WTKA Roundtable 6/6/2024: The Tale of Joe Blue Tony (2024)

I haven't listened yet, but one bullet point questions two-loss teams in the Playoff (maybe I'm missing something). Every two-loss-or-better Power 5 team except for Oklahoma would have made it in last year based upon the final CFP rankings. And had the rankings actually mattered as to who got the final 11th spot, I think three-loss LSU would have received strong consideration.

https://collegefootballplayoff.com/news/2023/12/3/cfp-rankings-2023-1203.aspx

With its 2024 schedule, I think even a three-loss Michigan gets strong consideration.

tl;dr - showcase is a good idea, because it will avoid rematches, and in the most chaotic realistic scenario I could think of, crowns a real champion half the time, whereas the championship game would both have a rematch and "award" the championship.

I think in a setup without divisions, the showcase setup is great. With 18 teams and no divisions, there's no system that can guarantee you a true champion - but I think the showcase does better than anything else. In 2024, it is possible (and unlikely but not exactly crazy) that OSU's only loss is to M, who's only loss is to Oregon, who's only loss is to OSU, who give PSU and Iowa their only losses. That is 5 1L teams. It's fair to say PSU and Iowa don't have a claim because they lost to OSU, and there's no fair way to deal with a 3-way tie. The Big Ten likely has an Oregon-OSU rematch for the title, which is a rematch, and feels like a relatively arbitrary shafting of M because we didn't get to prove ourselves against PSU or Iowa. You'll define a clear champion - but it feels very much like awarding, not winning.

In Seth's showcase, OSU has played all 5 teams and gone 4-1 against them, so they'll play someone random, and Oregon and M both get one of PSU and Iowa. If OSU, Oregon and M win their showcase game you've at least established PSU and Iowa aren't worthy. If OSU wins and Oregon or M loses, you've still got a 3 way tie - it just now involved Iowa or Penn St in place of Oregon or Michigan. If OSU loses, then you've got a straightforward champ if either or both of Oregon and M win. If all 3 lose, you've got a two-way tie between PSU and Iowa. So I think there are about 8 different iterations, and in half you've got a straightforward champ based on results under their control on the field, and in half you've got a 2-3 way tie that will have to be based on who they did or didn't play.

Perhaps more important than merely getting into the CFP is positioning to be a 5-8 seed and host the first round. And if PSU does end up 10-2 or losing the BIGCG with a weak schedule it will be interesting to see if they are ranked higher than a team like Michigan with maybe a 9-3 record against better competition, and probably better advanced metrics too. We've brought basketball tournament seeding arguments into football--yay(!)

In some ways it would be better to finish 3rd in conference, skip the CCG, and get a home game to warm up into the CFP, instead of actually making top 2 and getting into that game. If you win, you get a bye into a big bowl but play a team that just won a game a week prior, when you've been off for a month. And if you lose the CCG, you still have to play 4 games in December-January to win a CFP NC. Seems extremely difficult.

NCAA 25 seems to be confident in Michigan's offense this year.

I think about the showcase proposal entirely too often. It'd be PERFECT!

It would work amazingly well for three 20-team "power" conferences. Each year, you could organize each conference into two divisions with 10 teams each, and you could reshuffle the divisions every year or two to keep things fresh. That'd set up a round robin that minimizes controversy when seeding the championship games, as well as each conference's two contests for the runners up. The primary benefits would be 1) having a clean procedure for auto-bids, 2) an extra data point opportunity for the most deserving CFP contenders, 3) a structure that prevents rematches prior to the playoff, and 4) a far more exciting lead-in to selection Sunday.

One change I'd make though, is to reduce the CFP field down to 8. I'm not at all fond of the month-long process to determine a champion, and believe that too cheapens the novelty of the college football regular season. Just add four wildcards to the four champions (each Power 3 + the top G5) and move it along.