennessee (under the current system, there is literally no difference being #8 or #9)...that ball could've easily bounced the other way since OSU was coming off a "bad" loss to Michigan. As it is, no one is losing too much sleep arguing over 12th/13th/14th.
...so I totally get why they included 12, and I'm fine with it. My favorite solution to the problem we think we're seeing right now: let the top three seeds pick their opponents coming out of the first round. So, in this case, Oregon would've been allowed to pick who they play between Ohio State, Penn State, Texas, and Notre Dame. And then Georgia, and then Boise, and then Arizona State would've gotten the last team left.
Or, if you don't like that...then let Oregon pick from any of the seven teams remaining after the first round...so they could pick Boise (who still got a first-round bye for being one of the highest-ranked conference champs). If logistics and planning are raised as a concern, then you can have Oregon submit its rank-order list once the first-round games are announced, so if they wanted Boise that could've been known on Dec. 8, regardless of the first-round results.
There is no doubt Georgia has better athletes. However, this game is still decided in the trenches. ND dominated there and that’s why they would beat them most times even if Georgia had their QB.
This isn’t Georgia 2022. The SEC powers are hurt with NIL and the Transfer Portal. Players with NFL dreams/real potential just aren’t willing to sit for 2 or more seasons on Georgia or Alabama as back ups any more. The dominance that Saban had is unlikely to be repeated in our lifetimes. Blue Bloods will still be Blue Bloods but any one team or even one conference will not dominate as they have. I couldn’t be happier to see the smug SEC come back to earth!
My proposed solution to the byes thing is: move the round of 4 bowl games to the first round. Teams 5-12 play at the bowl sites. This eliminates the big advantage a team gets by being seeded 8 instead of 9, which is very marginal and subjective and probably not fair.
Give the 4 conference champs the bye week AND give them home field advantage. Now we're talking a really major advantage. The reality of the conference champs rules means a lot are still going to be underdogs and lose, but you're heaping all the advantages on the teams who actually earned it through titles and not based on seeding.
As long as that's based on regular season champ and not the stupid conference championship game. One game shouldn't decide that big advantage.
I think the exact opposite, conferences should be required to have the game in order to qualify for one of the automatic 5 spots.
I would argue that, by the time you get to the quarterfinals, those games should be played at a neutral site. I do believe that getting out of playing a whole extra game is by itself, an inherent advantage to the top four seeds.
While I tend to agree with this, I would also agree with anyone who says conference championship games are of questionable value (besides monetary), especially in an expanded playoff model. I do appreciate that most conferences have done away with divisions to further reduce the random luck of barely being better than one half of the teams involved and then stumbling into an upset, but I also think it's just a matter of time before we have 3- and 4-way ties at the top that have to go to a 7th tiebreaker to determine which two teams make it.
Why do you think that? Doesn't that cheapen the accomplishment of an extraordinarily successful season? I realize you have to be successful to make the championship game in the first place, but it would bother me if an undefeated team loses that last game to a two-loss conference foe whom they already beat in the regular season and now, because of that, loses those perks you are providing the conference champ in your model.
I can think of a lot of reasons, but the top two are incentives needing to be maintained for conferences not to drop the game to manipulate the playoff seeding system and the era of super-sized conferences leading to a decent number of teams playing a shortage of games against other top teams before the championship game.
Except teams playing in them seem to value them. I didn't see anyone sitting out a Championship game to be healthy for the playoffs, and UGA got hurt big time as a result. Championship games were also better attended than the Quarterfinals, FWIW.......
The QB was not the problem for Georgia. I thought he did as well as Beck would have done.
ND shut down the run and proceeded to harass the QB often tossing him on his fanny. Then we must add the key drops by Dawg receivers on the poor kid’s very good passes.
ND shut down the run and proceeded to harass the QB often tossing him on his fanny. Then we must add the key drops by Dawg receivers on the poor kid’s very good passes.
@NJCat - I agree with you based on the current system where only conference champs are eligible to earn a bye. If that incentive goes away, the B1G and SEC title games cease to have competitive value, because in all likelihood the four teams who would be playing in them are virtually guaranteed to make the playoff whether they win or not.
