Yup. All the G5 should fight demotion with every tool in the arsenal, and that is what this would be.
Year in and year out I’ll agree the top G5 wouldn’t match up well, but in 2018 when UCF beat Auburn in an incredible game in the Peach Bowl, that Auburn team went 2-2 vs playoff teams. Yes I know the transitive property doesn’t always apply but Auburn was at worst as good as those playoff teams, and they got beat.
Would UCF fans trade that moment to play Boise that day? I doubt it. They proved they could beat a team that had went .500 over 25% of the season vs CFP teams, I think they could have held their own in the playoffs that year.
A path is only in your mind. No G5 school has been in the BCS playoffs and none will if it remains 4 only. The rankings are setup to not allow it. Also, if the NCAA tournament went to 12 teams there would be a lot of political moves to leave G5 schools out. P5 schools would stop scheduling Gonzaga and others to lower their rankings and steal their recruits. But as long as .500 ACC schools are still getting in no worries.
Butler, Memphis, Gonzaga, Cincy all had HOF coaches when they were successful. Gonzaga still does obviously. That’s why they recruited well. Had nothing to do with access to the NCAA tourney. Cal took UMASS to the final 4 for Pete’s sake.
You’ve taken 5-6 outliers out of 250-300 schools and tried to make a point.
68 teams get into the tourney. Half of those on auto bids. It’s a money maker. Nothing else. Only 5-6 have a chance of winning it and 90% of the time it’s all P5 schools.
You think SC State is out telling potential recruits come play here, you can play for a notional championship? There is no path for them.
They are telling them they have a shot at the NCAAs. That’s what they are telling them.
I think y’all are confusing winning it with being included in it. That’s all we are saying is IF they are included that’s what matters. If they locked out G5’s of the tourney in March you don’t think that would hit our recruiting?
And yes if it stays at 4 teams there is no shot for a G5 program. Go to 6 though? Maybe. Go to 8 and very likely. Then You can tell a recruit you have a shot at the playoff here just like the P5 program. In fact then Memphis could tell a recruit looking at UT not only could they play on the CFP the path might be easier at Memphis than UT.
Also good point about the hall of fame coaches - no doubt that access was part of their pitch in recruiting.
IF the P5 break away vs FBS breaking then by all means let’s run a playoff. If we get left behind we are the new FCS and might as well. Until that happens though we need to keep trying to grow up to be a man vs settling for being a middle school program forever.
Yes the point here is to stay in the argument for when the CFP is expanded (and it will be - Pac16 and B12 are not going to want to be in danger of being left out every year). If it goes to just 6, it’ll be much harder, but when it goes to 8 (or more) the entire G5 needs to pull every political string and power move available (get the media on its side) to get a guaranteed slot. I can see the P5 even playing games with that, like adding a play in round and giving the top 2-4 teams byes.
It doesn’t matter. There is still a path to the big show if the G5 has a guaranteed slot in that scenario, and that means everything in terms of recruiting and relevance. And each time you add another G5 slot to expand that access, it makes a huge impact on G5 viability. NWAs example of a TN kid picking between Memphis and UT is a perfect example, right down to the point that it may actually be easier to play in the CFP at Memphis. That’s powerful. It doesn’t guaranty a level playing field or a G5 champion, but it does guaranty the possibility of it happening. That makes the G5 schools relevant.
Look at the CFP standings and history. You would have to go to 8 to even get a chance.
Highest G5
2014 - 20th Boise State (11-2) 11 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses
2015 - 18th Houston (12-1) 11 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses
2016 - 15th Western Michigan (13-0) 13 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses
2017 - 12th UCF (12-0) 11 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses, Only team without a loss.
2018 - 8th UCF (12-0) 4 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses, 2nd undefeated year in a row.
2019 - 17th Memphis (12-1) 12 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses
2020 - 8th Cincinnati (8-0) 4 P5 teams ahead of them had more losses, Coastal is 10 - 0 and sits at 13th.
If you are a G5 program you want to complete against the best to prove your worth not be relegated to a B league that everyone ignores. Most P5 programs don’t have a shot at winning a national championship either.
If we can get the playoff to 8 then the highest ranked G5 goes in - regardless of their rank because as you point out the voters never give G5 any respect even when they have proven worthy like UCF a few years ago. P5 champs, 2 at large and top ranked G5. That’s a fair way of doing this and provides access to each conference and school
You could make it 6 - the P5 champs and the top ranked G5. That would give #1 and 2 a bye to round 2. I think though SEC specifically wants to get that second team in so the atlarges likely would make sense.
In all seriousness, I completely agree with him. The only thing he is wrong about is broccoli. Steamed broccoli is pretty good, especially with a little cheese.
I’m not a fan of a G5 playoff but I’m a fan of a G5 bracket buster type week similar to what BYU and Coastal Carolina did this year. Hypothetically the top six teams in the G5 could all play the second or third week in November before Thanksgiving.
I don’t like that version of bracket buster because it allows P5 programs to get away with what causes the problem in the first place…
Instead, in a make me CFB czar for a day move, I’d do a bracket buster that forced P5 teams to play G5 leaders in neutral or road games that third week in November… That would let us know who is worthy.
By your logic you should then get rid of 95% of all teams. College football should only be Alabama, Okl, Clemson, OSU, UGA, ND, LSU, FSU, FL, USC because 90% of the time the national champion is coming out of that group schools. The state of North Carolina should not have any football programs because it hasn’t ever produced a consensus national champion. ND should be kicked out because it’s been 32 years since they’ve won a NC.
You could expand that to other sports too. UVA shouldn’t have been playing basketball because they had never won a national championship, it had been 40 years since they had even won the ACC. Hell, from 1999-2011, Duke won the ACC championship 11 out of 14 years. The Big 12 should get rid of every team except Kansas because they won the regular season 16 years in a row.
Kick the Panthers out of the NFL, they’ve never won a Super Bowl. Kick out the Chiefs because they hadn’t won a SB in 50 years. The biggest money maker in all of sports, the Dallas Cowboys, it’s been 25 years since they won the SB. Kick the Cubs out of MLB because it had been 100+ years since they had won a World Series. It’s been 72 years Cleveland has won a WS, kick them out. Before somebody named Curry came along it had been 40 years since Golden State had won a title. The Nuggets still haven’t won a title.
We will play against and have played against better teams in our non-conference schedule than we will play in post season maybe ever under the current structure. To me telling a kid that he can play against Clemson, Tennessee, etc… and have a shot at a G5 National Championship is reasonable and actually believable.
Outside of moving to a P5 conference I don’t see us ever having a shot at the National Championship. These kids know that so unless a recruiter wants to be laughed at he shouldn’t say that.
The G5 playoff could be something like the NIT. You would only go to it if you were not invited to the college football playoff. Which so far would be 100% of the time for G5’S. Establishing this would be no different than creating new bowl games that are set up for only G5 conferences which already exist. It’s existence would not exclude a G5 from going to the college football playoff anymore than the existence of the Myrtle Beach bowl does. G5 conferences need to get together & come up with ways to create excitement & revenue to survive. This would just be an attempt to do that. It could fail miserably but I think it would be interesting to see it happen.
The only way this could be fixed equitably would be to contract to 8 conferences or diffuse to 16 conferences. Make the conference championship the entry way into an 8 or 16 team playoff. No at large bids.
All FBS schools would then have a chance to win the title with no exceptions.