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Weird Bowl Season For Gator Fans

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
To put it mildly...
Hard to get particularly excited about ANY of these games no matter WHAT the actual outcome of our own (mostly irrelevant) “Who Caresarilla Bowl” turned out to be. Even the SEC’s less-than-stellar showing thus far in Bowl-season hasn’t really moved me.
I know that the QUALITY of play will likely make these “playoff” games entertaining (and there ARE two SEC teams in it, after all)—but personally I cannot HELP but have “mixed feelings” going into watching them, right? This will be the last college football of “our” season, after all...but it raises as much “conflict” deep in my gut as anything else; hard to find much in the way of “enthusiastic rooting interest” in EITHER matchup—though an ultimate “2021 SEC Championship Rematch” is what would best shut up all the gloating trollers (“SEC in a downward spiral—Look at their BOWL RECORD!!!”) online.
In the end though, I just wanna move on, get to the “seasons ahead”...
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
Ever since the CFP started, each non-CFP game has mattered even less than before. The “bowl season conference champion” race means nothing after the end of the Bowl Alliance and BCS, except to fans on sports forums. Now with NIL the athletes do not need to depend on bowl games for gifts. With the lucrative SEC Network deal there is plenty of money going around. To make matters worse, even though 13 of 14 SEC team are bowl eligible, only 2 have a statistical shot at winning.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
Bama and Georgia for the National Title Game. I'm in favor of expanding the Playoffs to 8.
With these two (highly predictable) outcomes, there’ll be both the “same old outrage” at this particular “all-SEC-matchup”, and (hardly a coincidence) a concurrent rise in general agreement in that particular point-of-view.
When coupled with E—‘s points about the general loss of importance across the rest of the “Bowl-universe” match-ups, an accelerated movement towards that “8-game format” is likely to gain even more traction.
At this point, MY only concern would be that we not go BEYOND that number:
What works for roundball WILL NOT WORK for football.
At a certain point in years ahead, there will be a consolidation into a handful of (maybe 16-program?) “MAJOR Conferences”, and then perhaps “all the rest” ...These latter may have the bulk of the current developing “end-of-year Bowl Season”, while the remaining “Major Bowls” will host the CFP Championship Series in some rotating fashion already beginning to develop.
It will take a few more years for all of this to fully shake out and reorganize itself.
With that and all the other changes already coming to pass in college football generally and the SEC in particular, as it turns out this may be the right tone to find our OWN program here at UF embarking on its own full-on “reorganization” even as we speak...WE may be “coming fully around” JUST as as the Conference, indeed all of Major College Football, enters a whole new EXPANDED “Playoff System”.
 
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Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
I like the playoff system to remain at 4 or expand to 6: 5 Power-5 conference champions and a wildcard. Expanding playoffs to 8 just adds more complexity without solving the problem. Another option would be to integrate Power-5-plus-1 or Power-5 plus Group-of-5 conference championships into the playoffs.

If the playoffs were expanded it would necessitate an overhaul of the bowl system. Right now there are 41 bowl games for 82 teams, and each bowl game makes $1M to $50M for the teams and sponsors alike. There is no incentive to divorcing the playoffs from bowl games—there is only incentive to fold more bowl games into the playoffs.

This leaves us with two options:
1. Incorporate conference championships into the bowl games and tie conference network deals into the playoffs. This will expand the playoffs to 10 teams not counting Notre Dame, which means the expansion is 12: 10 conference champions, Notre Dame, and a wildcard (or 2 wildcards if Notre Dame is not bowl eligible).

2. The playoff system subsumes the entire bowl system. This expands the playoffs to 82 teams.

There are, of course, multiple, illogical options in between that are more likely to be adopted. None of those options fix the problem.
 

Escambia94

Aerospace Cubicle Engineer (ACE)
Moderator
One thing I did not clarify is that if FBS teams move to super-conferences it would make option 1 easier. Collapse into 8 or 4 super-conferences, make Notre Dame and other independents choose a conference, and redo bowl-conference alignments.
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
I like the playoff system to remain at 4 or expand to 6: 5 Power-5 conference champions and a wildcard. Expanding playoffs to 8 just adds more complexity without solving the problem. Another option would be to integrate Power-5-plus-1 or Power-5 plus Group-of-5 conference championships into the playoffs.

If the playoffs were expanded it would necessitate an overhaul of the bowl system. Right now there are 41 bowl games for 82 teams, and each bowl game makes $1M to $50M for the teams and sponsors alike. There is no incentive to divorcing the playoffs from bowl games—there is only incentive to fold more bowl games into the playoffs.

This leaves us with two options:
1. Incorporate conference championships into the bowl games and tie conference network deals into the playoffs. This will expand the playoffs to 10 teams not counting Notre Dame, which means the expansion is 12: 10 conference champions, Notre Dame, and a wildcard (or 2 wildcards if Notre Dame is not bowl eligible).

2. The playoff system subsumes the entire bowl system. This expands the playoffs to 82 teams.

There are, of course, multiple, illogical options in between that are more likely to be adopted. None of those options fix the problem.
I’m totally cool with a more careful , “conservative” approach to expansion of the CFP system: A 6-game set-up of some kind might be the best way to negotiate this next period of evolution.
As things are going now, we are into a chaotic scramble that looks to only worsen in the time ahead. No matter what, a whole LOT of loose ends will have to be addressed, a lot of open questions still to be answered before the eventual “New Order” in major college football will clarify itself.
As I imply above in past statements concerning this, basketball’s “Big Dance”-approach would be TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE and a potential disaster—to be avoided at all costs!
In other words, above all, “Number 2” above is completely unacceptable—
Again, “to be avoided at all costs”!
 

DRU2012

Super Moderator
Staff member
Super Moderator
One thing I did not clarify is that if FBS teams move to super-conferences it would make option 1 easier. Collapse into 8 or 4 super-conferences, make Notre Dame and other independents choose a conference, and redo bowl-conference alignments.
See what I mean?
Every ONE of these “alternatives” tend to put us on some kind of “slippery slide”.
 

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