If USC and Ohio st with two losses are left out.

[EagleMountainUte]

Not even an undefeated Utah would be let in going forward. College football is so f**king stupid. 

[rbmw263]

I don’t think an undefeated p5 champ will ever miss the playoff unless the acc has a really down year or something. even then 

[EagleMountainUte]

Ok scenario of undefeated ACC,. Undefeated SEC with one loss Bama and an undefeated B1G and PAC12 not one of the big names? 

[EagleMountainUte]

My frustrations are if you can’t win your conference how are you playing to be the best team in College Football??  The whole discussion is stupid when you can’t win your conference. 

[FtheY]

Never thought if it like that, but that’s a really interesting point. 

[UteThunder]

Do you have the same frustration with the NCAA basketball tournament that let’s in 30+ teams that weren’t good enough to win their conference to compete to be the best team in college basketball?

[FtheY]

Also a really interesting point. Good debate for sure. 

[GameForAnyFuss]

If they got into the tournament instead of conference champions, then I would have a problem with it. But since all conference champions are guaranteed spots, I have no problem with a bunch of non-champions also going.

Once college football puts all P5 champions in the playoffs, then we can talk about “at large” spots.

[UteThunder]

All conference champions are NOT guaranteed spots in the NCAA tournament(aside from the Ivy League). There are conference champs who get left out of the NCAA tournament all the time. It is the teams who win their conference tournament who are guaranteed a spot in the NCAA tournament. And because of that, we routinely see teams who were only good enough to finish as the #2 or worse team in their conference but they got hot over a 3 day stretch and took the tourney bid from the best team in their conference. 

So, the comparison is still valid. Are people frustrated that a team that wasn’t even good enough to win their conference are allowed to compete for the basketball championship? Teams that wouldn’t have gotten an at-large bid?

If Ohio State wanted to get in to the CFP they shouldn’t have had their doors blown off by Iowa. If USC wanted to get in, they should have beaten Washington State and/or Notre Dame. 

The goal of the CFP isn’t to match up the 4 best conference champions, it is to match up the 4 best teams. Despite not winning their conference, Alabama still looks like one of the 4 best teams in the country. All year people were questioning if anyone could even compete with them, but since they lost one game now they suddenly aren’t better than a couple of two loss teams?

[GameForAnyFuss]

OK, now I see what you’re saying.

My argument would be that the problem in basketball is the fact that we have conference tournaments to begin with, rather than looking at the entire body of work, to your point. But I think the size of the NCAA tournament is right.

In college football, you could have a P5 team win their conference regular season and their conference championship game and still miss the CFP. That tells me the tournament isn’t big enough.

[EagleMountainUte]

I think it is a way too large tournament. But is the best thing about College Basketball. But Basketball and Football are two completely different sports. 

I just look as it being fixed. Yeah bama lost one game. SEC has felt overrated all year though to me. 

[Thlete]

Basketball comparisons don’t work. 3x the games and 16x teams invited to playoffs. In CFB where Alabama plays 9 games vs P5 and USC plays 12 games vs P5 teams, it’s not fair to compare 1 loss vs 2 losses. Fact is, if USC plays Mercer instead of Notre Dame, they get in over Bama without a debate – and that’s a problem for fans who like competitive, fun OOC games. 

[shakeitsugaree]

Well said

[TexanUte]

And if Alabama doesn’t want people to question their credentials they shouldn’t play the least amount of Power 5 games in the country. Disgraceful schedule and it continues going forward with such out of conference powers as Mercer and The Citadel in coming years. Hope Clemson blows their doors off.