+1

It was a weird year in the Big Ten the way things shook out. I don't honestly think anybody, sans bias (and there's a lot of that here), can say the two best teams in the Big Ten played in the title game. OSU and Michigan were the two best teams in the conference and neither won their own division outright. Penn St is a very good team, a very hot team, but the fact is they lost to Pitt and got HOUSED by Michigan. I, personally, would have put PSU in over Washington, but I'm not on the committee. That committee was to pick the 4 best teams in the country. Not the 4 hottest teams, not the 4 best conference champs. You can't sincerely look at OSU's resume, 3-1 against teams in the final top 10 with 3 of those games on the road, and say they are not a top 4 team.

For those of you who say conference titles are so important, let me throw you a hypothetical. Alabama was and is clearly the #1 team all year long. Say they dropped the SEC title game on a late FG to Florida. They were the #1 team all through the year, they have one loss and no conference title. Would you leave Alabama out? Would they suddenly not be a top 4 team?

Extremely fair. Makes too much sense for the idiots that run the college football cartel to ever adopted it short of a tar and pitchfork revolt by the unwashed football masses. Power to the people! ;-)

Yeah that would be real fair...Can't you see how fair that would be now. 12 teams in the MAC, play 8 games. We get Western, Eastern, Toledo, Central....Miami gets Ball State, NIU, Eastern Central.....That sounds real fair!!! If you remember, Northwestern has two Big10 titles because they did not play OSU, and NW had the tie breaker on the Rose Bowl because they hadn't went the longest.

So OSU and PSU would tie, OSU WOULD STILL GO BECAUSE they are one of the best teams in college football.

I've been preaching this for years. Ten conference champions, and six at-large teams consisting of the six highest ranked non-champions. A lot of the "big-time" programs would really beef up their non-conference schedule to build up their résumé in case they don't win their conference championship. And for those who always complain about Notre Dame not being in a conference, well, the Irish would know before the season started that they would have to earn one of the six at-large bids to get in.

Every school in the country would now know that they have a chance to compete for the national championship if things break their way. Some schools might have a better chance than others, but at least the chance is there.


This year, the ten conference champions are:

AAC: Temple
ACC: Clemson
Big Ten: Penn St.
Big 12: Oklahoma
CUSA: Western Kentucky
MAC: Western Michigan
Mountain West: San Diego St.
PAC 12: Washington
SEC: Alabama
Sun Belt: Appalachian St.

At-Large:
Ohio St.
Michigan
Wisconsin
USC
Colorado
Florida St.


(Edited: I was looking at an incorrect poll)

No one seems to worry about that for NCAA Division III football.

They have a 32-team bracket.

Interesting concept.
Would conference champs have higher seeds/home games over at larges? Interesting.

If so, would the seeding be interesting? (see what I added above)
Interesting.

If that were to play out in a bracket (can't post an image here), it would likely end up with a Final Four of: Alabama, Ohio St./Washington, Clemson and Mich/Penn St.*
Interesting.

Would teams in the Top 10 who are left out of the playoffs (Florida State) cry?
Interesting.

I think the only real solution is to go to a 64-team bracket with play-in games.


*second round likely matchups:

Temple at Alabama

Michigan at Penn St.

Ohio St. at Washington

WKU at Clemson

My guess would be that teams would be seeded according to their overall rankings, regardless of whether they were a conference champion or an at-large team. (Similar to how the NCAA Basketball Tournament works.)

My seeding for this year would be:

1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. Ohio St. (at-large)
4. Washington
5. Penn St.
6. Michigan (at-large)
7. Oklahoma
8. Wisconsin (at-large)
9. USC (at-large)
10. Colorado (at-large)
11. Florida St. (at-large)
12. Western Michigan
13. Temple
14. Western Kentucky
15. Appalachian St.
16. San Diego St.


The brackets would be as follows:
(A)
#16 San Diego St. @ #1 Alabama
#9 USC @ #8 Wisconsin

(B)
#13 Temple @ #4 Washington
#12 Western Michigan @ #5 Penn St.

(C}
#15 Appalachian St. @ #2 Clemson
#10 Colorado @ #7 Oklahoma

(D)
#14 Western Kentucky @ #3 Ohio St.
#11 Florida St. @ #6 Michigan


Semifinals:
Bracket A winner vs. Bracket B winner
Bracket C winner vs. Bracket D winner


(Edited: I was previously looking at an inaccurate/out-of-date poll)

Yawn.

Win a MACC and we'll have something OHIO exciting to discuss, to stop these fantasy, silly threads.

Hey, anyone for an OHIO moving to a new conference thread--haven't had one of those perennial favorites for a while?!

No they are both in the same conference so they are guaranteed to play each other once a year!

Huh? No, this already happened and PSU earned the berth to the conference championship based on the standings and parameters set out that are all based on on-field results and nothing to do with people's opinions. You know, the way sports should be.

Same here in Athens - stores were empty. Went to Lowe's and there were more people working than shopping.