[BostonCard]

The thing is that trying to determine the "best" team is an actively pointless goal. It's so poorly defined that I don't understand why ostensibly smart people even discuss it. There is a reason that literally every other team sport I'm aware of determines a championship based on:

1) Group teams into geographical clusters.
2) The winners (determined somehow) out of those clusters advance to the tournament.
3) The best records of the non-winners (again, determined somehow) also advance to the tournament.
4) Seeding is done either by records or by informed panels producing a consensus.
5) There's a defined path to winning the tournament.

College football is the only sport that doesn't do that and I find it baffling. I find it even more baffling that people defend this approach, especially fans of the team that has been completely screwed over by it at least twice in the past 8 years.

Finall, what I meant by us being better than Oklahoma/MSU is that we wouldn't have put up clunkers of games against Alabama/Clemson. Would we have beaten the latter two? Maybe! It's impossible to know without playing the game, which is all that I want the opportunity to do. Could we have beaten Auburn in 2010? I think so! Alabama in 2011/2012? Probably not but who knows? I want to see those games!

I don't care about determining the "best" team. I admit it is an impossible task. But one argument for the playoffs (made in this thread) is that the "best team" can be left out of the playoffs altogether because they stumbled along the way.  I disagree with that argument and offered reasons why.

When the United States was born, "there was a reason" why literally (ok, maybe not literally) every single country was ruled by a monarch... I think the fact that "every other team sport" does it the way you describe doesn't necessarily make it the right way to do things, just as dismissing Democracy because at the time every other country did it another way makes no sense.

Moreover, your assertion is inaccurate.  The English Premiere league has no playoff.  The 20 teams pay a double round-robin regular season, and the team with the highest number of points at the end of the season is declared the Premiere league champion.  No divisions, no tournament for the winners of the divisions, no seeding, none of that.  We are talking about the third most valuable sports league in the world behind the NFL and MLB, and it has thrived just fine without a playoff.

I respect the fact that you really want an (expanded) playoff.  There are some advantages to such a system.  If crowning a champion through a defined mechanism is important to you, I understand where you are coming from.  If you take umbrage from being arbitrarily left (or "screwed") out of a payoff system because some combination of an untimely loss or a system that doesn't adequately reward strength of schedule, or whatever, I understand.  But for me, college football isn't about "crowning a champion" on the field.  As I said, last year was about the worst possible scenario for Stanford, being the only P5 team to be left out of the playoffs, and I still felt it was a near-perfect season.  I simply don't have an overwhelming desire to see an uncontroversial champion crowned, even if that champion is Stanford, and I don't think when all is said and done, I would enjoy seeing Stanford in an eight team playoff any more or less than seeing Stanford in the Rose Bowl.  Obviously I would be thrilled if Stanford were in the playoff or national championship, but more because it was Stanford than because it was the National Championship.  Last year, I watched the National Championship with about the same level of interest that I watched this year's Notre Dame/Texas game, which is to say that I had it on in the background while I was doing something else.  It was good football.

I get that most people want to see the playoffs expanded to eight or more teams.  I realize it is more or less inevitable.  But in my personal opinion, it won't make college football better, just as the current system isn't any better than the BCS or the BCS any better than the pre-BCS bowl system.  they are just different.

I just wish you would respect my opinion and not treat it like some assault on mom and Apple Pie.

BC

[BostonCard]

The thing is that trying to determine the "best" team is an actively pointless goal. It's so poorly defined that I don't understand why ostensibly smart people even discuss it. There is a reason that literally every other team sport I'm aware of determines a championship based on:

1) Group teams into geographical clusters.
2) The winners (determined somehow) out of those clusters advance to the tournament.
3) The best records of the non-winners (again, determined somehow) also advance to the tournament.
4) Seeding is done either by records or by informed panels producing a consensus.
5) There's a defined path to winning the tournament.

College football is the only sport that doesn't do that and I find it baffling. I find it even more baffling that people defend this approach, especially fans of the team that has been completely screwed over by it at least twice in the past 8 years.

Finall, what I meant by us being better than Oklahoma/MSU is that we wouldn't have put up clunkers of games against Alabama/Clemson. Would we have beaten the latter two? Maybe! It's impossible to know without playing the game, which is all that I want the opportunity to do. Could we have beaten Auburn in 2010? I think so! Alabama in 2011/2012? Probably not but who knows? I want to see those games!

I don't care about determining the "best" team. I admit it is an impossible task. But one argument for the playoffs (made in this thread) is that the "best team" can be left out of the playoffs altogether because they stumbled along the way.  I disagree with that argument and offered reasons why.

When the United States was born, "there was a reason" why literally (ok, maybe not literally) every single country was ruled by a monarch... I think the fact that "every other team sport" does it the way you describe doesn't necessarily make it the right way to do things, just as dismissing Democracy because at the time every other country did it another way makes no sense.

Moreover, your assertion is inaccurate.  The English Premiere league has no playoff.  The 20 teams pay a double round-robin regular season, and the team with the highest number of points at the end of the season is declared the Premiere league champion.  No divisions, no tournament for the winners of the divisions, no seeding, none of that.  We are talking about the third most valuable sports league in the world behind the NFL and MLB, and it has thrived just fine without a playoff.

I respect the fact that you really want an (expanded) playoff.  There are some advantages to such a system.  If crowning a champion through a defined mechanism is important to you, I understand where you are coming from.  If you take umbrage from being arbitrarily left (or "screwed") out of a payoff system because some combination of an untimely loss or a system that doesn't adequately reward strength of schedule, or whatever, I understand.  But for me, college football isn't about "crowning a champion" on the field.  As I said, last year was about the worst possible scenario for Stanford, being the only P5 team to be left out of the playoffs, and I still felt it was a near-perfect season.  I simply don't have an overwhelming desire to see an uncontroversial champion crowned, even if that champion is Stanford, and I don't think when all is said and done, I would enjoy seeing Stanford in an eight team playoff any more or less than seeing Stanford in the Rose Bowl.  Obviously I would be thrilled if Stanford were in the playoff or national championship, but more because it was Stanford than because it was the National Championship.  Last year, I watched the National Championship with about the same level of interest that I watched this year's Notre Dame/Texas game, which is to say that I had it on in the background while I was doing something else.  It was good football.

I get that most people want to see the playoffs expanded to eight or more teams.  I realize it is more or less inevitable.  But in my personal opinion, it won't make college football better, just as the current system isn't any better than the BCS or the BCS any better than the pre-BCS bowl system.  they are just different.

I just wish you would respect my opinion and not treat it like some assault on mom and Apple Pie.

BC