WRAL Sports Fan

Talks Of FBS Playoffs Continue In Chicago

Haven't seen this in our discussions:

http://www.chapelboro.com/Talks-Of-FBS-Playoffs-Continue-In-Chicago/13499969

RE: Talks Of FBS Playoffs Continue In Chicago

Good news, IMHWPO. It's a start. Looking forward to someone, ANYONE, other than an SEC school winning a NC in football.

RE: Talks Of FBS Playoffs Continue In Chicago

It appears that the Big Ten is proposing an alternative to the opposing views of the SEC/Big XII faction and the Big Ten/Pac 12 faction. The former want the four highest ranked teams regardless of conference. The latter want the four highest ranked conference champions.

The compromise being floated is that all conference champions ranked in the top 6 would be invited before any at large teams are considered. If there are more than four such champions, the four highest ranked go. If there are fewer than four, the field will be filled out with the highest ranked non-champions.

In the past 7 years, Boise State would have been the only champion excluded. They were ranked #6, but unfortunately for them, there were five unbeaten teams that year. Only twice during that time would an at-large team have been invited: in 2005, #4 Ohio State would have made the field instead of SEC champ (#7) Georgia and last year, #2 Alabama would have been picked instead of #10 Wisconsin, the Big Ten champ.

I can live with that.

RE: Talks Of FBS Playoffs Continue In Chicago

Analyzing the data further, we see that predictably, the SEC would have had the most invitations (7) during this span. The Big Ten, Big XII and PAC 12 would have had 5 each, the Mountain West 3, the Big East 2, and the ACC 1.

With the most recent conference realignments, I think you would see the field tilt even stronger in the direction of the four power conferences. I also think you would see human voters make a subtle shift in their voting patterns, leaning more in favor of conference champs, especially over teams that don't even win their own division. I believe this because I don't believe voters rank teams based on how strong they think they are, but rather who they think should be rewarded in the postseason.