r/fcs • u/blkpnthr09 James Madison • Saint Louis • 1d ago
This is why a 24 team FBS playoff will actually not be well received.
The current Stats Perform FCS top 25 has 10/13 leagues represented in the top 25.
The current AP Top 25 has 5/10.
That’s your major difference. One group pays attention to the entire sport. The other barely looks past 10-15 teams.
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u/Sharp_Proposal8911 Boise State • Illinois State 1d ago
It’s because they’re structuring the playoff in a way that G6 teams are locked out for the most part.
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u/ShefCrl Montana State • Stanford 1d ago
Exactly, one of the great things about the FCS playoff is that (almost) every conference gets an autobid no questions asked. Sure the MVFC, Big Sky and (historicaly) the CAA are stronger than the others but there is no mechanisim in place that turns it into a playoff of just those three.
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u/Sharp_Proposal8911 Boise State • Illinois State 1d ago
Yep, I think what may need to happen is the G6 plus the top FCS teams will need to break off and make their own league. And pursue it ruthlessly, running marketing campaigns against the P4, signing non-compete clauses, having, truly open playoff available to all conference championships, and being able to keep the money from our own playoffs. No ESPN or NCAA involvement. See how well the P4 does when they lose their entire development league and 30% of their viewership.
They’ll be begging for a merger like how the AFL fucked the NFL
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u/Adamscottd South Dakota State • Minnesota 1d ago
I'm going to copy what I wrote in your thread on r/CFB because I think it's meaningful for those of us here who are confused why FBS fans don't accept a 24 team playoff (beyond the outrageous lack of auto-bids, obviously. I'm not supporting that)
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But the thing that doesn't get talked about enough is when it comes to the playoff is the common fan's expectation of what the postseason "should" be. The FCS has had a playoff format of 16+ teams for 40 years. For anyone who's an FCS fan it's basically all we've ever known, so to us, it's normal- we're used to regular season games being framed as a prelude to the playoffs, we're used to defining the stakes of a regular season game in the context of how it impacts the playoff picture, etc.
So it's easy for FCS fans to say "this has always worked great in the FCS, it can work in the FBS too." But it's also easy for us fans of the FCS to forget that a large playoff is never how it has worked in the FBS. It's easy to forget how jarring a large playoff will be for fans of a sport who had only a two team championship (or no championship game at all) when they were growing up. So I respect the fans who are wary of this for the FBS.
And of course, the FBS's new playoff format isn't the FCS format. The lack of autobids for every champion is one key missing factor- the fact that G6 teams will get left out is one thing, but another thing it impacts is that it moves the "at-large line" (the last at-large team in) from #18/19 to #23/24. It's a lot of teams in the playoff either way, but from the perspective of the average fan who only follows the power conferences, the lack of G6 bids means five more mediocre 8-9 win power teams getting in. That's not the case in the FCS, and if it were, you'd probably see the Missouri Valley get 6 or 7 out of its 9 teams into the playoff some years.
Another key difference is the number of on-campus home games- in the FCS, even if your spot within the top 8 is secure late in the season, battling for a top 4 or top 2 seed is a big deal because it means extra home playoff games in later rounds. But in the FBS, there's no difference between the #2 seed and say the #7 seed, aside from the seeding of their opponents.
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u/PlanTrap FCS 1d ago
Good write up. But I will point out that Missouri’ valley does regularly get 4-6 trams in the playoffs. And every year the question is raised of whether a 7-5 valley team deserves the spot over a 10-2 patriot league team (usually the valley team gets the nod).
The 24 team fbs could be SO GOOD if they treated it right. A 8-4 big ten team should get in over a 10-2 cusa team but it shouldn’t be automatic. And if a p4 team doesn’t hit 7 or 8 wins, they shouldn’t be in the playoffs. Would be a lot more pressure on the regular season games if they knew they had to earn their spot over 11-1 James Madison or Boise state.
Anyways. I liked what you said. FCs fans know that a big playoff can absolutely work. But the devil is in the details. And this plan could really flop if it locks out 2/3rds of the teams in the division.
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u/Far-Concentrate-460 South Dakota State • Dakota M… 1d ago
Yeah I’m interested to see if there’s a chicken and the egg type situation here. We rarely see AQs come into necessity outside the PFL (and even their champ gets some votes) but I wonder if that’s because we rank them knowing they’re a playoff team and would otherwise not be receiving votes.
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u/TarkusEnjoyer Furman Paladins 1d ago
The power imbalance of FBS is why the FCS model wouldn’t work, but it highlights an inevitable issue in FBS that everyone has just kind of been ignoring.
Portal and NIL has already destroyed continuity for the G6 and bowl season entirely. The season already doesn’t matter.
2 years ago Charles Huff went 10-3 and won the Sun Belt at Marshall and immediately left and took his team with him. The administration at Marshall still tried to accept a bowl invite with no team and were fined for doing so, so not only did this great season amount to nothing it ended up costing the school money.
Due to opt outs and portal departures, Rice ended up with a bowl invite at 5-7 and got curbed stomped by Texas State and grabbed a meaningless 8th loss. Didn’t even meet the minimum requirement of 6 games, given the chance anyway because who cares, lost anyway. Waste of a season.
The opt outs and portal mean even the 6 win bar for bowl eligibility isn’t a firm rule as several 5-7 teams end up getting invites, so it’s no longer really important to win half your games. What’s the point?
In addition a lot of G6 schools don’t have or generate enough money to compete at this level the more the costs go up. I bet you envisioned several different schools when you read that. The FBS is bloated. There’s too many schools and less than a handful of G6 schools actually have a sustained culture of winning and “have a chance”. Especially when the threshold for playoff contention in the G6 is 10-2 Conference champ to 12-0 conference champ. I’d argue less than a handful of G6 teams can even still do that anymore. And if new scheduling rules limit the amount of games the P4 can beat up on the G6 then that number may increase and scheduling in the G6 and conference structure will be very important kinda like how Memphis and Boise have scheduled this year.
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u/13bipolarbears Eastern Washington Eagles 9h ago
It’s weird because we can all agree March madness (68 teams) is awesome, but a 24 team playoff is world-ending
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u/njexpat Villanova • Battle of the Blue 8h ago
The difference is that every league is represented in March Madness, so an underrated midmajor can win a game or two and cause some chaos.
When George Mason made it to that final four, people who just didn’t like UConn were rooting for them… they weren’t GMU fans, just UConn-haters. That’s the fun. It was also fun when the 16 seed just makes it a tough out for a 1 seed, even if they ultimately lose.
This FBS playoff isn’t going to create those opportunities.
Maybe FBS is just different… but still. There is no world where Saint Peter’s should ever win a tournament game based on resources or recruiting pull. That happens in a an FBS tournament and the only loser is the big money team that fell short. The sport would win on the whole.
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u/tdpdcpa Lehigh Mountain Hawks • Patriot 1d ago
I think your point is really an indication of the proliferation of "super conferences" in FBS, not necessarily a reflection of how much they pay attention to the "entire sport."
The FCS has not seen that happen, and the economics of this level will not reasonably permit that to happen.
Because it hasn't happened, the best teams in most of the other conferences would at least have a fighter's chance at the middle of the MVFC. That's not really the case in FBS.
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u/foran321 Northern Arizona Lumberjacks 1d ago
Because ESPN (who owns the tv rights to the CFP) has too much money invested in the TV rights of the SEC to not thumb the scale in order to guarantee the most profit
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u/DeZeeuw2 South Dakota State Jackrabbits 1d ago
The NCAA needs to take back control of the FBS postseason whenever the CFP contract is up, and then run it exactly like the FCS playoffs are run. The CFP is not a true playoff; it's an invitational.
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u/DangerouslyUnstable UC Davis Aggies • Clemson Tigers 1d ago
the P4s must play 10 P4 games rule, if that actually gets enacted, will kill the remaining interested I had in FBS. It is such a nakedly anti-spirit-of-sport move that, to me, it turns the division into little more than professional wrestling.
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u/Kyro_Official_ Washington State • Easter… 1d ago edited 1d ago
24 team playoff and fbs still cant give us fucking conference winner autobids
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u/Inevitable_Catch_566 FCS 14h ago
What last seasons CFP would’ve looked like if every conference champion got an auto bid
First Round Byes:
No. 1 Indiana (Big 10 Champ)
No. 2 Ohio State
No. 3 Georgia (SEC Champ)
No. 4 Texas Tech (Big 12 Champ)
No. 5. Oregon
No. 6. Ole Miss
No. 7 Texas A&M
No. 8 Oklahoma
First Round Games:
No. 24 Western Michigan (MAC Champ) at No. 9 Alabama
No. 23 Kennesaw State (C-USA Champ) at No. 10 Miami
No. 22 Boise State (Mountain West Champ) at No. 11 Notre Dame
No. 21 Duke (ACC Champ) at No. 12 BYU
No. 20 James Madison (Sun Belt Champ) at No. 13 Texas
No. 19 Tulane (American Champ) at No. 14 Vanderbilt
No. 18 Michigan at No. 15 Utah
No. 17 Arizona at No. 16 USC
First Four Out:
No. 19 Virginia
No. 21. Houston
No. 22. Georgia Tech
No. 23. Iowa
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u/Equivalent_Bug_3291 17m ago
Every CFP game is televised nationally. Whereas Basketball tournament is mostly a regional broadcast until the sweet 16. In basketball early round boring games lose 50k audience viewers but in the CFP the lost viewers are in the millions. It's not the same argument to compare the two, not in the current format.
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u/SergeantThreat Montana State Bobcats 1d ago edited 1d ago
Only having one spot reserved for G6 teams is such a joke. I get that tge Sun Belt champion would have a high chance of being stomped early, but so does the 6th best team in the SEC, so why not give teams in every conference something to be interested in at the end of the season?