NCAA Football 2025

I dont think there are many scenarios where the committee drops a team out of the playoff that was clearly in before the conference championship game. Think SMU from last year. The conference bosses would really hate that result. I think the committee may have specifically stated that they werent dropping any of the losers of the championship games last year.

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This was what we were talking about earlier ITT.

The committee really seems to treat CGs like extra credit for the P4 at least, so I cant see them ever dropping a team that was otherwise in unless there are a lot of deserving SEC teams and Cig decides to absolutely boatrace USC to prove a point. Then...still probably not, but maybe??

MOV matters

SMU lost on a last second FG iirc. Know way to know for sure, but if they got boatraced, I'm pretty sure they would've been left out.

They didn't explicitly say that they wouldn't drop losers, they just implied that they would be really averse to doing it.

The cases for bubble teams this year will be much stronger than last year though.

The biggest example of this is say we end up with 9. ND 10. Utah 11. Miami. If Utah makes the B12CG and then loses by 30 to Tech again, they get jumped by Miami.

Or say it goes like 8. ND 9. Utah 10 Miami 11. 10-2 Vandy or 10-2 Oregon or 10-2 Ole Miss.

Miami makes the ACCCG then loses to UVA. Miami is out for sure

Lane has apparently been told to **** or get off the pot by the Egg Bowl.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, re: the B-12 getting 2 or even three teams in... the B12 has done pretty well this year!

ACC
BYU > Stanford 27-3
TCU > @ UNC 48-14
TCU > SMU 35-24
Baylor > @ SMU 48-45
WVU > Pitt 31-24
UCF > UNC 34-9

Colorado < GT 27-20

The middle of the B12 went and played the top of the ACC and wrecked them.
Pitt, SMU and GT are in the thick of the ACC title hunt, and they lost to WV (2-6), TCU (3-4), Baylor (3-4) and almost lost to Colorado (1-6). UNC is gonna probably end up 3-5 in the middle of the ACC pack, and they got smashed twice by the middle of the B12 pack.

B1G
Utah > @ UCLA 43-10
ISU > Iowa 16-13

Cincy < Nebraska 20-17
OK State < @ Oregon 69-3

They also went 2-2 against the B1G. A top team from each conference (Utah, Oregon) played a bottom team from each conference (UCLA, OK State) and smashed them, and then the middling teams (ISU, Cincy) played two B1G middling teams (Nebraska, Iowa) and went 1-1 in games that went to the wire.

SEC
Arizona State < @ Miss St 24-20
Baylor < Auburn 38-24
Kansas < @ Mizzou 42-31

0-3 against the SEC, but 2 of the 3 games were on the road and none were embarrassing losses. None of the games featured contenders from either conference.

B12 is materially better than the ACC and pretty close to the B1G imo.

It's not tho. Nobody will care or feel sorry for the 17th team. Going 10-2 in the B1G/SEC is pretty much an objectively great season that should be rewarded with a playoff berth. The committee should never be put in a position of say choosing between a hypothetical 10-2 Oregon team or 10-2 Michigan team. That's absurd on its face. If a team finishes 17th no one will think they had a great season. We all know they didn't. Therefore no one will care when they get left out.

Idk man, we have a sample size of one 12 team playoff here. I'm not convinced "Numbers 13 - 16 would logically do even worse." Would need probably 5 years of a 16 team playoff to see if that trend is permanent.

Hmm...can't say I've ever noticed irony as a theme in your posting before, but we've all got to try something out of our range sometimes. I'm going to go with, "You're being ironic." and give it a C, but an A for effort.

Not being ironic AT ALL. It's obvious to me--even after a small sample size of 1.5 we'll call it--we need more than 12 teams. Can't have a system that leaves out teams that had an objectively great season. Can't have a system where a committee has the impossible task of choosing between a 10-2 Oregon team and a 10-2 Michigan team or two other teams that had great seasons.

I still think it would be so sick to have a college scheduling czar schedule week 11 games during week 8 or 9

B1G and B12 drop a conference game, and ACC and SEC drop their FCS second bye week.

For teams that have already done enough to get in (Ohio State, Indiana, ATM), they get an easy game. Teams that are looking for another quality win fight their way in.

The incentive is probably not there for any one team to do this, but if people trust the czar, it's better off if everybody does it.

You'd sacrifice:
Tech UCF
BYU Cincy
Utah K State
IU Wisconsin
Ohio State Rutgers
USC Oregon
Michigan Maryland
ATM Samford
UGA Charlotte
Ole Miss Citadel
Bama Eastern Illinois
Texas Sam Houston
Oklahoma Illinois State
Vandy Charleston Southern
Tennessee New Mexico State
GT Gardner Webb
UVA William Mary
Pitt Duquesne
SMU ETAM
Miami Bethune
Louisville EKU

who gives a **** about any of those games? BYU/Cincy and USC/Oregon would be the only meaningful games lost

The teams that have done enough get easy games:

Ohio State is in regardless, so why not have them play Cincinnati at home instead of Rutgers? Cincinnati could fight their way in, it's an in-state rivalry, etc.

Indiana hosts James Madison in the Curt Cignetti bowl instead of Wisconsin, and we get to separate the G5 a little bit

ATM hosts North Texas for an in-state bout

Georgia hosts Virginia

Ole Miss got gifted a light schedule and needs a tougher game - they get to host USC in the Lane Kiffin Bowl

Oregon also needs some meat on their bones, especially as they'd have lost USC in this scenario. Miami is already on the outside looking in, and in this world where everybody else is adding meat, they'd be desperate for a huge win. Oregon vs Miami in the Cristobowl.

Texas Tech hosts Tennessee. With three losses and no top-40 wins, UT needs a big win to get into the conversation. A home win for Tech locks them in regardless of the B-12 title game outcome, and even with a loss they still have a path.

Oklahoma has a brutal schedule already, they get lighter opponent and host Houston

Notre Dame hosts BYU in a new Holy War, awesome. Both their schedules could use some beef.

Bama also has a tough schedule already, they get to host Tulane

Utah hosts Vanderbilt in the scrappy dawgs bowl

Georgia Tech hosts Texas. 9-3 Texas with wins over Oklahoma, GT, Vandy and ATM would have an excellent argument, so they'd obviously be happy about this. As it stands, 10-2 GT is definitely out, but 10-2 GT that splits Texas and UGA is probably in. And they have the ACCCG to backdoor anyway.

Mizzou also has 3 losses and no top-40 wins, so they're kind of the odd man out here. Could've given them a top-10 game to try to get into the convo like Tennessee, but instead they host San Diego State to make the G5 race more interesting.

This is literally what people said about going to 12 - "nobody will care about the 13th team"

5 years from now, we're going to realize that this year was a big outlier in terms of a logjam.

The nice thing about 12 over 16 is that it the top team still have something to play for (the bye). Else Ohio State, IU and ATM could just pack their bags and wait for the first round.

I even think 14 is a lot better than 16

the top 2 teams get byes. Realistically the last 2 teams in are probably garbage, so #3 and #4 get to host bad teams (G5 champ and some straggler)

We've been trying to explain this for an entire page, it's not working...

I think the issue is that it's always something people don't foresee that causes the issue. Now the issue is NIL bringing parity, something that no one would've seen coming 15 years ago. At that point, everyone would've laughed if you suggested the 13th best team in the country should have a shot at any post-season beyond maybe the Citrus Bowl. Now we have more parity than ever, so things change. They're going to keep changing.

In this year's edition of "Vegas somehow does not bother to calculate tiebreakers"

Duke's opponents are 28-26

UVA 23-29
GT 22-31
Miami 23-29
SMU 22-23
Pitt 21-33

I believe that every multi-way tie except GT-UVA-Duke, Duke will advance.

UVA, GT, SMU and Pitt all have 1 loss.

They need to win out, and have one of the following scenarios:

So, they need 3 (or 4) of those teams to pick up a second loss:

UVA loses to VT (15%)
SMU loses at least 1 (54%)
GT loses to Pitt (41%)
Pitt loses to GT (59%) and/or Miami (75%)

That adds up to a staggering 10%. You can get Duke to title at 100-1, which is obviously massively +EV

the most obvious path is :
play UVA:
UVA wins (85%)
SMU loses 1 (54%)
Pitt beats GT (41%)
Miami beats Pitt (75%)

but also:
play GT:
UVA loses (15%)
SMU loses 1 (54%)
GT beats Pitt (59%)

or:
Play SMU:
UVA loses (15%)
Pitt beats GT (41%)
Miami beats Pitt (75%)

or:
Play Pitt:
UVA loses (15%)
SMU loses at least 1 (54%)
Pitt beats GT (41%)

or:
Play ???
UVA loses (15%)
SMU loses at least 1 (54%)
Pitt beats GT (41%)
Miami beats Pitt (75%)

There needs to be a system where a 10-2 SEC team or 10-2 B1G team or a 10-3 B1G/SEC championship game loser is automatically in. You can't reward some teams that have had a great season and arbitrarily punish other teams that have also had a great season. It's that simple. This slippery slope argument only works on those who lack independent thought or have no imagination. I think it's obvious to anyone who thinks about this for 30 seconds nobody is really gonna care about that 9-3 17th ranked team that gets screwed. Once the committee is choosing between teams that have had mediocre seasons nobody is gonna care about the "controversy" of a 9-3 South Carolina team being left out.

ATM only makes the SECCG with a loss if BOTH Bama and Ole Miss lose. They are massively overvalued right now

UGA has 3 paths to the SECCG:
1 ATM loses

2 Bama loses

3 ATM, Bama, Ole Miss all win, creating a 3 way tie which neutralizes Bama's H2H

Their opponents are 25-29, Bama's are 26-28

In this scenario, OM, Bama win and Miss St, Aub, Texas lose

So UGA 27-32, Bama 26-29

Bama gets 1 win from Mizzou/OU and LSU/OU

UGA 27-32, Bama 28-29

UGA has:
UF > Tenn
Tex > Ark

Bama has:
Vandy > Tenn
Mizzou > Ark

Then the big one is UGA has UK and Bama has Vandy

If UGA gets 3/5, they end up exactly tied, and so Ole Miss would drop then Bama wins H2H

So UGA needs 4/5 of those, which is unlikely but not terrible for a 3rd path backdoor

Yeah it's never gonna work. Not only do I find the argument "It's happened before therefore it will happen again" specious, I find it disingenuous. IOW I don't just think you guys are wrong, I think you're being deliberately obtuse. This idea that there's gonna be an uproar when the committee chooses a 9-3 South Carolina team over a 9-3 Illinois team for the final 16th spot is ludicrous. NOBODY WILL CARE. It doesn't matter that the committee's job of choosing which mediocre team gets in is still an impossible task. Mediocre teams don't deserve justice and people innately know that. That's why NOBODY WILL CARE. And that's the ideal state we should be shooting for. We should not accept a system where the committee is forced to choose between teams that have had a great season. That's ****ing insane.

Would obviously never happen, but in a 14 team system, is it just basically B1G/SEC champ that gets the byes? If not, does IU refuse the B1GCG invite at 12-0 with a road win over ORE this year rather than risk a loss since it does nothing for them?

Would be incredible cowardice, but one of those teams has to lose, so why take the risk?

Probably not worth thinking about since we definitely aren't going to FEWER teams, but it is kinda funny.

Lol nobody really cares tho? They care long enough to write a think piece on ESPN about "Who got snubbed" and then they move on. There are no yearly meetings for whichever team was the first team out in 2006 to hold the vigil or something.

You're just setting an arbitrary line at the severity of the snub of 2015 Ohio State and saying that mattered, but a hypothetical 9-3 South Carolina won't matter.

They'll both be equally meaningless about 5 minutes after the confetti falls. We get the same amount of attention now for Alabama last year as the first team out that we're going to get for the 69th-72nd team in March. Which is to say, not much.

Back in 2005, the 13th ranked team was probably decent but nowhere near as close to the #1 team as they are now. In 15 years, the #17 will almost certainly be even closer and people will be making the same argument you're making now. How you can think any arbitrary line will stop this "Once and for all" seems willfully naive.

Yeah. I'm not budging from my position. No one in the world can convince me that choosing a 9-3 South Carolina team over a 9-3 Illinois team for the 16th spot is a real controversy. And nobody in the world can convince me that a playoff system where a group of people get to decide between a 10-2 Michigan team and a 10-2 Oregon team is not ****ing stupid. Nobody.

I like 12 just the setup feels good and I like some bubble teams feeling pain.

Things like 10-2 Michigan missing out after they beat Ohio State is hilarious (to me)

The fact that some men are just happy to watch the world burn is irrelevant to this discussion.

But we aren't. A "great season" is not going 50% on your games versus comparable teams. If the committee is willing to play hardball over strength of schedule(and stop pretending a win over a team under .500 is ever a meaningful win as opposed to an expected one if you are a CFP playoff team) the decisions are a lot easier then you are making them.

I feel like you're the first person that's actually trying to argue honestly here. I can't fault you for challenging one of my core assumptions: That a 10-2 season within the B1G/SEC = a great season. I respect your opinion but I'm not backing off that assumption, so we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. What I can't stand from others is pretending a problem exists when there is no problem. That **** drives me crazy and makes me think I'm in a Twilight Zone episode.

Taking a look at JMU's slate with fresh eyes, it's actually not THAT much worse than Tulane's

JMU would have 5 modestly tangible wins:

v ODU (+1.9)
@ Texas St (+1.3)
v Wazzu (-1.1)
@ Marshall (-2.6)
@ Liberty (-5)

That actually looks about as good as Tulane's 5 best:
v Duke (+2.9)
v ECU (+0.5)
v Northwestern (-2)
@ Temple (-4.2)
v Army (-6.6)

And Tulane has 2 extra losses one of which is excusable (@ Memphis) one of which is bad

But Tulane would also get a chance to beat UNT, which is far better than anything JMU can do

I mean the entire thing is messed up. You don't have to look any further than ND ahead of Miami.