With all the talking heads on TV proclaiming that this season is unlike any other, I’m curious how the community feels. Totally new landscape of CFB or just more of the same? How do we all feel about:
- Helmet communication (for only 1 player on the field per team except on free kicks)
- Tablets on the sidelines (up to 18 per team)
- The 2 minute timeout
- Corporate logos on fields (no longer requires the stadium to be named after the sponsor)
- New homes for Arizona, ASU, Cal, CU, Oregon, ou, SMU, Stanford, Texas, UCLA, USC, Utah, Washington
- Expanded playoff (probably too early to tell on this one)
- New TV deals (SEC on ABC, B1G on CBS)
- Current season of Fansville (Ewers could be a Heisman candidate but he sure won’t be winning any Oscars)
For reference, here are the P4 vs P4 records so far:
- ACC: 6-8
- B1G: 5-5 (or 5-6 if counting ND)
- Big XII: 5-6
- SEC: 8-5 (or 8-6 if counting ND)
Nothing seems all that different yet. There really hasn’t been big conference games yet to gauge much.
I think the playoffs have a chance to be interesting, but it’s way to early to tell. I think the non power 4 team is going to regularly get destroyed, but that’s on the transfer portal. There will be playoff drama by the 26/27 season when only one ACC or Big 12 team makes it.
I was already done with the expanded playoff in week 1 when people were still outlining FSU’s (then open) path to the playoff. Likewise I think that ND should be out of contention with the loss to NIU. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, in a sport as intrinsically unbalanced as cfb, any playoff (much less an expanded one) makes no sense.
A playoff is fine to pick the best team, a playoff with 4 spots and 5 major conferences was always dumb. 12 is also dumb, it should have just been 8.
One loss shouldn’t necessarily eliminate a team, there’s rarely even 4 undefeated teams. The tricky thing is going to be where they put conference championship losers.
ND deserves getting shafted for stubbornly staying independent, which is absurd for competitive sports.
If we’re doing a playoff at all, I’m glad it’s 12 to get the first round on campus. That at least appeals to the actual strengths of the sport.
None of it makes sense in any sort of fairness sense, but it is a prestigious invitational tournament, and when it comes down to it, most fans found bowls and 1-2 BCS even more unsatisfying. I care more about watching playoffs than I do about watching random bowls.
That’s fair, I guess my view has always been about Saturdays in the fall. Even as a kid (~early 00s) I cared more about the florida game any given year and less about our bowl or the nccg.