Time for 24 teams coaches have spoken

[Here for the Wins]

21 minutes ago, Alex Butler said:

Montana St, Ferris St, and Wisconsin-River-Falls. Just because I like watching college football doesn’t mean that naming champions is the same as enjoying watching meaningful games late in the season. THAT is the real reason for expansion, we want to watch real games with actual starters not these pointless bowl games. 

That’s pretty good if you got that without looking it up.  The reason I asked is because few pay much attention to the other divisions.  I’d be interested to know how many persons watch those divisions over a BCS game.  You know since they “get it right.”

I can find meaning in many a football game.  Just because a bowl game is meaningless or pointless to you doesn’t mean it is for all.  How is that much different than a mid-October game between two teams you know won’t play for anything?

I even enjoyed the Texas-Michigan bowl game.

[Alex Butler]

1 minute ago, Here for the Wins said:

That’s pretty good if you got that without looking it up.  The reason I asked is because few pay much attention to the other divisions.  I’d be interested to know how many persons watch those divisions over a BCS game.  You know since they “get it right.”

I can find meaning in many a football game.  Just because a bowl game is meaningless or pointless to you doesn’t mean it is for all.  How is that much different than a mid-October game between two teams you know won’t play for anything?

I even enjoyed the Texas-Michigan bowl game.

Still not giving an example of what you’d like to see. All you’re saying is that people have definitions of meaningful that differ. My definition is that the game can actually allow the winner to advance and keep playing. Meaningless games will always exist because there’s only a few select teams that are good enough to get to the playoffs. Name one sport that doesn’t have meaningless games? I enjoyed watching Texas beat Michigan too. Does that mean you enjoyed it as much as you did watching us beat Clemson or ASU? Or that your level of enjoyment was the same as if both teams would’ve been in the playoff with their full compliment of starters with a chance to play TAMU, OSU, OU, Oregon, Miami, etc? I doubt it. 

[Alex Butler]

2 hours ago, LonghornFan4Ever said:

This would’ve been a fun one to watch this year!!

[Here for the Wins]

7 minutes ago, Alex Butler said:

I stand corrected the TXHS playoffs have expanded since I was in school and still we have great games and kids having the chance to continue playing meaningful games. I think what we can agree on is that there needs to be a new system that has the top tier teams in one division of about 32 some odd teams that can only compete for the national champions and of those 12 get in much like NFL. That seems reasonable to me as long as there are salary caps in place. I’d even do something like the European soccer leagues do that allow movement between the levels based on year over year performance (relegation versus promotion). 

Nah.  We’re not close.

I like tradition.  I like the finality of only getting one shot at a team.  College football represents something to me for which there is no equivalent.  If there’s no equivalent, then don’t compare.  If I wanted to be like the NFL, I’d just watch the NFL.  And I do.

I wouldn’t go more than 8 and could be fine with 4.  People act as though they think they can get it perfect.  Texas-USC was perfect.  That’ll never happen again.

Give a bye based on unbalanced schedules?  Nope.  Give a home game based on unbalanced schedules?  No.  Anytime you give these rewards based on uncertain criterion you’ve effectively manipulated that tournament.  No way I’d give a team that loses 33% of their games a shot at a team that lost 0% or 8%.

I am not an advocate for it, but the solution for a “best system” is to limit it to 64 teams.  Maybe you go divisions and get it down to 8.   Even then, you’d have to say any non-divisional game is irrelevant.  If you go 32, you just kicked out teams that have competed for 100 years.  I’m not talking playing for titles, but those teams have spoiled it for others over the years.

I am fine with high school but imagine being the bi-district opponent for Duncanville or DeSoto every year.  There are teams that get the short end of the stick due to matchups.  I think it was two years ago that my local school basically gave up the last regular season game to manipulate the playoff match.  So there are flaws and limitations.

[Alex Butler]

5 minutes ago, Here for the Wins said:

Nah.  We’re not close.

I like tradition.  I like the finality of only getting one shot at a team.  College football represents something to me for which there is no equivalent.  If there’s no equivalent, then don’t compare.  If I wanted to be like the NFL, I’d just watch the NFL.  And I do.

I wouldn’t go more than 8 and could be fine with 4.  People act as though they think they can get it perfect.  Texas-USC was perfect.  That’ll never happen again.

Give a bye based on unbalanced schedules?  Nope.  Give a home game based on unbalanced schedules?  No.  Anytime you give these rewards based on uncertain criterion you’ve effectively manipulated that tournament.  No way I’d give a team that loses 33% of their games a shot at a team that lost 0% or 8%.

I am not an advocate for it, but the solution for a “best system” is to limit it to 64 teams.  Maybe you go divisions and get it down to 8.   Even then, you’d have to say any non-divisional game is irrelevant.  If you go 32, you just kicked out teams that have competed for 100 years.  I’m not talking playing for titles, but those teams have spoiled it for others over the years.

I am fine with high school but imagine being the bi-district opponent for Duncanville or DeSoto every year.  There are teams that get the short end of the stick due to matchups.  I think it was two years ago that my local school basically gave up the last regular season game to manipulate the playoff match.  So there are flaws and limitations.

Thats what the playoffs are, one shot. You play the regular season to get there. With that logic there shouldn’t be any rematches and if you lose you’re done no matter how early. Yes, USC-Texas was perfect, but that was in spite of the BCS not because of it. Fast forward 3 years and Texas gets screwed out of a chance to even play in a conference championship let alone the national championship because the team they beat, beat the team you lost to and they were ranked higher at the beginning of the season. Where’s the tradition there? The tradition of major college football is NOT playing the games people want to see but sticking to this archaic owl model. I disagree that if you lose 33% of your games, but you’re playing a good teams and improve dramatically over the season you absolutely should play teams that lost 8, 8, or 20% of their games. 
We won’t agree on this, but I think 4 or 8 is too few given the make up of college football as it stands. I firmly believe that the top 16 teams if not more can absolutely compete with each other for the national championship just look at the two loss Miami this season. Also, with no rematch we would’ve missed out on Bama embarrassing OU at home. 
we do agree that the G5 schools need to GTFO. 

[Here for the Wins]

5 minutes ago, Alex Butler said:

Thats what the playoffs are, one shot. You play the regular season to get there. With that logic there shouldn’t be any rematches and if you lose you’re done no matter how early. Yes, USC-Texas was perfect, but that was in spite of the BCS not because of it. Fast forward 3 years and Texas gets screwed out of a chance to even play in a conference championship let alone the national championship because the team they beat, beat the team you lost to and they were ranked higher at the beginning of the season. Where’s the tradition there? The tradition of major college football is NOT playing the games people want to see but sticking to this archaic owl model. I disagree that if you lose 33% of your games, but you’re playing a good teams and improve dramatically over the season you absolutely should play teams that lost 8, 8, or 20% of their games. 
We won’t agree on this, but I think 4 or 8 is too few given the make up of college football as it stands. I firmly believe that the top 16 teams if not more can absolutely compete with each other for the national championship just look at the two loss Miami this season. Also, with no rematch we would’ve missed out on Bama embarrassing OU at home. 
we do agree that the G5 schools need to GTFO. 

If you go 8-4, you likely aren’t beating great teams.  Miami and Ole Miss both played 8 home games last year.  Neither played all the top teams in conference.  OU, Bama.  Had any of those lost 4 games, there’s virtually no way that team has a great record versus solid teams.

I would wager you were one to say that Miami deserved the nod over Notre Dame because of their head to head win this past year.  Game 1.  At Miami.  On a last minute FG.  With a veteran QB versus first time starter QB.

So to your argument now.  Notre Dame clearly played better the past two months of the season.  Yet another question not answered.  Is the teams that had the best season or is better at the end?

The committee didn’t answer that directly but ultimately didn’t care because Texas and Notre Dsme were pretty clearly playing amongst the top 10.

The more teams you invite the more chaos comes with it.  It really just comes down to what an individual prefers.  A tournament will just never be my preference.

 

I read considerable discussion leading up to this year that expanded playoffs would result in better non-conference matchups.  It took exactly 1 season to call that into question.  That was 100% foreseeable.  Further expansion likely ends in more disagreement and potentially unintended consequences.

 

[Alex Butler]

1 hour ago, Here for the Wins said:

If you go 8-4, you likely aren’t beating great teams.  Miami and Ole Miss both played 8 home games last year.  Neither played all the top teams in conference.  OU, Bama.  Had any of those lost 4 games, there’s virtually no way that team has a great record versus solid teams.

I would wager you were one to say that Miami deserved the nod over Notre Dame because of their head to head win this past year.  Game 1.  At Miami.  On a last minute FG.  With a veteran QB versus first time starter QB.

So to your argument now.  Notre Dame clearly played better the past two months of the season.  Yet another question not answered.  Is the teams that had the best season or is better at the end?

The committee didn’t answer that directly but ultimately didn’t care because Texas and Notre Dsme were pretty clearly playing amongst the top 10.

The more teams you invite the more chaos comes with it.  It really just comes down to what an individual prefers.  A tournament will just never be my preference.

 

I read considerable discussion leading up to this year that expanded playoffs would result in better non-conference matchups.  It took exactly 1 season to call that into question.  That was 100% foreseeable.  Further expansion likely ends in more disagreement and potentially unintended consequences.

 

Miami absolutely deserved the nod over ND because of head to head and because they had the same record. I would also disagree that ND was any better than Miami even at the end of the season. The problem wasn’t ND or Texas. It was the G5 teams. That said second year of expansion and we had more parity and great games with teams beating others that on paper had no business beating. Expansion doesn’t make that worse, it makes it better. Instead of arguing over the top 10-12 teams were looking at the arguing over 20-24. Meaning, you get more leeway to play good games early, get beat, overcome injury, and gel as a team. That’s what happens at other levels. Not all 8-4 teams are built the same. Hell Texas could be 8-4 next year with 3 losses away at TN, TAMU, LSU, and neutral in Dallas, especially if we have a stretch of bad injuries, or crazier they could lose games to ole Miss, Mizzou, Arkansas , and FL because of injuries or some crazy thing but beat 4-5 top 10 teams. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t as good or better than other teams with better records at the end of the season once the ship has been righted. I’m failing to see how limiting teams will make the regular season more likely to mean something. If anything it will further discourage teams from playing the big marquee games in lieu of records. Expansion solves that, and you learn from year to year. You make micro adjustments, i.e. seeding not based on conf championships, and reward teams for playing tougher games by creating space for them to lose early and get in. Especially if they insist on letting G5 have their sacrificial lamb(s). Let them be the 23 and 24th teams in rather than 11 and 12. There’s always been disagreement no matter what the size of the playoff. We can’t throw the baby out with the bath water because teams are adjusting their schedule when you have limited spots. You add spots and reward big non-conference games and you force ND into a conference where they have to play 9 conference games. 

Edited Wednesday at 03:43 AM by Alex Butler

[AusMOJO]

If they want to go a step further, stop letting teams like JMU and that, into the playoffs. Make a separate playoff for those teams if you must but t hey shouldn't be playing with the big dogs, imo. 

I'm probably one of the few who thinks that but G5 teams should not be in the P4 playoffs. 

[GoHorns1]

Love the proposals.

[Alex Butler]

7 hours ago, AusMOJO said:

If they want to go a step further, stop letting teams like JMU and that, into the playoffs. Make a separate playoff for those teams if you must but t hey shouldn't be playing with the big dogs, imo. 

I'm probably one of the few who thinks that but G5 teams should not be in the P4 playoffs. 

Agree!! That’s good football but they just can’t compete at the level financially as P4!

[HelloThere]

The coaches get a lot right. Not sure what the correct number of teams is, but the season ended in early January is 100% right. 

[LTWOTIMES]

13 hours ago, Alex Butler said:

What?!?! Doesn’t every other level of football besides division 1A have a playoff between 16-24 teams? Are you suggesting we go back to the BCS or before when the AP chose the national champion? What in your opinion is CFB really? 

I dont need CFB to mirror other sports, I could just go watch those leagues. I enjoy the importance of each week in CFB to have meaning, thats the best part. Only 12 game season, not 17. 

If it were arguing 4 or 8 team playoff, I could probably get behind that. 24 teams is ridiculous and waters down the season. 

[LTWOTIMES]

14 hours ago, Kevin C said:

Disagree.  Making College Football even better.  30 years ago, we didn't even get to have Top 2 teams play for national championship.  Enough with the 'Old College Football Format was better' BS.  JMHO.  

I get it and respect your opinion. I enjoyed the importance of each Saturday and the meaning it held. Adding 24 teams and removing Conf Champ games, waters down the season and puts all focus on the "tournament". I'm not seeking a Cinderella for CFB, just the best of the best. 4 or 8 teams is the sweet spot. 

[Dawson Yarbrough]

15 hours ago, Joe Zura said:

 

Great reporting Joe! What’s your take on all this? Do you like 12,16, or 24?

[Joe Zura]

Just now, Dawson Yarbrough said:

Great reporting Joe! What’s your take on all this? Do you like 12,16, or 24?

I like 16 do it the NFL way have the higher seeds at home and when there are 4 teams left aka the semis have it at like the rose bowl cotton bowl etc. that’s just me 

[Here for the Wins]

8 hours ago, Alex Butler said:

Miami absolutely deserved the nod over ND because of head to head and because they had the same record. I would also disagree that ND was any better than Miami even at the end of the season. The problem wasn’t ND or Texas. It was the G5 teams. That said second year of expansion and we had more parity and great games with teams beating others that on paper had no business beating. Expansion doesn’t make that worse, it makes it better. Instead of arguing over the top 10-12 teams were looking at the arguing over 20-24. Meaning, you get more leeway to play good games early, get beat, overcome injury, and gel as a team. That’s what happens at other levels. Not all 8-4 teams are built the same. Hell Texas could be 8-4 next year with 3 losses away at TN, TAMU, LSU, and neutral in Dallas, especially if we have a stretch of bad injuries, or crazier they could lose games to ole Miss, Mizzou, Arkansas , and FL because of injuries or some crazy thing but beat 4-5 top 10 teams. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t as good or better than other teams with better records at the end of the season once the ship has been righted. I’m failing to see how limiting teams will make the regular season more likely to mean something. If anything it will further discourage teams from playing the big marquee games in lieu of records. Expansion solves that, and you learn from year to year. You make micro adjustments, i.e. seeding not based on conf championships, and reward teams for playing tougher games by creating space for them to lose early and get in. Especially if they insist on letting G5 have their sacrificial lamb(s). Let them be the 23 and 24th teams in rather than 11 and 12. There’s always been disagreement no matter what the size of the playoff. We can’t throw the baby out with the bath water because teams are adjusting their schedule when you have limited spots. You add spots and reward big non-conference games and you force ND into a conference where they have to play 9 conference games. 

Absolutely?  No.  Funny you default back to wins as the deciding factor.  Notre Dame was clearly better the past two months.  There were considerable common opponents.  Notre Dame dominated those common opponents.  Notre Dame lost their first two games.  And if you do an honest evaluation, those were both tossups.  Miami not only failed to win the conference they failed to make the game because they lost twice to decent, not even great teams.  One of those teams was 0-2 versus the Big 12.
 

The question remains.  Best 10 teams or best season/record?  Yes, Texas was more deserving than the final two participants.  They also were better based on available information than some of the top 10.

Being in a conference has limited value when evaluating strength of schedule.  That is consistently brought up.  There’s a formula to calculate it.  At the end of the regular season, Techs SOS was worse than Notre Dame.  Miamis was very similar.  And Ole Miss’s was slightly better.  There is little to harp on this point when that is the case.  Use the metric or not.  If Notre Dame had the number 1 SOS, would people still complain?  You didn’t give a damn that Miami wasn’t even top two in its conference. You give some hubbub about 8-4 Texas with injuries and losses yet give no credence Miami beating ND at home, on a last second FG, when one team had a new QB, first game of season.  You’ll probably tell me Arch grew leaps and bounds but won’t introduce that for Carr.
 

It has been discussed that Indiana watered down their non-conference.  Bill Snyder used to do it.  Jim Schlossnagle does it in baseball.  It’s not entirely for wins and losses, but that is a reason.  You need to view it from the lens of a non-Texas team.  Every team in contention is better off with fewer losses.  Duke lost 3 games in non-conference last year.  They won the conference but didn’t get invited to the tournament.  Maybe that doesn’t change their scheduling, but you have to think they thought about it.  As you invite more 3 and 4 loss teams into a tournament, you are expanding the number of teams that will fight to keep that extra loss off the ledger.  If you have byes and home games, you’re incentivizing teams to lose one less game to get that incentive.  Texas clearly missed out because of that extra loss.  
 

If more teams dumb down their non-conference schedule, then it devalues the regular season.   If the Tx-OU games has fewer implications, it devalues it.  If a team decides, like the high school example I gave you, to play not to win in the final game, that devalues it.  I don’t expect that to happen, but it certainly happens in the NFL.  I can see sitting a player or two in that scenario however.  Let’s just say Texas-Ohio State play every year.  You get a small number of other top 20 matchups, but the teams that would typically fall from 15-40 schedule no one.  Not only that, but they sit at home for all of them.  The college football fan doesn’t win.

[Dawson Yarbrough]

1 hour ago, Joe Zura said:

I like 16 do it the NFL way have the higher seeds at home and when there are 4 teams left aka the semis have it at like the rose bowl cotton bowl etc. that’s just me 

16 is ideal to me. However, 24 feels like it might come in handy if Texas hits a post arch lull for a year or two. Hopefully Texas is a wagon year after year but 24 almost guarantees we get in. 

[PortALonghorn]

Top 24 is a freaking joke. Going to be a significant number of genuinely horrible games. Garbage done in favor of pure TV money greed. 

[Kevin C]

16 hours ago, Here for the Wins said:

Pretty sure the Ohio State-Texas matchups do not encourage this.  A loss adds an extra game to the schedule, which would be counter to the ultimate goal.  A win gets you little except one more high level game to get beat up or emotionally result in a letdown.

I view it differently.   These marquee non-conf early season matchups are great for college football.  They are great for recruiting (the best players want to play the best and be on center stage) and they’re awesome for getting an early season gauge on our team as the Horns build depth and confidence through the season, leading up to playoffs. 

Last season, had it been a 24-team playoff, Texas would have hosted a first round game.   We were peaking down the stretch.   The OSU loss would have meant far less in the 24-team format. 
 

Hook em! 🤘🏼🐂🧡

Edited Wednesday at 03:12 PM by Kevin C

[4thandFive]

A 24-team playoff would be insane. The quality of matchups would inevitably, just based on sheer number, be of greater entertainment value and far surpass the current declining bowl system.

[Alex Butler]

2 hours ago, Here for the Wins said:

Absolutely?  No.  Funny you default back to wins as the deciding factor.  Notre Dame was clearly better the past two months.  There were considerable common opponents.  Notre Dame dominated those common opponents.  Notre Dame lost their first two games.  And if you do an honest evaluation, those were both tossups.  Miami not only failed to win the conference they failed to make the game because they lost twice to decent, not even great teams.  One of those teams was 0-2 versus the Big 12.
 

The question remains.  Best 10 teams or best season/record?  Yes, Texas was more deserving than the final two participants.  They also were better based on available information than some of the top 10.

Being in a conference has limited value when evaluating strength of schedule.  That is consistently brought up.  There’s a formula to calculate it.  At the end of the regular season, Techs SOS was worse than Notre Dame.  Miamis was very similar.  And Ole Miss’s was slightly better.  There is little to harp on this point when that is the case.  Use the metric or not.  If Notre Dame had the number 1 SOS, would people still complain?  You didn’t give a damn that Miami wasn’t even top two in its conference. You give some hubbub about 8-4 Texas with injuries and losses yet give no credence Miami beating ND at home, on a last second FG, when one team had a new QB, first game of season.  You’ll probably tell me Arch grew leaps and bounds but won’t introduce that for Carr.
 

It has been discussed that Indiana watered down their non-conference.  Bill Snyder used to do it.  Jim Schlossnagle does it in baseball.  It’s not entirely for wins and losses, but that is a reason.  You need to view it from the lens of a non-Texas team.  Every team in contention is better off with fewer losses.  Duke lost 3 games in non-conference last year.  They won the conference but didn’t get invited to the tournament.  Maybe that doesn’t change their scheduling, but you have to think they thought about it.  As you invite more 3 and 4 loss teams into a tournament, you are expanding the number of teams that will fight to keep that extra loss off the ledger.  If you have byes and home games, you’re incentivizing teams to lose one less game to get that incentive.  Texas clearly missed out because of that extra loss.  
 

If more teams dumb down their non-conference schedule, then it devalues the regular season.   If the Tx-OU games has fewer implications, it devalues it.  If a team decides, like the high school example I gave you, to play not to win in the final game, that devalues it.  I don’t expect that to happen, but it certainly happens in the NFL.  I can see sitting a player or two in that scenario however.  Let’s just say Texas-Ohio State play every year.  You get a small number of other top 20 matchups, but the teams that would typically fall from 15-40 schedule no one.  Not only that, but they sit at home for all of them.  The college football fan doesn’t win.

Head to head wins matter period. The hubbub you refer to is an example used to illustrate different scenarios that exist where a deserving 3-4 loss team would be excluded circumstantially and to you point growing and improving by the end of the season. It is more realistic to say that teams will water down their schedule if there is less opportunity for post season success. If there is strategy involved that means losing a game late for a favorable playoff match up then they have to deal with the potential implications that come with that in a case by case basis. You’re operating on a lot of negative assumptions I without considering the numerous upsides. There is. I perfect system, and someone will get left out that feels deserving. All I’m arguing is that if much rather it be the 24-26th best teams not 13-15. To you point wins do matter, but I don’t feel that a team should be eliminated for losing 1-2 games or even 3-4 potentially. 

Edited Wednesday at 03:53 PM by Alex Butler

[Alex Butler]

39 minutes ago, 4thandFive said:

A 24-team playoff would be insane. The quality of matchups would inevitably, just based on sheer number, be of greater entertainment value and far surpass the current declining bowl system.

Amen!!

[Thorn007]

So at a 24 team playoff a 7-5 might get in that's insane. Call that a participation trophy. Of course coaches want 24 so they can save their job. See we made playoffs with 7-5 record I'm doing a great job yo. Lol

[Realist Horn]

18 hours ago, LonghornFan4Ever said:

wait for the other conferences to complain that only one of the eight were not from the Big10 or SEC. 

[Alex Butler]

30 minutes ago, Realist Horn said:

wait for the other conferences to complain that only one of the eight were not from the Big10 or SEC. 

Complain all they want, but get better and that’ll sort itself out.