People are too fixated on how the national audience perceives the value of regular season and bowl games.
Texas Tech went 8-5 winning the Texas Bowl and I loved every week of it. Local people do a great job of covering the team so I don’t need to listen to ESPN. Don’t let a national narrative tell you what’s worth celebrating.
ESPN discussion topics during every single regular-season broadcast:
* Which of these five players will win the Heisman?
* Which of these six teams will make the CFP?
* Which of these coaches (none of whom are participating in the game being shown) are on the *hot seat*?
* The College Gameday matchup that’s coming up later
* Probably some bullshit about basketball or baseball
Can I interest you in Aaron Judge going for a HR record for just the AL also? You can't listen to football even if it's during an important part and he might just strike out.
QB slide and running out bounds rules aren’t strict enough on the QB.
If you want to avoid getting hit, then completely stop your forward progress and slide/run out of bounds. If a defender has a remote chance of hitting you, then you took too long. It’s not fair for the guy on defense to have to react in a millisecond between “is this running quarterback going to truck me, or slide?” But ***more importantly*** it’s not safe either.
If the QB wants his safety protected (and we all do, obviously) then more of the onus should be on him to protect it as well. Sliding into defenders while they’ve already started launching themselves forward for the tackle is not good and will occasionally lead to nasty accidental late hits, like it already does.
Edit: usually I get a lot of shit for this but apparently this is not unpopular at all. Which is comforting tbh but sorry OP
Defensive players get absolutely screwed by the rules. There is no good argument against what you're proposing imo. You gave yourself up right as that defender was subconsciously timing his movement to launch to grab your knees. There is no way he is superhuman enough to react to that 40 millisecond difference of you changing your mind, qb. That hit is on you.
Yeah, momentum is a thing and once you’re in motion for the tackle you can’t exactly change it. Just as a QB slides and the defensive player knocks them in the head doesn’t mean he intended to do it. It’s very frustrating thing those calls. What did you want the defender to do? magic?
This. You shouldn’t penalize a defensive player for a maneuver that began as “legal” and which they couldn’t stop or alter. It’s almost encouraging QBs to take actions that could backfire and get their heads knocked off.
Oh, and please penalize the sh!t out of OL who push defenders into their own QB on the sideline in hopes of drawing a foul.
This is my biggest pet peeve. They give zero leeway to the defender while the refs use frame by frame breakdowns to see if a helmet barely kisses the QB’s upper body.
Then sometimes you get helmet to helmet contact when it’s slowed down and the refs don’t see it. 😂
I got so pissed a couple seasons ago when BC’s QB ran at the sideline like he was going to go out of bounds, then tiptoed the sideline for like 10 yards, so our LB (I think it was Dax Hollifield) decided to hit him, and only after he’d committed to the hit did the QB duck out of bounds. Naturally he got the flag. It’s absolute bullshit and needs to change.
Yeah, I think these are the situations that are most frustrating - QBs gaming the rule to try to get someone to hit them.
I think the rule should be "if you look like you're making a play, you're hittable". If you don't want to get hit, get on the ground, go directly out of bounds, etc.
They HAD to act immediately there because otherwise some poor bastard was going to get his head taken off in the middle of a REAL slide and nobody wanted to see that
To be fair the Pickett call was wrong and they just reemphasized the rule, as you are deemed down once you “begin to give yourself up” which I would say Pickett did
I'm glad they changed it, but also shocked that it took so long for a QB to attempt a fake slide. Was that really the first time, or just a poignant moment because of the size of the game and outcome of the play?
Technically the second you begin a slide motion is the end of the play, so it’s possible someone tried it before but the ref just correctly ruled the play dead
Fully agree. QB’s know this and use it to their advantage. If you want to run the ball, then you’re a runner. If you don’t want to take a hit then slide or run out of bounds immediately
Not CFB, but Patrick Mahomes is an expert at this
I always said this about the NFL and it applies to college as well: if you haven't stopped forward progress when running out of bounds you leave yourself open to be hit. The amount of late hits that get called because the QB/RB/etc is doing everything they can to tightrope the last couple yards while baiting out contact is obnoxious. If you are still actively trying to go forward while running down the line you should be fair game.
They should adjust the rule for QBs to where if they're headed up the field down the sidelines they're not protected. They have to be clearly headed out of bounds for the rules to protect them.
These rules exist to be of service to the casual fan who enjoys high scoring games. The purists enjoy the balance between offense and defense but that doesn’t always translate into ratings.
The playoffs should happen the week after all the Conference championships. When you give the top 1-2 programs a month to prepare, it essentially kills all competitive balance. See GA-TCU this year. While TCU probably doesn’t win, I guarantee that game is a hell of a lot closer if they play back to back weeks like the regular season
I’ve always thought the best answer is a bye week before the playoff games. Give the teams an extra week to get healthy and prepare, but a whole month in between games is way too much.
The fact that both teams had UM and OSU to get through first makes it hard to pin down, but I like that you bring up the prep time influence on the post season. For instance, did the extra prep time benefit OSU or UGA more? Does one side win by 2 scores on December 10th? Would TCU have beaten Michigan without the extra prep time the wolverines supposedly spent looking ahead to UGA? The time UGA and TCU both had to solely focus on each other after the semi's was still only 9 days. I think our questions will at least be given some comparisons by the expanded playoff, when there won't be the same kind of down time for teams in between games.
I think the extra prep helped OSU a lot more, and it's not particularly close. The team was down after getting cooked by Michigan in the 4th quarter, and we really were not firing on all cylinders at the end of the regular season.
That OSU team that almost beat UGA was not the same as the one who lost to Michigan.
Maybe the better argument is that TCU wouldn’t have had a month to prepare for Michigan, while only having about a week to prepare for GA. Clearly those timeframes produced different results; the question is whether it’s causation or just coincidence.
Maybe it's early for me and my brain hasn't woken up but I've read the op multiple times and I'm still not grasping what makes it so unfair to one team and not the other.
>I guarantee that game is a hell of a lot closer if they play back to back weeks like the regular season
They lost by 58 I don't think any amount of scale tipping would've made that game competitive.
I can't believe after that game there are still people who don't understand the talent disparity in this sport.
That's not true. I can believe it, but not because it makes sense to me.
I was at the game. There were two plays in the first quarter where I knew the game was over. One was an option read. I watched Duggan make the right read. Didn't matter, the Georgia player destroyed the blocker and it was a TFL. The second was a screen where one Georgia defender blew up TWO blockers and made the tackle.
After those two plays, I knew TCU didn't have the horses for this race. Trickery doesn't work when the other team is so much more talented and strong that your on-field decision-making boils down to what degree of bad do you want this play to result in?
If I recall, the difference in talent between TCU and Michigan was about the same as the difference between Michigan and Georgia. And Michigan was a vastly more talented team than TCU.
This. TCU didnt lose because it was a month of rest, they lost because they have 5 year COVID players who were, at best, 3 stars who had a LOT of luck facing NFL starters. It's a mismatch.
Yes! My great hope for the inevitable SUPERCONFERENCE is that the rest of us who get left behind (and are never going to be in the national championship convo again anyway) can quietly go back to fun regional tie-ins.
I fear the Indianas and Marylands and Mississippi States of the world are going to be truly miserable in the superconference future. They'll make plenty of money going 3-8 every year and being completely miserable forever. Condolences.
And that they keep using the same company name with different bowl games.
Explaining that the Cheez-It Bowl is actually the Camping world bowl and gets the #3 team this year, not the same as last years Cheez-It Bowl that is now the Guaranteed Rate Bowl that gets the #6 team.
That scenario above made a lot of people that didn't pay close attention upset or look down on the 2021 season for us. "Oh you just made the Cheez-it bowl this year, must not have had a great year."
Anyone who prefers the BCS to the playoff is either under 25 years old or just doesn’t remember what it was like
I promise you the 3 undefeated teams in 2004 and Alabama/lsu 2011 and Miami being kept out in 2000 was way worse than anything that’s happened during the playoff era
I think what people really miss are championship games that aren't blowouts, but that has more to do with the rest of the college football landscape and not the CFP.
Yes! We clearly have a fairer championship now... but it's at the cost of a whole bunch of games that are now less exciting. Winning a big bowl game used to be cool and the game felt like they mattered. *That's* what's missing.
I don't love some parts of expanding the playoff, but that part I like is that more games will matter.
I mean, this is just because Bama, Georgia, and to a lesser extent Ohio State are doing absolutely ridiculous things on the recruiting front. Everybody else has to be lucky to have a team that can compete with them.
The bowls still matter to everybody else. eg Texas Tech fans are under no illusion that they're going to win a natty in the next 20 years, so yeah, they would be absolutely ecstatic to make a NY6 bowl. Granted, the NY6 thing might change after the playoff expands again, but those same type of teams will absolutely care about making the playoffs even if they know they're just going to lose by 40 in the first game.
The BCS’s only major flaw was that it was a 2-team playoff.
The various algorithms making up 1/3 of the formula was better than a 12-person committee; it gave a reason for why one team was ranked ahead of another, and would be a better way today to differentiate between teams 4 and 5.
Obviously that doesn’t mean anything at all though if you can’t field a full tournament, which it couldn’t do with just 2 teams.
Completely agree. I’ve maintained that we should have only change one variable and simply added teams to the existing system.
The fact the committee makes subjective decisions based on “a bad or unlucky game” and it completely waters down the regular season.
I've never seen anyone on this sub argue that the BCS was better for determining a championship game / champion, just that the whole ecosystem was way healthier because there were way more degrees of success that fans would be happy with (bowls, NY6 bowls, etc)
What was it 2021 that Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State all finished undefeated. People pretending it's not an issues one gets left out is lying to themselves. Plus why wouldn't a fan want to watch them all play each other
> Miami being kept out in 2000
Assuming you’re basing this off Miami beating FSU head-to-head, imma just chime in to say we beat Miami head-to-head that year, had the same record as the other two, and were also left out. I would argue we should have also been strongly considered for a spot in the title game.
2000 would have been a very clear 4 team playoff. Oklahoma was an obvious top ranked team, and you could have seeded Miami, Washington, and FSU in any order.
My biggest issue with the current format is how it diminished the importance of the NY6 games. It used to be a HUGE deal to make a BCS game. I don’t want to watch PAC12 #2 vs B1G #3 in the Rose Bowl, I want to see #1 vs #1. Maybe with the 12 team format that will change, but this current 4 team format just sucks.
I blame ESPN for that, all they talk about is the playoff, they could talk about the big NY6 games. With the BCS they were probably talking closer to 5 games with 10+ teams
The amount of freedom that players have now with transferring is ridiculous and should be curtailed.
The old rule was that you had to sit out a year. You could change schools; go to class: practice and get training with the team, but you couldn’t play. That rule was meant for competitive balance purposes.
Agreed. Doubt it will come back as courts would probably view it as limiting students abilities to profit from NiL by moving to somewhere with better opportunities.
Maybe something can be done if players become paid employees and can have non-complete clauses in the contract or something, but courts may frown upon that too.
Nothing is stopping an ineligible player from making NIL right now. I could pay 200 bucks to someone on academic suspension today and it would be legal.
Just in general I wish there was more of an appreciation that this is an entertainment product where competitive balance should matter. It’s not a straight up economics/sociology conversation.
An issue with all sports where it becomes players vs owners/schools/etc and the fans/competitive balance usually take the loss.
Making the athletes employees wont fix things and will be a bad thing. Employee status will destroy college athletics and relegate many non-revenue sports into being club only (taking away hundreds if not thousands of scholarships nationwide).
And it wont fix the current competitive imbalance. Schools will find another way to cheat and will probably just return to the age of the bagman. Texas A&M is not going to accept recruiting on a level playing field with Indiana (both of whom will generate basically equivalent media rights revenue).
I think the current landscape of NIL could be improved in a way such that it could work long term. Reimplement sitting out for a year if you transfer before graduation and have federal legislation to make everyone play by the same rules
People are focusing so much on the NIL stuff but largely ignoring the transfer portal (not in this sub, but the general public). The portal is, imo, a much more disruptive addition to college football and if anything kills this sport, it will be the portal. The best schools will be able to take the best players from “lesser” schools with no compensation to the team they’re taking the player from, over and over, forever. It will eventually completely ruin any semblance of parity.
Granted the two in combination is what’s *really* brutal of course, but if I had to get rid of one I’d dump the portal before I got rid of NIL
11 am kickoffs are awesome.
Look, I get it. Hardcore tailgaters hate it. Students hate it. But I like bacon and eggs off the grill along with a Bloody Mary. Plus, the old Jefferson-Pilot time slot means you can get back to a TV for the afternoon and evening Top 10 matchups.
I agree in a situational sense. If we’re playing a bad team I love early kickoffs. If the game is big and being hyped up I like to watch other games all day and build up the excitement to the night game. Just 8 hours of nervousness is psychotic but also riveting
11 am games are ideal when watching your own team on TV, get your game out of the way early so you can fully enjoy the likely better matchups later in the day. Nothing better than feeling great after a win and getting to settle in for 8+ hours of more football.
As someone in marching band, the main reason I hate 11am kickoffs is because I'm not only up before the sunrises, but I'm up, in the stadium for rehearsal, and in uniform before the sunrises.
2001 Oregon had a legitimate shot to upset Miami. They were #2 in Ap Poll and Coaches but BCS put them #3 behind a Nebraska team that just lost by 30 to Colorado.
Kind of agree with this too. I could see the SEC only wanting those two and the Big 10 not wanting to get huge and just doing any future expansion with PAC teams when they get tired of traveling to LA so much and want more teams out west that can play each other yearly in football and twice yearly in basketball and other sports.
If ACC only loses 2 (or probably even 4 teams) they could stay pat, back fill with teams like WVU, Cincy, Memphis or whoever and March on.
But definitely a time will tell thing as realignment has been unpredictable. SEC and/or Big 10 could go decide to go to 20 teams or whatever, the 7 ACC teams exploring leaving could just do so when they can get out and create a new league and add some of the bone to get to 9 or 10 schools that are football focused and better money from splitting it fewer ways. Too many moving parts to have any idea of where things will settle down eventually.
I've got a few, but I think they are more "unpopular on this sub" take than large-scale unpopular.
1. **New neutral site games are okay.** Way too many people here will just complain about any neutral site games. I'm not going to defend all the choices (the FSU-LSU series in particular was a lame maneuver), but you can't let new traditions build if you're just going to shit on any attempt to let one happen. Also, the caveat that "But the legacy neutral games are okay," is a cop-out.
2. **Fall weddings are fun.** The CFB season isn't very long, but weddings are rare occasions too. I have a lot of fun being able to hang out with my friends and celebrate them. Plus, it's not uncommon to find a TV playing games anyway. Yeah, it sucks having to choose between the two, but sweating my ass off in the summer evening also blows.
3. **Army-Navy is an overrated game.** It's boring, sometimes very sloppy, and only rated as highly as it is because it's like 1 of 3 games on that weekend.
We got married in Ann Arbor in Fall 2021, but my spouse doesn't follow sports. She didn't understand why we could not get married on most dates when we were trying to set a date.
But on the other side of it, hotels are quite cheap in college towns on away game weekends.
Yeah, I think there is a formula to what can make a neutral site game work and generally repeatability is a major requirement. I don't think that should be the only one. I think there can be novel one-offs, but generally a series is going to create more success, provided you have the buy-in of the locals who are a part of either fanbase.
I know a couple years ago, Purdue and Indiana kicked the can around about trying to play the game in Indianapolis. There wasn't a lot of support by the fans for it, which is fair, but I can also see a structure *like that* working for teams. Perhaps if the two teams were further away from each other I could see if being viable.
A vague concept would be Buffalo-Toledo playing in Cleveland. If there was reason to think that the fanbases could support a good turnout there.
Army Navy is great *because* it’s such a mess. Anything could happen at any time. Does it? No. But it’s the *anticipation*. It’s the baseball of college football.
its bad football and only pumped up because right now people are salivating over "the troops". 99% of what makes the game special is only important to the two student bodies. Also, anyone sprouting that "hate each other for the game only" crap has never been in a budget battle. I generally had good working relationships with the Navy but the Air Force and Marines can fuck the hell off. The Chinese and the Russians are the competition, the USAF is the enemy.
Bad football is good. Yeah, you can watch two of top 25 battle for dominance. But I'll forever miss the shithousery of 2 ACC Coastal teams outside of bowl eligibility fight to see who can screw up more.
Army Navy is great because it's one of the only times that that sort of football is deliberately given a national stage. The UVA-Duke game is going to be on RSNs or ACCN, we don't get to have the whole of the country's eyes on us. Army Navy is our game. It's for all the teams who *don't* have a chance in hell for the conference title or the top 25. And I think that's beautiful.
Anyone who actually buys into the “no fall weddings” needs a reality check.
A (assumption here) once in a lifetime event that is personal to you is infinitely more important than a game that will have no lasting impact on your life and will get played 12 times per year.
Obviously it's more important, but the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.
And fall weddings in my experience are never during the Indiana or Rutgers game. It's always the fucking Michigan game or the Penn State game that I have to miss. Drives me nuts.
I get 12 days a year to watch my team play. 4-5 of those are big games. Please don't make me have to choose between my family and one of my favorite sources of enjoyment.
I'm gonna choose my family every time, but now I'm entering an event I want to cherish with a sour mood because I'm missing something else that's also important to me.
Hey speaking of that cancelled game...
If Ohio State was 6-1 and Indiana 5-0, the Big Ten would not have changed the rules for making the championship game on the fly. It would've been "gee, sorry, but rules are rules and we all agreed to this."
> It would've been "gee, sorry, but rules are rules and we all agreed to this."
Do you mean like what they did for the basketball regular season title in the same year?
Everything that makes college football great like rivalries, bowl games, conference identity, importance of regular season are dying and I think the sport will be worse for it.
OSU fans constantly bring up Michigan canceling the 2020 game like they were purposely ducking a loss, but that's some serious revisionist history. Michigan also canceled the Maryland game the weekend before the OSU game and the Iowa game the weekend after, and it was obvious the entire university was dealing with a significant amount of covid cases on campus.
OSU fans also never mention how they canceled their game against Illinois for the exact same reason.
OSU fans just wanted to beat the remnants of a covided Michigan team 88-0 and if Im being honest I probably wouldve wanted the same if the shoe was on the other foot
For sure. That team was already terrible for a variety of reasons. When Covid got in there too they probably couldve lost to an unknown percentage of the FCS.
Shows how bizarre the season was that the same husk of a program that was there in 2020 made the CFP the next year
Some Oregon fans think UW ducked Oregon in 2020, despite the fact that UW also had to back out of the title game the following week due to having literally zero available OL
The running clock rule change will have a large impact and not in a positive way. One of the best parts of cfb are the huge comebacks. Slightly shortening a game isn’t worth that trade off.
Overturning a call shouldn't require "indisputable evidence." It should just be what's most likely true. The official(s) who made the original call should be able to weigh in and say if they saw it really clearly and how sure they are, and the replay officials should be able to overrule them if evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
I’d add on and say there should be a time limit on replay reviews. If you can’t make the call in X minutes, then it clearly isn’t indisputable evidence
The thing is on a lot of long reviews, they made the decision to overturn much earlier in the process, and then the wait is trying to figure out where to spot the ball and what should be on the clock.
The fact that every frame of every replay isn't time-tagged to the game clock is mind blowing. When trying to line up two different views (e.g, you can see the knee touch in one view, the ball come out in another), how is the best we can do flipping back and forth and hoping for the best?
The 2023 rule book says:
Criterion for Overturn
ARTICLE 1 To overturn an on-field ruling, the replay official must be convinced beyond all doubt by indisputable video evidence through one or more video replays provided to the monitor [Exception: Targeting (Rule 12-3-5)]
I especially think this should be true for fumbles. There's extra pressure on refs to call a questionable fumble a fumble during the play, so that the play can continue through recovery. So if there's a 50/50 fumble, the ref will always call it a fumble in the moment to avoid blowing the play dead. And then the "indisputable evidence" standard makes it more likely that it will remain a fumble.
There needs to be a way for refs to say "I called it a fumble to see who would gain possession, but I think it likely wasn't one" and then you'd need indisputable evidence to make it remain a fumble.
The losing teams of the first round of the playoffs should still get a bowl since the first round is at home team campus.
Like the four first round games are more of a play in game. The 4 losers will match up against each other.
It’s essentially a losers bracket.
The NY6 bowls are for the playoff- but then you add two more to make it a NY8. The 2 they add are the sun and liberty bowls since they are very old and historic
Fbs teams should not be playing fcs teams. Yes it’s great when an fcs team beats an fbs team but most of the games are meaningless and just pad stats/records of teams.
From a competition standpoint, this makes sense. However, losing FBS money games would be a big hit to FCS budgets. I wouldn't be surprised if some FCS programs absolutely need this money for survival.
The 4 team playoff is fine if the teams are selected after the end of bowl season. That would keep all of the bowl games as legit achievements and give fringe teams a chance to prove they belong. People will care about bowls if there isn’t the playoff looming overhead the whole time.
The NCAA should have lobbied to keep the old restrictions in place.
NIL and no-sit transfers should be ended immediately. In addition, football players should be audited to show they are capable of performing college-level work. Schools where third parties pay players should receive two-year competitive bans. Finally, players should be required to be two-way guys.
The pre-BCS era made for a more meaningful bowl season. And that there was literally nothing wrong with coaches and newspaper writers having different poll results. The only winner in the playoff era is ESPN.
The bowls that mattered most in the BCS/Playoff era also mattered the most before the BCS. At most, ESPN talked about minor bowls more before they had a shiny Playoff to yammer on all day about.
I think this one is divisive, and while I disagree that it shouldn't count, it is certainly heavily skewed to your perspective. I personally thought, for the SEC and ACC, it was one of the coolest seasons of all time. The SEC basically did the "what if you only played P5 teams?" hypothetical that people clamor for in all the FCS scheduling threads. Bama played every team in the SEC, except to the two weakest ones (USC and Vandy), and then played Notre Dame and Ohio State for the title. Brutal schedule and still went undefeated. That said, so many people probably hated that it was Alabama who managed to pull it off.
For me, I basically don't hold any negative results against teams who had them in the covid year because how could you really, but I still give the teams that had positive results for that year like bama's juggernaut team credit for them. Which I realize is a little paradoxical but it's just how I choose to view it.
Michigan and Minnesota are 2 great examples of this. Look at their records from 2018-2022 for both schools.
Minnesota: 6-6, 10-2, 3-4, 8-4, 8-4
Michigan: 10-2, 9-3, 2-4, 12-1, 13-0
Only including regular season results here. But it's pretty obvious that 2020 was a negative blip in two otherwise pretty good runs for 2 different schools. Heck, Ohio state got a waiver to play in the CFP despite not being eligible for their conference championship. Outside the conference, you have situations like Oregon winning the pac-12 despite having a worse record than washington. Washington was ineligible due to quarantine rules IIRC. And I haven't been able to find data to back it up, but I distinctly remember alabama playing Ole Miss when the rebels were missing most of their scholarship secondary players due to quarantine requirements. The covid season was more about controlling outbreaks than coaching, development, or talent.
On the positive results side, I take some individual players with huge grains of salt. Malik Willis and Zach Wilson were 2 players who got drafted based a lot on their 2020 performance. Both have played terribly in the league so far. We're getting away from covid-only players being draft-eligible, but I think if 2020 was your only good season, it was probably a fluke, again likely from being better than your opponents at managing covid.
Well your deepest teams are probably the most likely to do it in these scenarios. When you’re teaching the game via zoom or can’t have regular practices/meetings, programs with the sustained leadership are set up to fare better. New coaching staffs struggled mightily that season. Add in the depth when kids tested positive too.
>Brutal schedule and still went undefeated
I won't argue they dominated those games, and the schedule was fun, but they played 13 P5 teams. Clemson and UGA did that in 2018 and 2022. LSU played 12 in 2019. Their 2020 schedule was par for the course for teams who schedule P5 OOCs on top of a P5 OOC traditional rival. It's not really rarified air, they just got more bye weeks.
Yeah I'm not going to lie and say I'd have the same opinion if Michigan had won a national championship, but at the same time almost nothing was normal about 2020 football, different teams faced different self-imposed rules and restrictions, coaches were coaching remotely, fans weren't at games. 2020 was a year of glorified scrimmages.
I think it's fine to be recorded in books, but I'm not going to hold malperformance against any time over it. I think it's a season where programs deserve to have their preference on the idea. Like, I don't think it should be discredited that Saban won another title, that Day competed for one. I also don't think it should be held against Harbaugh for having an absolute flop of a season either.
Iirc, the seasons during WWI and WWII still counted when looking at history. This also followed a similar trend to what we’ve seen with the COVID year- colleges across the nation abandoned their shut down their football seasons and even football programs while young men went to different theaters during the wars.
Edit: words are hard on a Monday morning
I'll give you one that's actually unpopular: you shouldn't be able to win a national championship without winning your conference, and in years where one team won the SEC and another won the Natty both championships should be considered split
It’s days are numbered. With NIL, most programs will probably not be able to keep up with the top P5 schools and will slowly remove value or funding for their programs. Many I predict will just drop football and varsity sports all together and go to club sports.
We’re slowly migrating towards European sports models, which retain school athletics, but those who intend or desire to play a sport professionally will sign or enroll in sports academies. We already have them here; like travel hockey/soccer, AAU basketball, etc, but that may be where it’s heading for young football players too.
Along with academies allowing room for NIL, and potentially even paid salaries, it also takes away any concern of academics interfering as well.
The worst thing that ever happened to college football was the playoff.
We will likely never fix the damage it has done to all accomplishments/achievements other than the national championship, a goal 2-6 teams (6 is generous, even in a great year) have a legitimate chance of achieving. Black hole focus on a goal that is unachievable for 96-97% of the teams in the sport.
I think ultimately sports media would have focused the narrative even more heavily on the BCS Championship than they already did, but the playoffs definitely exacerbated the issue. Watching a game in late October between Purdue and Iowa and having to listen to the talking heads go on and on about how Bama can still make the playoffs after getting upset is just exhausting af. Focus on the games and teams actually playing right now!
I’ll never forget 2 years ago watching UTAH win the pac 12 title and immediately after while the confetti was falling the commentators talking about bama and Georgia.
Yeah it makes casual fans think everything outside of the playoff is meaningless. I argue with a buddy of mine all that time that bowl games matter and the players care about them.
He argued the opposite which is ridiculous and is probably a mindset that casual fans have because of ESPN playoff or bust mantra. I've ever thought of it that way though.
A lot of players do not care about bowl games. That’s why many sit out to prep for the combine or to make sure they are healthy for spring workouts.
Bowl games are fun for players and fans, but no one really, truly cares who won the 2003 Citrus Bowl. Conference titles and national titles matter.
And yet a lot of players do care for them. Specifically at some of the smaller more over looked programs. It could be their last shot at glory to get noticed. It could be their last game ever. They've built up friendships and bonds with these other players who they all worked hard to get to where they were. They're not about to let the others down. Bowl games still matter to many of us.
Non-championship BCS games (aka the NY6) absolutely used to matter - at least to programs that didn’t make those kinda of games on a near-annual basis. WVU winning three BCS bowl games between 2005-2011 was a huge deal for the program and the fanbase. And you could tell from the emotions of the players after the games that it was a big, big deal to them as well.
I bet all the kids who won the 2003 Citrus Bowl and never played again care. Or the ones who never be the NFL.
Pointing out the players who are projected to go to the NFL as high picks don't care about bowl games proves nothing. That's such a small group of people.
Also as a Pitt fan I absolutely remember and care about bowl wins because Pitt isn't making the playoffs.
Much of this is driven by the fans as well. Look back at the UCF, Cincy and Coastal Carolina “Cinderella” seasons. People spent more time arguing about why they should be in the playoffs instead of appreciating the miraculous seasons they were having. Like, it’s seen as a failure if Coastal Carolina doesn’t get a bid
ESPN deserves a ton of blame, but the reality is that a shit ton of fans care about the playoffs. ESPN is just catering to them
I saw a tweet the other day asking if the non-playoff NY6 games even matter and tons of replies said no, and that all bowls outside of the NY6 should just be cancelled. I don’t get it! I love this sport, I want as much as possible! Who fucking cares who “deserves” what? And if you’re gonna argue that the games don’t matter then consider this… it’s all just a game and none of it matters or is that serious!
CFB is one of like 2 sports where the championship wasn’t the sole focus. Conference championships, bowl wins, and rivalries used to be a much bigger deal than they are now. The culture of the sport is dying
> a goal 2-6 teams (6 is generous, even in a great year) have a legitimate chance of achieving
That has been true for over 100 years. What changed was media fixated on it more the last 20 years or so.
But I wouldn't for anything go back to people that don't even watch the games voting on who they think is the best team. It should be decided on the field.
>That has been true for over 100 years. What changed was media fixated on it more the last 20 years or so.
That's because everything is more national. The entire media landscape has changed. 20 years ago there were still regionally broadcasted games on ABC. Newspapers were the main source of news which is more locally focused while the internet makes it easy to get national stories.
The playoff is really only good for those 2-6 teams, and one of them is your team lol.
The problem is not that only 2-6 teams can actually win it. I agree that's been the case for most of the history of the sport. The sport has always lacked parity, though I argue it has gotten worse in the playoff era in terms of talent consolidation, but the real issue is that it killed the value of other achievements.
I attended sold out non-BCS bowl games in the BCS era. We celebrated winning conference championships and BCS bowl games as major achievements. We argued about them at the lunch table growing up, etc. Now Pitt's QB sits out a NY6 bowl game, a game that program rarely makes, because the only thing that matters anymore is the playoff. Anyone who says the playoff didn't weaken the value of all other achievements in this sport was not paying close enough attention in the pre-playoff era.
yeah it has ruined the post season big time. i remember being so hype for every bcs bowl and now other than the playoff i can’t even get people to care
People blame the playoff, but the issue is the playoff as well as the championship or bust mentality is the inevitability of money. The teams with all the money in the world don't understand why they can't win all the time. They have all the best players and beat coaches and best stuff, so they are the best. There is much less emphasis on this the less money teams have. Teams with less money having smaller goals like make a bowl or beat rivals.
Congress should give the NCAA an antitrust exemption for TV rights (effectively nullifying NCAA v University of Oklahoma), the NCAA should take over all TV deals, and each FBS school should be given the same amount of TV money.
I think this would just cause P5 conferences, especially SEC and B1G to leave the NCAA. The only way this works is if they seperate the P5 and G5. Paying all P5 the same won't be so bad. Some teams will take a pay cut but it will be far less then if it is redistributed to all FBS.
Wildcards should not be introduced into the playoff until every conference champion is either included, or has a clear path. I'd be okay giving every conference champion a provisional spot in the playoff, if they meet certain metrics, like 9 wins, top 25 ranking, or wins over 3 teams who were ranked at the time of the conference championships.
People are too fixated on how the national audience perceives the value of regular season and bowl games. Texas Tech went 8-5 winning the Texas Bowl and I loved every week of it. Local people do a great job of covering the team so I don’t need to listen to ESPN. Don’t let a national narrative tell you what’s worth celebrating.
Hard agree, I was jazzed to get to see the Gamecocks play Notre dame last year!
That was a very fun game
The notion that your team has to win a national title in order to "win something" or win something "important" is toxic for the sport.
That part is just media narrative. They tell us to care about something and we do.
ESPN discussion topics during every single regular-season broadcast: * Which of these five players will win the Heisman? * Which of these six teams will make the CFP? * Which of these coaches (none of whom are participating in the game being shown) are on the *hot seat*? * The College Gameday matchup that’s coming up later * Probably some bullshit about basketball or baseball
Can I interest you in Aaron Judge going for a HR record for just the AL also? You can't listen to football even if it's during an important part and he might just strike out.
It’s not so much the national media but fans of a more successful team.
QB slide and running out bounds rules aren’t strict enough on the QB. If you want to avoid getting hit, then completely stop your forward progress and slide/run out of bounds. If a defender has a remote chance of hitting you, then you took too long. It’s not fair for the guy on defense to have to react in a millisecond between “is this running quarterback going to truck me, or slide?” But ***more importantly*** it’s not safe either. If the QB wants his safety protected (and we all do, obviously) then more of the onus should be on him to protect it as well. Sliding into defenders while they’ve already started launching themselves forward for the tackle is not good and will occasionally lead to nasty accidental late hits, like it already does. Edit: usually I get a lot of shit for this but apparently this is not unpopular at all. Which is comforting tbh but sorry OP
Defensive players get absolutely screwed by the rules. There is no good argument against what you're proposing imo. You gave yourself up right as that defender was subconsciously timing his movement to launch to grab your knees. There is no way he is superhuman enough to react to that 40 millisecond difference of you changing your mind, qb. That hit is on you.
Yeah, momentum is a thing and once you’re in motion for the tackle you can’t exactly change it. Just as a QB slides and the defensive player knocks them in the head doesn’t mean he intended to do it. It’s very frustrating thing those calls. What did you want the defender to do? magic?
This. You shouldn’t penalize a defensive player for a maneuver that began as “legal” and which they couldn’t stop or alter. It’s almost encouraging QBs to take actions that could backfire and get their heads knocked off. Oh, and please penalize the sh!t out of OL who push defenders into their own QB on the sideline in hopes of drawing a foul.
And now that wrap up tackle becomes a shoulder to the helmet of a sliding qb. Just isn’t really fair on the defender
Plus they'll show it all in slow-mo over and over again making it seem like the defender had more time to adjust. That shit happens in an instant.
This is my biggest pet peeve. They give zero leeway to the defender while the refs use frame by frame breakdowns to see if a helmet barely kisses the QB’s upper body. Then sometimes you get helmet to helmet contact when it’s slowed down and the refs don’t see it. 😂
I got so pissed a couple seasons ago when BC’s QB ran at the sideline like he was going to go out of bounds, then tiptoed the sideline for like 10 yards, so our LB (I think it was Dax Hollifield) decided to hit him, and only after he’d committed to the hit did the QB duck out of bounds. Naturally he got the flag. It’s absolute bullshit and needs to change.
Yeah, I think these are the situations that are most frustrating - QBs gaming the rule to try to get someone to hit them. I think the rule should be "if you look like you're making a play, you're hittable". If you don't want to get hit, get on the ground, go directly out of bounds, etc.
At least they changed the rule after Kenny Pickett’s fake slide thing he did a couple years ago
They HAD to act immediately there because otherwise some poor bastard was going to get his head taken off in the middle of a REAL slide and nobody wanted to see that
Kinda like that fake fair catch UNT did against Arkansas
To be fair the Pickett call was wrong and they just reemphasized the rule, as you are deemed down once you “begin to give yourself up” which I would say Pickett did
I'm glad they changed it, but also shocked that it took so long for a QB to attempt a fake slide. Was that really the first time, or just a poignant moment because of the size of the game and outcome of the play?
Technically the second you begin a slide motion is the end of the play, so it’s possible someone tried it before but the ref just correctly ruled the play dead
I doubt it was the first, but being in such a big game and a huge moment definitely was a factor
It wasn't called correctly on the field. They used this as an example. They didn't change the rule.
Perfectly reasonable take. I think a lot of defenseless receiver hits are the quarterbacks fault as well. Shit throws over the middle get kids killed.
"if they die they die, but they better catch that fucking ball" - peyton manning
Ah the old Peyton Manning to Austin Colle Special
I am a Colts fan and legitimately thought I watched Austin Collie get killed on that play.
In one of the games against the dolphins Josh Allen faked going in bounds before stepping out, he earned a flag
Fully agree. QB’s know this and use it to their advantage. If you want to run the ball, then you’re a runner. If you don’t want to take a hit then slide or run out of bounds immediately Not CFB, but Patrick Mahomes is an expert at this
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I always said this about the NFL and it applies to college as well: if you haven't stopped forward progress when running out of bounds you leave yourself open to be hit. The amount of late hits that get called because the QB/RB/etc is doing everything they can to tightrope the last couple yards while baiting out contact is obnoxious. If you are still actively trying to go forward while running down the line you should be fair game.
They should adjust the rule for QBs to where if they're headed up the field down the sidelines they're not protected. They have to be clearly headed out of bounds for the rules to protect them.
Patrick mahomes.
Put a line 1 yard OB. You are fair game until you cross 2nd line. Edit: 1 yard might be too far, but you get the idea.
These rules exist to be of service to the casual fan who enjoys high scoring games. The purists enjoy the balance between offense and defense but that doesn’t always translate into ratings.
The playoffs should happen the week after all the Conference championships. When you give the top 1-2 programs a month to prepare, it essentially kills all competitive balance. See GA-TCU this year. While TCU probably doesn’t win, I guarantee that game is a hell of a lot closer if they play back to back weeks like the regular season
I’ve always thought the best answer is a bye week before the playoff games. Give the teams an extra week to get healthy and prepare, but a whole month in between games is way too much.
Plus that allows Army Navy to stay in their special spot.
God that game rocks
The fact that both teams had UM and OSU to get through first makes it hard to pin down, but I like that you bring up the prep time influence on the post season. For instance, did the extra prep time benefit OSU or UGA more? Does one side win by 2 scores on December 10th? Would TCU have beaten Michigan without the extra prep time the wolverines supposedly spent looking ahead to UGA? The time UGA and TCU both had to solely focus on each other after the semi's was still only 9 days. I think our questions will at least be given some comparisons by the expanded playoff, when there won't be the same kind of down time for teams in between games.
I think the extra prep helped OSU a lot more, and it's not particularly close. The team was down after getting cooked by Michigan in the 4th quarter, and we really were not firing on all cylinders at the end of the regular season. That OSU team that almost beat UGA was not the same as the one who lost to Michigan.
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I mean by that logic, Michigan should have destroyed TCU.
Maybe the better argument is that TCU wouldn’t have had a month to prepare for Michigan, while only having about a week to prepare for GA. Clearly those timeframes produced different results; the question is whether it’s causation or just coincidence.
Not the week after. Have 1 bye week between CCG and the start of the playoff.
Can you explain this one to me? I dont see what advantage georgia got over tcu
Georgia didn’t prepare for TCU for a month. You know they played OSU first right?
Maybe it's early for me and my brain hasn't woken up but I've read the op multiple times and I'm still not grasping what makes it so unfair to one team and not the other. >I guarantee that game is a hell of a lot closer if they play back to back weeks like the regular season They lost by 58 I don't think any amount of scale tipping would've made that game competitive.
Completely agreed. No other sport does this with their playoffs. Even the NFL only gives teams 2 weeks before the Superbowl.
\*Whispers\* That's not why TCU lost and would have gotten killed just as bad.
I can't believe after that game there are still people who don't understand the talent disparity in this sport. That's not true. I can believe it, but not because it makes sense to me.
I was at the game. There were two plays in the first quarter where I knew the game was over. One was an option read. I watched Duggan make the right read. Didn't matter, the Georgia player destroyed the blocker and it was a TFL. The second was a screen where one Georgia defender blew up TWO blockers and made the tackle. After those two plays, I knew TCU didn't have the horses for this race. Trickery doesn't work when the other team is so much more talented and strong that your on-field decision-making boils down to what degree of bad do you want this play to result in? If I recall, the difference in talent between TCU and Michigan was about the same as the difference between Michigan and Georgia. And Michigan was a vastly more talented team than TCU.
You only need to look at the '21 Michigan-Georgia game to see that talent disparity there too.
This. TCU didnt lose because it was a month of rest, they lost because they have 5 year COVID players who were, at best, 3 stars who had a LOT of luck facing NFL starters. It's a mismatch.
TCU was always going to get blown out
I miss the traditional bowl tie ins and smaller regional conferences.
Yes! My great hope for the inevitable SUPERCONFERENCE is that the rest of us who get left behind (and are never going to be in the national championship convo again anyway) can quietly go back to fun regional tie-ins. I fear the Indianas and Marylands and Mississippi States of the world are going to be truly miserable in the superconference future. They'll make plenty of money going 3-8 every year and being completely miserable forever. Condolences.
I miss “BOWL NAME sponsored by [company]” I hate that it’s all the other way around now.
You didn't like the San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl?
I'm more of a Jimmy Fallon bowl fan myself
And that they keep using the same company name with different bowl games. Explaining that the Cheez-It Bowl is actually the Camping world bowl and gets the #3 team this year, not the same as last years Cheez-It Bowl that is now the Guaranteed Rate Bowl that gets the #6 team. That scenario above made a lot of people that didn't pay close attention upset or look down on the 2021 season for us. "Oh you just made the Cheez-it bowl this year, must not have had a great year."
I don’t think this is unpopular at all. I’d say it is the majority actually.
Coaches should have to wear the team uniform like baseball coaches.
I never thought of this, but I’m in.
Fit and fat coaches would rock it but for wildly different reasons.
Anyone who prefers the BCS to the playoff is either under 25 years old or just doesn’t remember what it was like I promise you the 3 undefeated teams in 2004 and Alabama/lsu 2011 and Miami being kept out in 2000 was way worse than anything that’s happened during the playoff era
I think what people really miss are championship games that aren't blowouts, but that has more to do with the rest of the college football landscape and not the CFP.
Yes! We clearly have a fairer championship now... but it's at the cost of a whole bunch of games that are now less exciting. Winning a big bowl game used to be cool and the game felt like they mattered. *That's* what's missing. I don't love some parts of expanding the playoff, but that part I like is that more games will matter.
I mean, this is just because Bama, Georgia, and to a lesser extent Ohio State are doing absolutely ridiculous things on the recruiting front. Everybody else has to be lucky to have a team that can compete with them. The bowls still matter to everybody else. eg Texas Tech fans are under no illusion that they're going to win a natty in the next 20 years, so yeah, they would be absolutely ecstatic to make a NY6 bowl. Granted, the NY6 thing might change after the playoff expands again, but those same type of teams will absolutely care about making the playoffs even if they know they're just going to lose by 40 in the first game.
The BCS’s only major flaw was that it was a 2-team playoff. The various algorithms making up 1/3 of the formula was better than a 12-person committee; it gave a reason for why one team was ranked ahead of another, and would be a better way today to differentiate between teams 4 and 5. Obviously that doesn’t mean anything at all though if you can’t field a full tournament, which it couldn’t do with just 2 teams.
Completely agree. I’ve maintained that we should have only change one variable and simply added teams to the existing system. The fact the committee makes subjective decisions based on “a bad or unlucky game” and it completely waters down the regular season.
I've never seen anyone on this sub argue that the BCS was better for determining a championship game / champion, just that the whole ecosystem was way healthier because there were way more degrees of success that fans would be happy with (bowls, NY6 bowls, etc)
What was it 2021 that Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State all finished undefeated. People pretending it's not an issues one gets left out is lying to themselves. Plus why wouldn't a fan want to watch them all play each other
I believe that was 2019 with LSU, Clemson, and OSU. Maybe 2018 with Bama, Clemson, and ND?
It's happened a few times. 2019 probably the best example though because all three teams were so good.
> Miami being kept out in 2000 Assuming you’re basing this off Miami beating FSU head-to-head, imma just chime in to say we beat Miami head-to-head that year, had the same record as the other two, and were also left out. I would argue we should have also been strongly considered for a spot in the title game.
2000 would have been a very clear 4 team playoff. Oklahoma was an obvious top ranked team, and you could have seeded Miami, Washington, and FSU in any order.
My biggest issue with the current format is how it diminished the importance of the NY6 games. It used to be a HUGE deal to make a BCS game. I don’t want to watch PAC12 #2 vs B1G #3 in the Rose Bowl, I want to see #1 vs #1. Maybe with the 12 team format that will change, but this current 4 team format just sucks.
I blame ESPN for that, all they talk about is the playoff, they could talk about the big NY6 games. With the BCS they were probably talking closer to 5 games with 10+ teams
The amount of freedom that players have now with transferring is ridiculous and should be curtailed. The old rule was that you had to sit out a year. You could change schools; go to class: practice and get training with the team, but you couldn’t play. That rule was meant for competitive balance purposes.
Agreed. Doubt it will come back as courts would probably view it as limiting students abilities to profit from NiL by moving to somewhere with better opportunities. Maybe something can be done if players become paid employees and can have non-complete clauses in the contract or something, but courts may frown upon that too.
Nothing is stopping an ineligible player from making NIL right now. I could pay 200 bucks to someone on academic suspension today and it would be legal.
Just in general I wish there was more of an appreciation that this is an entertainment product where competitive balance should matter. It’s not a straight up economics/sociology conversation. An issue with all sports where it becomes players vs owners/schools/etc and the fans/competitive balance usually take the loss.
and then the lower divisions also take a loss because they're never considered in the discussions until after changes are made.
OP said unpopular
Making the athletes employees wont fix things and will be a bad thing. Employee status will destroy college athletics and relegate many non-revenue sports into being club only (taking away hundreds if not thousands of scholarships nationwide). And it wont fix the current competitive imbalance. Schools will find another way to cheat and will probably just return to the age of the bagman. Texas A&M is not going to accept recruiting on a level playing field with Indiana (both of whom will generate basically equivalent media rights revenue). I think the current landscape of NIL could be improved in a way such that it could work long term. Reimplement sitting out for a year if you transfer before graduation and have federal legislation to make everyone play by the same rules
People are focusing so much on the NIL stuff but largely ignoring the transfer portal (not in this sub, but the general public). The portal is, imo, a much more disruptive addition to college football and if anything kills this sport, it will be the portal. The best schools will be able to take the best players from “lesser” schools with no compensation to the team they’re taking the player from, over and over, forever. It will eventually completely ruin any semblance of parity. Granted the two in combination is what’s *really* brutal of course, but if I had to get rid of one I’d dump the portal before I got rid of NIL
It's already happening. See: Jordan Addison.
Bringing the heat🔥 I love it. Wish more people would realize this.
11 am kickoffs are awesome. Look, I get it. Hardcore tailgaters hate it. Students hate it. But I like bacon and eggs off the grill along with a Bloody Mary. Plus, the old Jefferson-Pilot time slot means you can get back to a TV for the afternoon and evening Top 10 matchups.
I agree in a situational sense. If we’re playing a bad team I love early kickoffs. If the game is big and being hyped up I like to watch other games all day and build up the excitement to the night game. Just 8 hours of nervousness is psychotic but also riveting
11 am games are ideal when watching your own team on TV, get your game out of the way early so you can fully enjoy the likely better matchups later in the day. Nothing better than feeling great after a win and getting to settle in for 8+ hours of more football.
As someone in marching band, the main reason I hate 11am kickoffs is because I'm not only up before the sunrises, but I'm up, in the stadium for rehearsal, and in uniform before the sunrises.
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2001 Oregon had a legitimate shot to upset Miami. They were #2 in Ap Poll and Coaches but BCS put them #3 behind a Nebraska team that just lost by 30 to Colorado.
The ACC isn’t falling apart until there’s more desirable teams other than Clemson and FSU.
Kind of agree with this too. I could see the SEC only wanting those two and the Big 10 not wanting to get huge and just doing any future expansion with PAC teams when they get tired of traveling to LA so much and want more teams out west that can play each other yearly in football and twice yearly in basketball and other sports. If ACC only loses 2 (or probably even 4 teams) they could stay pat, back fill with teams like WVU, Cincy, Memphis or whoever and March on. But definitely a time will tell thing as realignment has been unpredictable. SEC and/or Big 10 could go decide to go to 20 teams or whatever, the 7 ACC teams exploring leaving could just do so when they can get out and create a new league and add some of the bone to get to 9 or 10 schools that are football focused and better money from splitting it fewer ways. Too many moving parts to have any idea of where things will settle down eventually.
I've got a few, but I think they are more "unpopular on this sub" take than large-scale unpopular. 1. **New neutral site games are okay.** Way too many people here will just complain about any neutral site games. I'm not going to defend all the choices (the FSU-LSU series in particular was a lame maneuver), but you can't let new traditions build if you're just going to shit on any attempt to let one happen. Also, the caveat that "But the legacy neutral games are okay," is a cop-out. 2. **Fall weddings are fun.** The CFB season isn't very long, but weddings are rare occasions too. I have a lot of fun being able to hang out with my friends and celebrate them. Plus, it's not uncommon to find a TV playing games anyway. Yeah, it sucks having to choose between the two, but sweating my ass off in the summer evening also blows. 3. **Army-Navy is an overrated game.** It's boring, sometimes very sloppy, and only rated as highly as it is because it's like 1 of 3 games on that weekend.
Kudos for actually listing unpopular opinions
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We got married in Ann Arbor in Fall 2021, but my spouse doesn't follow sports. She didn't understand why we could not get married on most dates when we were trying to set a date. But on the other side of it, hotels are quite cheap in college towns on away game weekends.
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nice
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Yeah, I think there is a formula to what can make a neutral site game work and generally repeatability is a major requirement. I don't think that should be the only one. I think there can be novel one-offs, but generally a series is going to create more success, provided you have the buy-in of the locals who are a part of either fanbase. I know a couple years ago, Purdue and Indiana kicked the can around about trying to play the game in Indianapolis. There wasn't a lot of support by the fans for it, which is fair, but I can also see a structure *like that* working for teams. Perhaps if the two teams were further away from each other I could see if being viable. A vague concept would be Buffalo-Toledo playing in Cleveland. If there was reason to think that the fanbases could support a good turnout there.
Army Navy is great *because* it’s such a mess. Anything could happen at any time. Does it? No. But it’s the *anticipation*. It’s the baseball of college football.
its bad football and only pumped up because right now people are salivating over "the troops". 99% of what makes the game special is only important to the two student bodies. Also, anyone sprouting that "hate each other for the game only" crap has never been in a budget battle. I generally had good working relationships with the Navy but the Air Force and Marines can fuck the hell off. The Chinese and the Russians are the competition, the USAF is the enemy.
Those last two sentences are absolutely hilarious
Bad football is good. Yeah, you can watch two of top 25 battle for dominance. But I'll forever miss the shithousery of 2 ACC Coastal teams outside of bowl eligibility fight to see who can screw up more. Army Navy is great because it's one of the only times that that sort of football is deliberately given a national stage. The UVA-Duke game is going to be on RSNs or ACCN, we don't get to have the whole of the country's eyes on us. Army Navy is our game. It's for all the teams who *don't* have a chance in hell for the conference title or the top 25. And I think that's beautiful.
This guy is fuckin nuts
Most sane Penn state fan
sink trees tease plough whistle memorize mourn nine pet different *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Anyone who actually buys into the “no fall weddings” needs a reality check. A (assumption here) once in a lifetime event that is personal to you is infinitely more important than a game that will have no lasting impact on your life and will get played 12 times per year.
Yep. If I dropped dead right now, you know who would care? My wife. You know who wouldn’t? Anybody involved in a football game. It’s one day.
Obviously it's more important, but the two don't have to be mutually exclusive. And fall weddings in my experience are never during the Indiana or Rutgers game. It's always the fucking Michigan game or the Penn State game that I have to miss. Drives me nuts. I get 12 days a year to watch my team play. 4-5 of those are big games. Please don't make me have to choose between my family and one of my favorite sources of enjoyment. I'm gonna choose my family every time, but now I'm entering an event I want to cherish with a sour mood because I'm missing something else that's also important to me.
Hey speaking of that cancelled game... If Ohio State was 6-1 and Indiana 5-0, the Big Ten would not have changed the rules for making the championship game on the fly. It would've been "gee, sorry, but rules are rules and we all agreed to this."
> It would've been "gee, sorry, but rules are rules and we all agreed to this." Do you mean like what they did for the basketball regular season title in the same year?
ESPN and Disney are actively trying to ruin the sport.
No their just actively trying to maximize profit, and don’t care what that entails
Everything that makes college football great like rivalries, bowl games, conference identity, importance of regular season are dying and I think the sport will be worse for it.
OSU fans constantly bring up Michigan canceling the 2020 game like they were purposely ducking a loss, but that's some serious revisionist history. Michigan also canceled the Maryland game the weekend before the OSU game and the Iowa game the weekend after, and it was obvious the entire university was dealing with a significant amount of covid cases on campus. OSU fans also never mention how they canceled their game against Illinois for the exact same reason.
Clearly ducking the Illini.
Can't risk the turtle.
OSU fans just wanted to beat the remnants of a covided Michigan team 88-0 and if Im being honest I probably wouldve wanted the same if the shoe was on the other foot
Iowa probably would’ve brutalized Michigan the following week as well.
For sure. That team was already terrible for a variety of reasons. When Covid got in there too they probably couldve lost to an unknown percentage of the FCS. Shows how bizarre the season was that the same husk of a program that was there in 2020 made the CFP the next year
Some Oregon fans think UW ducked Oregon in 2020, despite the fact that UW also had to back out of the title game the following week due to having literally zero available OL
The running clock rule change will have a large impact and not in a positive way. One of the best parts of cfb are the huge comebacks. Slightly shortening a game isn’t worth that trade off.
Kansas is the next Alabama. Roll Hawk.
Pretty soon people will forget we even have a basketball team.
Jay Tide
Overturning a call shouldn't require "indisputable evidence." It should just be what's most likely true. The official(s) who made the original call should be able to weigh in and say if they saw it really clearly and how sure they are, and the replay officials should be able to overrule them if evidence to the contrary is overwhelming.
I’d add on and say there should be a time limit on replay reviews. If you can’t make the call in X minutes, then it clearly isn’t indisputable evidence
The thing is on a lot of long reviews, they made the decision to overturn much earlier in the process, and then the wait is trying to figure out where to spot the ball and what should be on the clock.
The fact that every frame of every replay isn't time-tagged to the game clock is mind blowing. When trying to line up two different views (e.g, you can see the knee touch in one view, the ball come out in another), how is the best we can do flipping back and forth and hoping for the best?
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FWIW, the NCAA changed the language from "indisputable" to "clear and convincing" a few years ago.
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The 2023 rule book says: Criterion for Overturn ARTICLE 1 To overturn an on-field ruling, the replay official must be convinced beyond all doubt by indisputable video evidence through one or more video replays provided to the monitor [Exception: Targeting (Rule 12-3-5)]
I especially think this should be true for fumbles. There's extra pressure on refs to call a questionable fumble a fumble during the play, so that the play can continue through recovery. So if there's a 50/50 fumble, the ref will always call it a fumble in the moment to avoid blowing the play dead. And then the "indisputable evidence" standard makes it more likely that it will remain a fumble. There needs to be a way for refs to say "I called it a fumble to see who would gain possession, but I think it likely wasn't one" and then you'd need indisputable evidence to make it remain a fumble.
The losing teams of the first round of the playoffs should still get a bowl since the first round is at home team campus. Like the four first round games are more of a play in game. The 4 losers will match up against each other. It’s essentially a losers bracket. The NY6 bowls are for the playoff- but then you add two more to make it a NY8. The 2 they add are the sun and liberty bowls since they are very old and historic
Fbs teams should not be playing fcs teams. Yes it’s great when an fcs team beats an fbs team but most of the games are meaningless and just pad stats/records of teams.
From a competition standpoint, this makes sense. However, losing FBS money games would be a big hit to FCS budgets. I wouldn't be surprised if some FCS programs absolutely need this money for survival.
The 4 team playoff is fine if the teams are selected after the end of bowl season. That would keep all of the bowl games as legit achievements and give fringe teams a chance to prove they belong. People will care about bowls if there isn’t the playoff looming overhead the whole time.
The NCAA should have lobbied to keep the old restrictions in place. NIL and no-sit transfers should be ended immediately. In addition, football players should be audited to show they are capable of performing college-level work. Schools where third parties pay players should receive two-year competitive bans. Finally, players should be required to be two-way guys.
The pre-BCS era made for a more meaningful bowl season. And that there was literally nothing wrong with coaches and newspaper writers having different poll results. The only winner in the playoff era is ESPN.
People say this but I dont remember thinking winning the Outback Bowl was a big deal
First of all, how dare you
The bowls that mattered most in the BCS/Playoff era also mattered the most before the BCS. At most, ESPN talked about minor bowls more before they had a shiny Playoff to yammer on all day about.
Outback Bowl was a consolation for your team. NY6 bowls were always a big deal.
There are too few FBS teams
There are too many
The 2020 season shouldn't be counted as a real season when discussing historical football results.
I think this one is divisive, and while I disagree that it shouldn't count, it is certainly heavily skewed to your perspective. I personally thought, for the SEC and ACC, it was one of the coolest seasons of all time. The SEC basically did the "what if you only played P5 teams?" hypothetical that people clamor for in all the FCS scheduling threads. Bama played every team in the SEC, except to the two weakest ones (USC and Vandy), and then played Notre Dame and Ohio State for the title. Brutal schedule and still went undefeated. That said, so many people probably hated that it was Alabama who managed to pull it off.
For me, I basically don't hold any negative results against teams who had them in the covid year because how could you really, but I still give the teams that had positive results for that year like bama's juggernaut team credit for them. Which I realize is a little paradoxical but it's just how I choose to view it.
Michigan and Minnesota are 2 great examples of this. Look at their records from 2018-2022 for both schools. Minnesota: 6-6, 10-2, 3-4, 8-4, 8-4 Michigan: 10-2, 9-3, 2-4, 12-1, 13-0 Only including regular season results here. But it's pretty obvious that 2020 was a negative blip in two otherwise pretty good runs for 2 different schools. Heck, Ohio state got a waiver to play in the CFP despite not being eligible for their conference championship. Outside the conference, you have situations like Oregon winning the pac-12 despite having a worse record than washington. Washington was ineligible due to quarantine rules IIRC. And I haven't been able to find data to back it up, but I distinctly remember alabama playing Ole Miss when the rebels were missing most of their scholarship secondary players due to quarantine requirements. The covid season was more about controlling outbreaks than coaching, development, or talent. On the positive results side, I take some individual players with huge grains of salt. Malik Willis and Zach Wilson were 2 players who got drafted based a lot on their 2020 performance. Both have played terribly in the league so far. We're getting away from covid-only players being draft-eligible, but I think if 2020 was your only good season, it was probably a fluke, again likely from being better than your opponents at managing covid.
Well your deepest teams are probably the most likely to do it in these scenarios. When you’re teaching the game via zoom or can’t have regular practices/meetings, programs with the sustained leadership are set up to fare better. New coaching staffs struggled mightily that season. Add in the depth when kids tested positive too.
>Brutal schedule and still went undefeated I won't argue they dominated those games, and the schedule was fun, but they played 13 P5 teams. Clemson and UGA did that in 2018 and 2022. LSU played 12 in 2019. Their 2020 schedule was par for the course for teams who schedule P5 OOCs on top of a P5 OOC traditional rival. It's not really rarified air, they just got more bye weeks.
Flair checks out
Yeah I'm not going to lie and say I'd have the same opinion if Michigan had won a national championship, but at the same time almost nothing was normal about 2020 football, different teams faced different self-imposed rules and restrictions, coaches were coaching remotely, fans weren't at games. 2020 was a year of glorified scrimmages.
It lets y’all tack on an extra 365 days when saying “X days since OSU beat michigan”
He's right guys, we need to count 2020 based on this alone.
I think it's fine to be recorded in books, but I'm not going to hold malperformance against any time over it. I think it's a season where programs deserve to have their preference on the idea. Like, I don't think it should be discredited that Saban won another title, that Day competed for one. I also don't think it should be held against Harbaugh for having an absolute flop of a season either.
I disagree with this statement
Iirc, the seasons during WWI and WWII still counted when looking at history. This also followed a similar trend to what we’ve seen with the COVID year- colleges across the nation abandoned their shut down their football seasons and even football programs while young men went to different theaters during the wars. Edit: words are hard on a Monday morning
I'll give you one that's actually unpopular: you shouldn't be able to win a national championship without winning your conference, and in years where one team won the SEC and another won the Natty both championships should be considered split
The term "skill position" is annoying and an insult to linemen.
It’s days are numbered. With NIL, most programs will probably not be able to keep up with the top P5 schools and will slowly remove value or funding for their programs. Many I predict will just drop football and varsity sports all together and go to club sports. We’re slowly migrating towards European sports models, which retain school athletics, but those who intend or desire to play a sport professionally will sign or enroll in sports academies. We already have them here; like travel hockey/soccer, AAU basketball, etc, but that may be where it’s heading for young football players too. Along with academies allowing room for NIL, and potentially even paid salaries, it also takes away any concern of academics interfering as well.
The worst thing that ever happened to college football was the playoff. We will likely never fix the damage it has done to all accomplishments/achievements other than the national championship, a goal 2-6 teams (6 is generous, even in a great year) have a legitimate chance of achieving. Black hole focus on a goal that is unachievable for 96-97% of the teams in the sport.
I think ultimately sports media would have focused the narrative even more heavily on the BCS Championship than they already did, but the playoffs definitely exacerbated the issue. Watching a game in late October between Purdue and Iowa and having to listen to the talking heads go on and on about how Bama can still make the playoffs after getting upset is just exhausting af. Focus on the games and teams actually playing right now!
I’ll never forget 2 years ago watching UTAH win the pac 12 title and immediately after while the confetti was falling the commentators talking about bama and Georgia.
The whole “playoffs of bust” mantra ESPN has been preaching is awful.
Yeah it makes casual fans think everything outside of the playoff is meaningless. I argue with a buddy of mine all that time that bowl games matter and the players care about them. He argued the opposite which is ridiculous and is probably a mindset that casual fans have because of ESPN playoff or bust mantra. I've ever thought of it that way though.
A lot of players do not care about bowl games. That’s why many sit out to prep for the combine or to make sure they are healthy for spring workouts. Bowl games are fun for players and fans, but no one really, truly cares who won the 2003 Citrus Bowl. Conference titles and national titles matter.
And yet a lot of players do care for them. Specifically at some of the smaller more over looked programs. It could be their last shot at glory to get noticed. It could be their last game ever. They've built up friendships and bonds with these other players who they all worked hard to get to where they were. They're not about to let the others down. Bowl games still matter to many of us.
This exactly. People act like these kids don't become brothers.
Non-championship BCS games (aka the NY6) absolutely used to matter - at least to programs that didn’t make those kinda of games on a near-annual basis. WVU winning three BCS bowl games between 2005-2011 was a huge deal for the program and the fanbase. And you could tell from the emotions of the players after the games that it was a big, big deal to them as well.
I bet all the kids who won the 2003 Citrus Bowl and never played again care. Or the ones who never be the NFL. Pointing out the players who are projected to go to the NFL as high picks don't care about bowl games proves nothing. That's such a small group of people. Also as a Pitt fan I absolutely remember and care about bowl wins because Pitt isn't making the playoffs.
Much of this is driven by the fans as well. Look back at the UCF, Cincy and Coastal Carolina “Cinderella” seasons. People spent more time arguing about why they should be in the playoffs instead of appreciating the miraculous seasons they were having. Like, it’s seen as a failure if Coastal Carolina doesn’t get a bid ESPN deserves a ton of blame, but the reality is that a shit ton of fans care about the playoffs. ESPN is just catering to them
I saw a tweet the other day asking if the non-playoff NY6 games even matter and tons of replies said no, and that all bowls outside of the NY6 should just be cancelled. I don’t get it! I love this sport, I want as much as possible! Who fucking cares who “deserves” what? And if you’re gonna argue that the games don’t matter then consider this… it’s all just a game and none of it matters or is that serious!
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CFB is one of like 2 sports where the championship wasn’t the sole focus. Conference championships, bowl wins, and rivalries used to be a much bigger deal than they are now. The culture of the sport is dying
Yeah it's a damn shame schools don't honor their traditional conference relationships, instead of jumping ship to chase the almighty dollar.
> a goal 2-6 teams (6 is generous, even in a great year) have a legitimate chance of achieving That has been true for over 100 years. What changed was media fixated on it more the last 20 years or so. But I wouldn't for anything go back to people that don't even watch the games voting on who they think is the best team. It should be decided on the field.
>That has been true for over 100 years. What changed was media fixated on it more the last 20 years or so. That's because everything is more national. The entire media landscape has changed. 20 years ago there were still regionally broadcasted games on ABC. Newspapers were the main source of news which is more locally focused while the internet makes it easy to get national stories.
The playoff is really only good for those 2-6 teams, and one of them is your team lol. The problem is not that only 2-6 teams can actually win it. I agree that's been the case for most of the history of the sport. The sport has always lacked parity, though I argue it has gotten worse in the playoff era in terms of talent consolidation, but the real issue is that it killed the value of other achievements. I attended sold out non-BCS bowl games in the BCS era. We celebrated winning conference championships and BCS bowl games as major achievements. We argued about them at the lunch table growing up, etc. Now Pitt's QB sits out a NY6 bowl game, a game that program rarely makes, because the only thing that matters anymore is the playoff. Anyone who says the playoff didn't weaken the value of all other achievements in this sport was not paying close enough attention in the pre-playoff era.
yeah it has ruined the post season big time. i remember being so hype for every bcs bowl and now other than the playoff i can’t even get people to care
People blame the playoff, but the issue is the playoff as well as the championship or bust mentality is the inevitability of money. The teams with all the money in the world don't understand why they can't win all the time. They have all the best players and beat coaches and best stuff, so they are the best. There is much less emphasis on this the less money teams have. Teams with less money having smaller goals like make a bowl or beat rivals.
Which is what exactly what the skeptics said was going to happen
FBS vs FCS teams shouldn't play each other. At least not officially. Those games shouldn't count for bowl eligiblity.
I bet you've had this opinion for about 9 years now? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnOb4Fu-HHk
Congress should give the NCAA an antitrust exemption for TV rights (effectively nullifying NCAA v University of Oklahoma), the NCAA should take over all TV deals, and each FBS school should be given the same amount of TV money.
That’s a great way to accelerate the death of the NCAA.
I think this would just cause P5 conferences, especially SEC and B1G to leave the NCAA. The only way this works is if they seperate the P5 and G5. Paying all P5 the same won't be so bad. Some teams will take a pay cut but it will be far less then if it is redistributed to all FBS.
I could be a starting QB.
Wildcards should not be introduced into the playoff until every conference champion is either included, or has a clear path. I'd be okay giving every conference champion a provisional spot in the playoff, if they meet certain metrics, like 9 wins, top 25 ranking, or wins over 3 teams who were ranked at the time of the conference championships.
Ball carriers should be subject to targeting rules. Lower your head and lead with the crown? You get ejected.