Discussion How come the NCAA never arranged an FBS National Championship?
Question in the title. Pretty sure FBS football is the only sport/division the NCAA doesn't hold a national championship for, and they've held national championships for other sports since the 1930s at least, so... how come the NCAA never decided to organize a post-season tournament for it? Why did they leave the championship for the polls, Bowl Coalition/Alliance, BCS, and CFP?
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Dec 07 '24
The bowls and polls had too much power from the start…it’s also REALLY hard to determine a national champion in a sport like football.
A long tournament like basketball makes no sense because that would take several months for CFB. There’s also such extreme range in talent that isn’t seen in any other sport.
My theory is that it was generally just pretty obvious who the best team was each year (and I’ve maintained this throughout the playoff era). There’s always 2-3 teams I see at the start of the year as likely national champions, and I don’t think I’ve ever truly been surprised by a national champion.
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u/jbowen1 Utah Utes • New Mexico Lobos Dec 07 '24
Football has also traditionally been extremely regional. In the 1910’s through the 1970’s/1980’s, winning your conference was the ultimate goal. It’s only as the sport became more national that the idea of a “National Champion” really took off. And by then, the highest level of the sport was so entrenched in tradition that it was near impossible to change
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u/ProvocativeCacophony Auburn Tigers • Cincinnati Bearcats Dec 07 '24
While before my time, growing up in Ohio, it was made quite clear that the Rose Bowl was the goal prior to the BCS and anything else was "oh, neat".
For Ohio State, it was beat Michigan to win the Big Ten and go to Pasadena (to get their ass kicked by the PAC-8 most of the time). That was their national title for decades.
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u/TheNainRouge /r/CFB Dec 07 '24
And in many ways if was glorious. Seeing the PAC vs BIG play in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day was an event. The BCS in a lot of ways ruined that by taking away the traditional matchups of the Rose, Cotton, Orange Bowl. They stopped being those major games between conferences and just became a premier exhibition.
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u/Prudent-Cheetah1656 Nebraska Cornhuskers • BYU Cougars Dec 07 '24
Depends on how you define surprise, I guess, but there are a few notable champions in relatively recent years that I would be shocked if you pinned as top contenders.
Ohio State in 2002 was a surprise. Ranked #13 in the preseason and didn't crack the top 5 until the last week of September.
LSU in 2003 was a surprise. Ranked #14 in the preseason and didn't crack the top 5 until the first week of November.
Auburn in 2010 was a surprise. Ranked #22 in the preseason and didn't crack the top 5 until the 3rd week of October.
Florida State in 2013 was a surprise. Ranked #11 in the preseason and didn't crack the top 5 until the 2nd week of October.
Another one that surprised most before the season started was 2019 LSU. They were preseason #6, but Clemson and Alabama were viewed as overwhelming favorites, with Georgia and Oklahoma viewed as the only legitimate threats. LSU wasn't viewed as a true contender until they beat Florida in week 7.
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u/Wernher_VonKerman Colorado Buffaloes • Team Chaos Dec 07 '24
I feel like we're going to keep going around in circles on this, honestly. We'll expand the playoffs to 24 teams when teams keep crying about being left out, then do a complete 180 when it doesn't produce different results and just determine the national champion based on fpi and eye tests every year. But then there will be a time where some undefeated power team isn't crowned the champion and cries foul, taking us back to square 1.
Personally I think an 8-team cfp is the ideal system. Pick the top 8 ranked teams in the country, have a straight-up quarterfinal and semifinal, whoever wins wins.
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u/theguineapigssong Furman Paladins • Verified Player Dec 07 '24
Nah. We expanded the playoff to 24 teams in FCS and we love it. There is absolutely no relevant person advocating for going back to a smaller bracket. Every conference champion gets an autobid (excluding the Ivy League because they don't do post season stuff in football, and the MEAC and SWAC who do the Celebration Bowl instead).
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Dec 07 '24
I agree that 8 is plenty. I just hope they never expand it to the point where I have hope, only to see my 24th seed Cornhuskers get their shit kicked in like it’s a re-run of the 2012 B1G championship.
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u/Wernher_VonKerman Colorado Buffaloes • Team Chaos Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24
24 is way too big, I have no delusions about the fact that we're not a playoff-caliber team, or any other team ranked in our general vicinity for that matter. But it seems inevitable based on the fact that we're at 12 teams already but still have lane kiffin and brett yormark whining about it.
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u/TheNainRouge /r/CFB Dec 07 '24
I think 24 is inevitable as the bowls disappear thanks in part to the playoff. Those stadiums want their money and will push to get it back somehow and the only way to do it is to tie the games into the playoff.
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u/No-Donkey-4117 Stanford Cardinal Dec 07 '24
24 is where it will end up. Top 8 teams get a first round bye. It's only one more round than a 16-team tournament, and most of the teams in the first round will be eliminated quickly. For the top 8 teams it's the same as a 16-team tournament.
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u/Nobichobolobas Illinois • Wisconsin Dec 07 '24
Or any Big Ten team not named Ohio State, Michigan, Oregon, or USC
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u/MrChuyy California Golden Bears Dec 07 '24
I honestly like the 12 team playoff. 8 team is too little imo. 16 is pushing it.
Teams still going to cry about being left out, even if we had a 24 team playoff.
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u/Styx1886 North Dakota State • Nebraska Dec 07 '24
Situation like that happened last year in the fcs with UC Davis being left out for Sac St, even though UC Davis beat them early in the year. No matter the size of the playoffs, a team will always complain about being out. I like the 24 team system for FCS, but for FBS, 12 feels like enough.
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u/OceanPoet87 California Golden Bears • UC Davis Aggies Dec 07 '24
I agree. For FCS anymore than 24 is too much. For FBS 12 feels right. I bet they'll expand to #16 at some point.
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u/hwf0712 Rutgers Scarlet Knights • The Alliance Dec 07 '24
I don't think they'll do that because then they could risk all of their big brands going out week one.
RN they're guaranteed at least one round to keep an SEC/B1G darling past, if they do straight up top 8 v bottom 8, they'll have a chance that all of their darlings go out in one week.
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u/Wernher_VonKerman Colorado Buffaloes • Team Chaos Dec 07 '24
At the end of the day the problem with any system is that there's no such thing as a purely unbiased ranking, even the bcs algorithm is influenced by stuff like the AP and the coaches' poll. So no matter how we do it there will be someone complaining that their team/their favorite cinderella story didn't get a chance to play for all the marbles.
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u/im-on-my-ninth-life Dec 07 '24
There is no bcs "algorithm". Can't believe people are still mixing that up even though there was a post about it just a few days ago.
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u/justintrenell Michigan • Bethune-Cookman Dec 07 '24
I've been thinking about what can be done to the playoff and I keep coming back to this:
Seed straight off the rankings, only guaranteeing the top 5 conf. champs a top 8 seed instead of top 4 getting a bye.
Re-seed after the first round (it works in the NFL, it worked in hockey before they changed divisions).
The basketball side seeds lower conference champs low every year, at least I'm comprising and they get a home game.
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u/No-Donkey-4117 Stanford Cardinal Dec 07 '24
Once the playoffs expand they never shrink.
16 teams would be ideal -- 10 conference champions and 6 at-large bids. Every team can play their way in, and the tournament includes the top 10 teams.
Another option would be to go 24 teams, and just use the AP rankings. Top 8 teams get a first round bye. Next 16 teams play each other to advance. G5 teams get in if they crack the rankings (which a few teams do every year). No one cries about the 25th and 26th best teams getting left out, except the 25th and 26th best teams.
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u/brailsmt BYU Cougars • Big 12 Dec 07 '24
One game a week means that in 5 weeks there can be a 32 team playoff. 5 weeks is currently less than the time between rivalry weekend and the current CFP game on January 20th. This narrative that a large playoff isn't feasible with football is wrong as evidenced by the existing length of the current post season. Make it 6 weeks, have 64 teams, fold in the bowl games, and after week 2 of the play offs all but 16 teams are done for the year.
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u/Typical-Conference14 Kansas State Wildcats Dec 08 '24
This is when we go a 64 team football tournament and play a game every two days. Let’s see who fatigue hits the hardest
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Dec 07 '24
Where does the "several months" come from? A 64 team tournament would only take 6 weeks. If we think 64 is too much and do 16 teams instead, that's basically the same as the current 12 team playoff requiring only 4 weeks.
We have a month of postseason play in basketball and it's fun as hell for fans. I'd love to see the same in football.
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u/im-on-my-ninth-life Dec 07 '24
it's fun as hell for fans
It causes the regular season to have fewer fans
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u/Airforce32123 Kentucky Wildcats • Air Force Falcons Dec 07 '24
Yea I feel like a lot of the appeal for me about CFB is that each game matters a lot, so I watch every week. I don't do the same for the NFL or basketball because so what if they don't win?
Hell, UK is a basketball powerhouse usually and I still don't watch half the regular season games.
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u/AllHawkeyesGoToHell Minnesota • Iowa State Dec 07 '24
This is a question to ask on a Tuesday in mid-January question.
But it's the compromise that gave the NCAA authority over the major schools in the first place. In exchange for the NCAA letting the big schools continue to safeguard their cash cow in football (bowl payouts, ticket revenue, and later TV revenue payouts), they would let the NCAA govern every other sport and the schools' conduct in every sport. Its one of many original sins in the sport. Without it, the NCAA wouldn't have existed in the first place.
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u/key_lime_pie Washington • Boston College Dec 07 '24
This is not accurate.
The NCAA was founded in 1906 and given enforcement authority in 1948. College football was not a cash cow until the 1970s, and most people in college athletics were opposed to expanding the postseason until that time. Two of the first things that the NCAA did after gaining enforcement authority was (a) crack down on the number of bowls, and (b) ban schools from broadcasting their own games.
The reason why they did not establish a playoff is because there was no reason to do so. The basketball tournament was created in 1939 to crown a champion because there were no polls to do so. Football already had polls and pollsters were already crowing a national champion, and in an era where schools routinely turned down bowl invites, and very real conference titles were considered more important than mythical national titles, the schools saw no reason to have a playoff.
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Dec 07 '24
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u/AllHawkeyesGoToHell Minnesota • Iowa State Dec 07 '24
Oh yeah the internal politics of college athletics is incredibly fascinating
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u/JemmieTTU Texas Tech Red Raiders Dec 07 '24
Money
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u/No-Donkey-4117 Stanford Cardinal Dec 07 '24
But they (college football in general) left more money on the table for decades by not having a playoff sooner.
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u/LSNoyce Dec 07 '24
Because Bowls were in place longe before there was an NCAA.
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u/key_lime_pie Washington • Boston College Dec 07 '24
The NCAA was founded in 1906. Exactly one bowl game had been played at that point: the 1902 Rose Bowl.
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u/boardatwork1111 TCU Horned Frogs • Colorado Buffaloes Dec 07 '24
Bowls bring in a lot of money, and for most of the sports history, have had an enormous amount of influence. Bowls, particularly the Rose Bowl, wanted to continue dominating the CFB post season and kneecapped any attempt at establishing an NCAA sanctioned championship. Would recommend reading Dan Wetzel’s “Death to the BCS” if you’re interested in the history of it
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u/im-on-my-ninth-life Dec 07 '24
Because they were never interested in doing such. They (the universities) mostly still aren't, so the championship is arranged on an unofficial basis by a separate organization, the cfp, which is mostly the media rather than the universities.
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u/grizzfan Verified Coach • Oakland Golden Grizzlies Dec 07 '24
The champion was always selected by an end-of-season poll at the end of the regular season, and by the time the bowls started gaining popularity, they were already bringing in too much money to question another format.
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u/BWW87 Washington Huskies Dec 07 '24
Men's rowing also does not have an NCAA championship. The IRA championships are still considered the national championships.
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u/CountrySlaughter Dec 07 '24
It’s what the schools want. The ncaa can’t tell them what to do. It’s the other way around. The schools were happy with what they had.
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u/fu-depaul Salad Bowl • Refrigerator Bowl Dec 07 '24
Short answer: the schools themselves don’t want to give up the money from FBS.
The NCAA is the schools. The schools decide what the NCAA will do. And the big money schools want to keep control of FBS and negotiate between themselves while keeping out the likes of the Mountain West and American.
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u/MiniAndretti Notre Dame Fighting Irish Dec 08 '24
You are one of the few voices of reason in the wilderness. Too many think of the NCAA as this monolithic thing that willed itself into existence and just rules. Like it was handed a sword by a watery tart.
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u/TheMetalMallard Oregon Ducks Dec 07 '24
Because the NCAA realized the powers that control the sport were even more corrupt than they were
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u/Jaratii Tennessee Volunteers Dec 07 '24
Money. Since the 20th century there has been decentralized power in college football, FBS has historically been governed more by the schools, conferences, and bowl alliances than by the NCAA itself, in part because college football existed before the NCAA.
These conferences were protective of their autonomy and financial arrangements.
Since FBS schools typically generate far more revenue (ticket sales, sponsorship deals, and in more modern times, TV contracts, etc.) than schools in other divisions, especially for football, these schools/conferences preferred to maintain control over the postseason to safeguard their financial interests.
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u/LuckyStax Nevada Wolf Pack • Oregon State Beavers Dec 07 '24
Because people bitch about bowls and tradition.
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u/lowes18 Florida State Seminoles • FAU Owls Dec 07 '24
Too much money in the bowl system to get rid of it
Also college football predates the NCAA, so it was already established there wasn't a championship.