Post-season Play-offs

[colorado_loves_football]

Tressel has won 78% of his games at Ohio State, but his record is only 40-11. He spent most of his head coaching career at 1-AA. I don't know what his W/L percentage was in 1-AA, but has won 5 D-1AA national championships and 1 D-1 national championship.

Ohio State has a .711 winning percentage all time, but they are a lot better since 1942. They really stunk it up early on.

The key to remaining in the spotlight is keeping the heat on the coach. Look at Fullmer in Tennessee. He has a very good record, but he is feeling the heat for last season. One more year even close to that and he will be looking for a job.

Larry Coker from Miami has so much heat on him he probably climbs in a hot tub to cool off.

Nebraska has been patient for a couple years while Bill Callahan got his players in place, I suspect that they expect the future to be this year. Even the great Joe Paterno was feeling the heat the last couple years at Penn St.

They aren't paying these guys for 8-4 years. They are paying them to win championships.

You guys obviously have a better handle on the coaches situations than I ever will. I don't follow it that closely, for one thing, but as a 'fan' I try to be aware of what's happening, anyway.

But if you win, and win consistently, you will be assured of a job, at any rate. Sounds like Tressel is maybe still getting his feet wet competitively-speaking. Then again, if he can recruit, that's half the battle. j
Colorado, they had a top recruiter in Rick Neuheisel but he broke the rules and was fired as a result. Gary Barnett had some recruiting problems of his own, and that's probably the reason he was replaced. Bill McCartney was a recruiter, but he also was a pretty good example, I think for the student-athlete, to emulate.
It will be interesting to see how Dan Hawkins does, in his role as head coach.He's got a clean slate, so that should help. He will be walking into a successful program, at least in terms of their overall competitive record. But Colorado has had some dry spells, so I hope that won't be the case with Hawkins.
He was successful at Boise St, but similar to Tressell, that's almost like a I-AA program, at least in terms of it's stature. I dont' know how big a jump it will be for him, hopefully it will just be like moving from one job, to another, where he can continue on where he left off.
At any rate it will be fun to watch, if you are a Colorado fan, which i am.
Rolltide, Colorado's national championship was viewed by many as 'tainted' kind of in the same way Ohio State's was. They won, but on a penalty, called late in the game that preserved Colorado's 10-9 lead.
But a win is a win, and I was there to see it firsthand! So that was fun.

[colorado_loves_football]

I did not know that Colorado's 1990 NC was disputed by anyone, I did know they "share" that year w/ Ga Tech who also was NC.

I was huge Van Pelt fan by the way. I don't really like or dislike Col State, but Van Pelt reminded me of B. Favre, so I was a big fan.

Colorado won the AP title in 1990. Many considered their win to be a 'fluke' because they barely beat Missouri in Columbia, and had lost to Illinois early in the year. They also tied Tennessee in the opener, the Pigskin Classic, in Anaheim. Those things together, combined with a 10-9 win over Notre Dame, weren't sufficient, in many people's minds to award them a national title. But they 'earned' it I suppose as much, if not more than anyone else, Georgia Tech excluded.
Georgia Tech played Nebraska, and won I believe in the Florida Citrus Bowl. Had Colorado played, and beaten the Yellow Jackets, then I guess their win would have been viewed as more meaningful than if they didn't.
But it was a shared national title, not the only time it's ever happened.
Anyone remember 2003? LSU and USC were co-champions that year.
USC won the AP national title, LSU won the USA Today/CNN trophy.
It was a simliar situation that year to 1990. Another reason why I would prefer a playoff of bowl winners, to settle the matter, conclusively.

[Spence]

But if you win, and win consistently, you will be assured of a job, at any rate. Sounds like Tressel is maybe still getting his feet wet competitively-speaking. Then again, if he can recruit, that's half the battle. j

Tressel IS still getting his feet wet. The NC bought him some time, but he needs to quit having a down year every three years to insure he stays. A couple more 8-4 years and he will be looking for work.

[colorado_loves_football]

I don't know a lot about the Big Ten, obviously.
But I would hope that a school would keep a coach who has shown he can win, and win on a regular basis. There are probably many things that go along with hiring on the administrative level.
I personally thought Colorado was good with Gary Barnett at the helm.
But, they probably weren't good enough to be competitive year-in, year-out, if the Nebraska game was any indication of how good they were.
Still, I would have liked for Colorado to at least let Barnett finish out his contract. What they did, in effect, was buy him out of his contract.
He wasn't fired, not in the purest sense of the word, anyway.
They will have someone in Hawkins that has shown he can win at the highest level, so there probably isnt' as much guesswork as there might have been, had it been someone else.
But, to my way of thinking, there's no such thing as a 'slam dunk' in football. If you are good, you prove it on the field.
It will likely be a different style of football than Colorado fans are used to seeing. Hawkins lived and died by the pass, and that could be either good or bad for Colorado, but it seems to be working for Nebraska.
I'm not a huge Boise St. fan, but I'm a Colorado fan.

[Spence]

Tressel is a good recruiter. I am not a big fan of his recruiting style, but he gets most everyone he wants. The school has limited who he can go after so he does pretty well given the circumstances.

He is also a good game planner, his teams are very rarely caught with their pants down as to what the other team is going to do and he attacks their weaknesses pretty well. his coaches also make pretty good adjustments when needed.

His weakness is he takes total control of calling the game from the sidelines and he always plays the percentages. I wish he had a little more Bob Stoops in him as far as that goes. He has an offense co-ordinator and he should us him.

I think Hawkins will be good for Colorado. He seems to be a pretty good judge of talent and after all CFB is all about recruiting. Barnett had too many dark clouds following him. Whether they were deserved or not I don't know, but it was hurting his ability to coach effectively.

[colorado_loves_football]

Well, that is what I believe. Once Ohio State found their offense during the regular season to go along with that defense and special teams play the Buckeyes convinced me, after watching the other teams play, that they were the best team in the country. Now, that doesn't mean anything, it's just what I concluded.

I mentioned earlier, "because it requires a team to earn a spot over the course of a season and not based on the performance or results of one game." As it turned out, both Ohio State and West Virginia did not earn an opportunity to play for the national title because of their losses during the regular season. There were other teams that earned the privilege.

In my mind a playoff would not change the facts that both Ohio State and West Virginia had losses during the regular season nor would it supply us with a national champion. It would provide us with a playoff winner and a clear-cut #1, but not a national champion.

Let me put it this way. Let's pretend I'm right and Ohio State did have the best team at the end of the regular season. Now, lets have a four team playoff using the BCS top four teams and the results of this regular season's play.

Semi-final round, #1 Southern Cal plays #4 Ohio State and #2 Texas plays #3 Penn State. During the semi-final round of play Ohio State beats Southern Cal and Penn State beats Texas. We move to the finals with Ohio State playing Penn State and Ohio State wins.

Now what do we have ... during the regular season Ohio State lost to both Texas and Penn State, but the Buckeyes are the Champion while both Texas and Southern Cal only lost 1 game. How do you think the fans of college football would react to that? Do you believe that Texas, Penn State or USC would ever concede that Ohio State was the real champ?

That's just one example of why I believe that, at this point in time, a playoff is not in the best interest of college football.

Ok, Mountainman, I'll try again to interpret your post, and will try to be respectful of your position. First of all the 4 BCS teams you list likely wouldn't have been represented. Where's W. Virginia? You can't exclude them, they won the Sugar Bowl. So someone has to go, between USC and Ohio St. You can't get around it. They likely play in the Rose Bowl, if a playoff is utilized, so one of those is a 'legitimate' team, one isn't. For argument's sake, I'll take Ohio St, since that's who you pick as #1. That means they win a 'hypothetical' BCS pairing between them and USC. Again, this is something you dreamed up, not me.
So, Ohio St, Texas, W. Virginia And Penn St. are the 'representatives to a Final Four arrangement. It's possible the two teams you mention, Ohio St, and W. Virginia meet in a 'championship' pairing, if Ohio St beats Texas, after upsetting USC, in a semi-final. W. Virginia needs to beat Penn St. to make the championship game.
Now, we'll just 'assume' Ohio St beats W. Virginia to win the national title.
To do that, they needed to beat Notre Dame (#6), USC (#1), Texas (#2), and W. Virginia (#11). One of those games (Texas) is a rematch.
That means only loss is to Penn St, a team W. Virginia beat.
An even 'better' scenario, one you proposed, is Ohio St, and Penn St, meeting in the 'championship'. In that event Ohio St, redeems both losses, to win the national championship outright.
Now, tell me this is insubstantial. It's not. It's a viable way to select a national champion.

[mountainman]

Sure thing colorado, dissect away. Lets see how you did.

Well from what I read, it's not a very good dissection, just more hypothetical stuff and rhetoric from which conclusions are drawn while attempting to support an imaginary playoff. No substance.

You didn't even address the question I posed.

Try again?

[Spence]

If there were a play-off in CFB and if they only used conference championships they couldn't use the Bowls as venues. For reasons Fanatic has mentioned many times, you can't get fans to make 4 trips across country to sell the games and if there are no fans there would be no games.

TCU would have to go to Austin to play Texas in the first round. The WAC champion would play USC at home. The MAC champ would travel to Happy Valley. The CUSA champ to Morgantown, and the Sun Belt champ to Georgia. If you think the mid-majors have it bad now try playing a team like Texas at home with a championship on the line. It wouldn't be pretty.

[colorado_loves_football]

Sure thing colorado, dissect away. Lets see how you did.

Well from what I read, it's not a very good dissection, just more hypothetical stuff and rhetoric from which conclusions are drawn while attempting to support an imaginary playoff. No substance.

You didn't even address the question I posed.

Try again?

I didn't answer your question, because I have a problem with the premise that a regular season loss should necessarily keep a team out of the national championship game. Did you even read my reply? How can you say its' without substance? It follows the BCS pairings, but includes 'semi-final' groupings, that follow BCS results.
I didn't 'imagine' anything, even the Ohio St. vs. USC Rose Bowl, is a very likely pairing in a 'revised' BCS that allows for an 'at large' to compete, through competitive games.
If anything it's your argument that lacks substance. How can you say that a team (Ohio St.) that beats USC in the Rose Bowl, then follows that with a win against Texas, followed by a win against either Penn St. or W. Virginia, isn't deserving of a national title?
Let me answer that question for you: You can't.
Had TCU, say beaten Oregon, in a 'preliminary' pairing, then beaten Texas in the Fiesta Bowl, followed by a 'semi-final' pairing against USC/OSU winner, followed by a 'championship' pairing against either Penn St. or W. Virginia, I think I'd have no problem making them 'national champions' regardless of their loss to SMU.
SMU beat TCU in 1935, regular season. TCU beat LSU 3-2, in the Sugar Bowl. SMU lost to Stanford in the Rose Bowl. SMU was 'crowned' national champions. Tell me which is worse?

[mountainman]

O.K., colorado. Here's the deal. I'll respond to your posts after you tell me that you are through editing or otherwise changing the original post once I've responded to them.

Decide what you want to say. Make your post. Tell me you are through.

Deal?

[colorado_loves_football]

Mountainman, I re-edited my post, because you weren't happy with the one I wrote. I have been told several times my postings are wordy, and that they use up valuable space on this board. If you have a problem, I suggest you notify the CFP Admin. I"m simply following instructions, and this is at least the second time I've told you about it.
But before I sign off, I just want to say that I don't mean to be offensive to anyone, but when I'm told my postings aren't worth reading, basically what you said, in another way, that offends me. But I don't want to be a nuisance, so I'll try to do better.

[colorado_loves_football]

If there were a play-off in CFB and if they only used conference championships they couldn't use the Bowls as venues. For reasons Fanatic has mentioned many times, you can't get fans to make 4 trips across country to sell the games and if there are no fans there would be no games.

TCU would have to go to Austin to play Texas in the first round. The WAC champion would play USC at home. The MAC champ would travel to Happy Valley. The CUSA champ to Morgantown, and the Sun Belt champ to Georgia. If you think the mid-majors have it bad now try playing a team like Texas at home with a championship on the line. It wouldn't be pretty.

Spence, this is another example of where you make assumptions that don't hold up.
First of all the 'breakdown' of a BCS ten team-field is as follows:
5/10 advance or in other words 50% play in ONE game.
Of the remaining 5, 3 are likely to play in 3 games or more, meaning 7/10 or 70% will play in 2 games or less.
Now, of the 3, 1 is likely to be an 'at large' team. So, the probability a team plays 4 games is only of the order of 33% or 1/3.
That number isn't set in stone, as many as two of the team or 2/3 could be 'at large' but as few as zero can be represented so 33% is probably a 'reliable' number at any rate.
So, the likelihood any team be required to play in 4 games is fairly slim.
It wouldn't happen every year.
The likelihood an 'at large' win the BCS is slimmer. Averages figure it to be something of the order of 12.5% or 1/8 if each team is weighed equally. So the averages definitely favor the 6 BCS representatives.
The likelihood TCU and OSU meet, interestingly enough isn't that bad.
Something along the lines of 25% but that's partly due to the fact both teams were victorious. In a 'typical' year, the odds favor the 6 BCS 'direct' teams by a 3/4 margin. That's because they occupy 6/8 'semi-final' spots. 25% is 'reserved' for an 'at large' and that's probably why the 25% number pops up for TCU-OSU if they occupy separate brackets, not bad all things considered.
Anyway, few teams would likely need to play 4 games. The odds are 2/3 against it according to my figures, or in other words, only 1/3 years will a team play 4 BCS games.

[Spence]

The odds are 100% that two teams would do it every year.

[colorado_loves_football]

The odds are 100% that two teams would do it every year.

See,that's where you are wrong. The odds are very much against a team playing 4 games, I said 1/3 but that was probably an over-estimate. I'm not a statistician but I trust my figures. 100% for 3 games, something less than 33% for 4. If you don't believe me do the math yourself.

[Spence]

See,that's where you are wrong. The odds are very much against a team playing 4 games, I said 1/3 but that was probably an over-estimate. I'm not a statistician but I trust my figures. 100% for 3 games, something less than 33% for 4. If you don't believe me do the math yourself.

I don't have to do the math. In a playoff system two teams will play in the championship game every year. Those two teams will have played 3 or 4 games to get their depending on where or not there was a bye or not. So in fact there is a 100% chance of two teams playing 3 or 4 games every year.