Where do you stand on the GREAT ISSUE: Playoffs?

kentdaddy wrote:

A plus one will be a start. That would be a de facto 4 team playoff. I could die a happy man with that. It is a rare season where the #5 team would have a beef that they are the true #1. After we get the plus 1 then we can work on the 8 teams playoff.

I've said before I'm all for a plus-one system. I just think that a full-on playoff system would kill college football's sense of minute-to-minute urgency. You know how I know this? Two years ago, I went to my NFL team -- the Carolina Panthers' -- home opener against New Orleans. I'm not a rabid Panthers fan, but I root for the team and love them because they're my hometown fan and have provided me with some pretty memorable moments in only 10 years. I own jerseys, hats, etc. I lived and died with every play in the Superbowl, and in our NFC championship run two years ago.

Anyway, in the game against New Orleans -- a division rival -- we lost on a last-second field goal. But I didn't leave the stadium feeling sick to my stomach, didn't lose one second of sleep. You know why? Because there were 15 games left. Because in the NFC, you can get into the playoffs at 9-7. Because individual games DO NOT MATTER in the NFL. With the exception of some rivalry games (Pittsburgh-Cleveland, or Indy-New England), there just is not the lustre to individual NFL games that there is to college football games, and I think that a good deal of that is owed to the fact that you must win EVERY GAME. In 2005 we did not win the NFC South, largely because we did not beat New Orleans IN THAT GAME. But we made the playoffs at 11-5, and we went to the NFC Championship game. So even winning our division did not matter.

What I love about the college football season is that it is short, intense, and every single second of play counts. That's simply not true of sports that have playoff systems. You think Kentucky will be sweating their loss to Gardner-Webb in January? Hell no. It's a point-of-pride thing, but they can still win the SEC, can still win the SEC tourney, can still make the field of 65. Which means THEY CAN STILL WIN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP. Michigan's hopes of a national title were OVER the second time ran out against Appalachian State. They could have gone 11-1 and won the Big Ten and had no shot at a national title. And that's the way it SHOULD be. Winning your conference should mean something. Winning convincingly over teams you should beat should mean something.

I think we have to agree to disagree here. But this is another thing I love about college football: spirited debate. What follows Selection Sunday in college basketball isn't spirited debate; it's whining about who should have gotten in and didn't.

I'll agree with you on that one, dapolla--everyone will pretty much have to agree to disagree. Everyone has their own reasons for which side of the fence they're on, and never the twain shall meet. I don't think I've ever convinced a non-playoff believer that we should have one, just as I've wanted a playoff for over 30 years and have heard all the arguments and will never be convinced we don't need one.

But for the most part, if you are going to have only an eight team playoff, you STILL had not better lose more than one, MAYBE 2 games to even MAKE it into the top 8. Plus if you lose to somebody you aren't suppose to lose to, you won't be in the top 8 anyway. So IMO, there is still huge urgency in trying to win EVERY game you play. There will be some years when a 2 loss team won't even be in the top 10, so every week, you had BETTER take care of business, ESPECIALLY in the SEC. Now if you go to a 16 team playoff, the sense of urgency comes into play.

dapolla wrote:

kentdaddy wrote:

A plus one will be a start. That would be a de facto 4 team playoff. I could die a happy man with that. It is a rare season where the #5 team would have a beef that they are the true #1. After we get the plus 1 then we can work on the 8 teams playoff.

I've said before I'm all for a plus-one system. I just think that a full-on playoff system would kill college football's sense of minute-to-minute urgency.

With an 8-team playoff, 5 conference title winners + 3 at-large bids....the sense of urgency is still there.

People say that yet never give any sort of rational explanation as to why it would leave.

Your NFL example didn't really prove anything other then show how different the NFL is to the NCAA which everyone already knows.

When my Saints lost their first 2-3 games, I really wasn't that mad.

As the Great Discussion continues on, these facts appear obvious:
1) The collective wisdom of the members of this forum, is of an especially high quality.
2) The aruguments of dapolla (supported by borderline chirping from Dawgspeare) prevail, and most all men and women everywhere of reasonable thinking must concede that the NO PLAYOFF FORMAT for CFB must continue!

It is truly sad and disappointing to see kentdaddy make such a mockery of my earlier post. The very idea that he could possibly have interviewed some 8,000 football players is just too much...just too much.

My actual interviews of over 3,000 players is obviously more realistic and is a large enough population to qualify for a scientific sample of the larger, complete population. It should be quite clear at this point that by simple extrapolation of the data from my interviews to the larger population of all NCAA football players, results in the inescapable conclusion that the overwhelming majority of players DO NOT WANT A PLAYOFF!