Took most of this year off because of underwhelming performances by my own team, and also the changes to the landscape making most of the blog posts pointless. But we're here to go over the different ways this postseason would look under old formats.
The big change from last year is that the CFP removed the rule that the top four seeds go to conference champions. Here's how the seeding of this year's tournament would look with last year's rules:
#1 Indiana (B1G champ)
#2 Georgia (SEC champ)
#3 Texas Tech (Big 12 champ)
#4 Tulane (American champ)
Then the first round would be:
#12 JMU at #5 Ohio State
#11 Miami at #6 Oregon
#10 Alabama at #7 Ole Miss
#9 Oklahoma at #8 Texas A&M
We'd probably see even more bellyaching about Tulane getting the 4 seed than Boise getting the 3 seed last year. But, this format would have put a little more emphasis on the B1G championship game, where the prize would have been first round bye vs. home game.
Regardless of the seeding, we have 3 B1G teams, 5 SEC teams, and 1 team each from the Big 12, ACC, American, and Sun Belt.
Going back to the New Year's Six format, we would have had the semifinals be the Peach and Fiesta Bowls. That would have greatly reduced the at-large options, and forced the G5 team into the Cotton Bowl.
Peach Bowl: #1 Indiana vs. #4 Texas Tech
Fiesta Bowl: #2 Ohio State vs. #3 Georgia
Sugar Bowl: #6 Ole Miss (SEC replacement) vs. #12 BYU (Big 12 replacement)
What throws a monkey wrench in this format is that we do not know how they would have handled the demise of the Pac-12. I think the two main options are continuing with the old Pac-12 bowl contracts, or selecting an at-large team.
Option #1 - Rose Bowl uses current B1G teams and an at-large, but allows the Orange Bowl to settle their second opponent first (with the SEC/B1G/ND deal).
Rose Bowl: #5 Oregon (B1G replacement) vs. #8 Oklahoma (SEC, at-large)
Orange Bowl: Duke (unranked ACC champ) vs. #7 Texas A&M (highest remaining SEC/B1G/ND)
Cotton Bowl: #20 Tulane (G5 champ) vs. #9 Alabama (SEC, at-large)
Maybe the Cotton and Rose Bowl trade Oklahoma and Alabama?
With this option, we have 3 B1G teams, 5 SEC teams, 2 Big 12 teams, 1 ACC, and 1 American.
Option #2 - Rose Bowl picks like it's still 2022.
Rose Bowl: #5 Oregon (highest old Pac-12 team) vs. #18 Michigan (highest remaining B1G)
Orange Bowl: Duke (unranked ACC champ) vs. #7 Texas A&M (highest remaining SEC/B1G/ND)
Cotton Bowl: #20 Tulane (G5 champ) vs. #8 Oklahoma (SEC, at-large)
With this option, we have 4 B1G teams, 4 SEC teams, 2 Big 12 teams, 1 ACC, and 1 American.
The winners in the new format are Miami, JMU, and possibly Alabama.
Teams who would have probably preferred the old format - Duke, BYU, and Michigan
No comments:
Post a Comment