Now that the NCAA College Football Playoff lineup has been announced https://collegefootballplayoff.com/sports/2024/12/2/bracket.aspx , so-called experts are coming out of the woodwork to criticize the way it is being administered. SMU is ringing bells while the Crimson Tide is shedding tears. I really believe that the explanation for most of the issues is very simple…the plan was drawn up without the benefit of knowing how college football was going to evolve so quickly in the past year or two. They simply were not able to think this thing through.
NIL
has quite simply changed the universe in college sports; none more dramatically
than football. I have addressed NIL in
prior posts https://centerlineright.blogspot.com/search?q=nil
and I have also advocated for a Dan Wetzel-type playoff scenario https://www.yahoo.com/news/college-football-playoff-plan-132100316--ncaaf.html.
The CFP plan we have today is not really that far removed from what Wetzel was
talking about four years ago. It is a
vast improvement over what we have had…but
it still has some glaring issues. No
doubt, lessons will be learned from this first year’s experience and it will be
a different…and hopefully improved…creature in future years. Joining the chorus of amateur experts borne
of the internet, I am going to add my two cents worth in three suggestions that
I believe would improve the CFP.
First
off: All
the games in the first and second round of the playoffs should be played
on the higher-seeded college campus.
Under the current scheme, only the first round is on campus and from
there, it moves to the sites of the traditional bowl games. There is one explanation for this and it is spelled
MONEY. Put the games on the college campus. It will geometrically spur the excitement
quotient; it will create income opportunities for colleges and their surrounding
communities; and…it gives proper credit to the meritocracy of seeding teams
based on season performance.
Second:
Do
not give first round byes to the conference champions. All conferences are not equal and they never
will be; it will vary from year to year.
The top four seeds should go to the top four teams in the final CFP
rankings…regardless of their conference.
Once again … meritocracy should rule.
Third:
The whole SMU/Alabama debate about who should get the twelfth spot this year
came back to one glaring mistake by the CFP folks. Nobody realized how important the
pre-conference championship poll would be. That poll locked in the
assessment of the entire season for each team in a comparative sense; the
ranking was based on the performances during a common twelve game season. Subsequently, some teams played a thirteenth
game for a conference championship; each one featuring a winner and a loser. The unanticipated dynamic was this: It is
patently unfair to drop a team down in the post-conference championship poll
based on their loss in a thirteenth
game while most other teams were at home
watching on television. Point in
case, SMU was ranked above Alabama in
that pre-championship poll and it was simply unfair to move Alabama above SMU
based on their ACC Championship loss.
Had Alabama been rated above SMU
in that pre-championship poll (as it
arguably should have been), there would have been no issue. I don’t think anybody saw this coming. The only way the conference championship
results should have impacted the pre-championship poll would have been to
move the championship winners UP. Following those conference championships, the
final CFP seeding could then be announced based on the top twelve teams in the
nation, regardless of championship status.
Quite simply…the most important
ranking of the season should be the pre-championship poll at the end of every
team’s full season. After that, factor
in the changes for the winners of the
championship game and then…let it roll.
Now
let’s move onto another type of game…specifically the political game of
changing over from the Biden Administration to the Trump Administration. All of this is occurring in a helter-skelter
environment of global conflict and the domestic intrigue that is surrounding
the power shift taking place in WDC. The
game is on.
Everyone
is speculating on exactly what Donald Trump’s frame of mind is as he re-enters
the presidency. Will he scorch the earth
in a revenge-oriented crusade aimed at his past tormentors? Will he fill his Administration with quality
competent appointees or will he recruit loyalists who will restrict their
actions to his bidding, regardless of its wisdom? How intent is Trump in regards to DOGE and
how successful could it possibly be in re-shaping our bloated behemoth of
federal bureaucracy?
What
led us to this place in time?
https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/08/with-trumps-victory-americas-long-national-nightmare-is-over/
https://instapundit.substack.com/p/the-clock-strikes-thirteen
https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/08/312542/
What
type of “resistance” will Trump have to deal with?
How long will Trump enjoy
Republican control of Congress? https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/the-senate-map.php
What
will be the first “targets” for the Trump Administration?
http://jewishworldreview.com/1224/lowry121124.php
https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/09/some-modest-proposals-for-president-trump/
I expect there is a lot of
“shredding” going on: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/investigations/3255734/state-department-congress-close-global-engagement-center/
https://americanmind.org/salvo/trump-must-break-up-the-college-cartel/
https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/11/still-stupid-in-america/
https://reason.com/2024/12/10/civil-liberties-lost-under-covid/
Is
there any reform “target” more critical than that of American foreign policy?
https://amgreatness.com/2024/12/07/ukraine-bleeding-an-ally/
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/in_focus/3252596/trump-road-to-ukraine-peace-runs-through-tehran/
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/12/another-10b-for-iran.php
https://www.thefp.com/p/from-aleppo-to-tehran-a-middle-east-9fe
https://www.thefp.com/p/assads-fall-humiliates-washington-biden-obama-trump-iran-syria
https://www.jns.org/trump-should-trust-his-instincts-and-ignore-the-syria-experts/
A
couple of quick notes to close out this piece…
Here
is a good commentary on the recent Daniel
Penny verdict. This episode says a
lot about where our nation is in many respects.
It is truly something to think seriously about: https://im1776.com/2024/12/09/penny-verdict/
Biden
out/Trump in; CEOs being gunned down on the streets of NY; the entire planet
seemingly in conflict and flame; the holiday season in full blitz….do you think
that maybe the angst meter is in the red
zone? Hey…I got the solution,
courtesy of Wet Willie; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGEwir-QJZA
No comments:
Post a Comment