So that's it...2017 season is over. The dynasty continues as North Dakota St won its 6th national championship in 7 years, more on those guys later. The playoffs as a whole were, to quote an old coach "not too stinky" While we got the end matchup everyone hoped for, getting there left a lot to be desired. That's not to say we got a good meal, but if we are being nit-picky about things the playoffs are the equivalent of some dishes not having and seasoning and others have a bit too much.
The Bracket
This one is the one big gripe from me and almost everyone in the land of FCS. The playoffs this year were this weird hybrid of seeding with regional requirements that almost guarantees we get conference rematches, an unbalanced bracket, a some team really gets the shaft. This isn't some new problem unfortunately, ever since the playoffs were expanded first to 20 and now to 24 teams, we have seen a bracket and matchups that too often look slanted.
In James Madison's quadrant of the bracket, everyone but Lehigh (poor Lehigh) was in the Top 12 of the STATS FCS poll. Now, of course, no matter how hard you try someone is gonna end up in the "group of death" but if you look at the bracket there are also a few other issues. Two of the last three teams in the playoffs (New Hampshire and Nicholls St) ends up hosting a playoff games because of regional matchups. So without boring you further, the moral is that it is a mess. Now how to fix said mess, well now thats a bit of a challenge and I can think of three ways to change things but non are perfect by any stretch.
Go with a full regional ranking system
This is what D-II does and how they break it down is by splitting the teams into four different regions and having the top seven from each region make the playoffs. Now the problem with this is that, the main issue of the brackets now come up, we end up with too many conference rematches right out of the gate. And the other issue that was a problem that was somewhat solved is when you have four or 5 five teams from one conference and they all have to face each other. Means some really good teams will end up never sniffing a championship cause conference familiarity can cause some upsets or just flat out not make the playoffs. It is possible to solve the "too many good teams in one region" but thats where complications can come up and you solve it by basically doing what we have now.
Full 1-24 seeded bracket
Simple, right? Well it could be...kinda. To do this you would almost certainly have to have some computer program that helps with seeding (BCS anyone?). Have it broken down into three groups of 8 teams where each group is the different tiers of seeding. First group gets the byes, second the home playoff game, the third being the last teams in. Also conference champions are guaranteed a home playoff game. You would have some potentially intriguing matchups, like say WIU hosting Nicholls or Stony Brook home versus Furman. But, if you noticed, those games I mentioned have some pretty long travel, which would be the big issue. The NCAA doesn't really want teams traveling over 1000 miles but we had a few exceptions. Even if the NCAA pays for it, which i'm pretty sure they do, I could see this idea being dead in its tracks. Yes even if it makes the most sense
Modify the current system
Yea at the end of the day the way they do it isn't perfect but its still pretty solid. Better than what D-II does by a mile and even though we get a lot of rematches, they have generally been really good. Now there are ways to tweak things like say, conference champions are guaranteed a home playoff game and that no conference two members of a conference can matchup in the first round. Under those tweaks we would home team flips like San Diego hosting NAU, Lehigh hosting Stony Brook and CCSU hosting New Hampshire. Weber St would host either South Dakota or Nicholls with Elon hosting the other team. And you could flip a coin on who would host WIU and Furman (yes the homer in me would love a WIU home game, but would people actually go?). Yea you could get more complicated but still a solid base.
The Bracket
This one is the one big gripe from me and almost everyone in the land of FCS. The playoffs this year were this weird hybrid of seeding with regional requirements that almost guarantees we get conference rematches, an unbalanced bracket, a some team really gets the shaft. This isn't some new problem unfortunately, ever since the playoffs were expanded first to 20 and now to 24 teams, we have seen a bracket and matchups that too often look slanted.
In James Madison's quadrant of the bracket, everyone but Lehigh (poor Lehigh) was in the Top 12 of the STATS FCS poll. Now, of course, no matter how hard you try someone is gonna end up in the "group of death" but if you look at the bracket there are also a few other issues. Two of the last three teams in the playoffs (New Hampshire and Nicholls St) ends up hosting a playoff games because of regional matchups. So without boring you further, the moral is that it is a mess. Now how to fix said mess, well now thats a bit of a challenge and I can think of three ways to change things but non are perfect by any stretch.
Go with a full regional ranking system
This is what D-II does and how they break it down is by splitting the teams into four different regions and having the top seven from each region make the playoffs. Now the problem with this is that, the main issue of the brackets now come up, we end up with too many conference rematches right out of the gate. And the other issue that was a problem that was somewhat solved is when you have four or 5 five teams from one conference and they all have to face each other. Means some really good teams will end up never sniffing a championship cause conference familiarity can cause some upsets or just flat out not make the playoffs. It is possible to solve the "too many good teams in one region" but thats where complications can come up and you solve it by basically doing what we have now.
Full 1-24 seeded bracket
Simple, right? Well it could be...kinda. To do this you would almost certainly have to have some computer program that helps with seeding (BCS anyone?). Have it broken down into three groups of 8 teams where each group is the different tiers of seeding. First group gets the byes, second the home playoff game, the third being the last teams in. Also conference champions are guaranteed a home playoff game. You would have some potentially intriguing matchups, like say WIU hosting Nicholls or Stony Brook home versus Furman. But, if you noticed, those games I mentioned have some pretty long travel, which would be the big issue. The NCAA doesn't really want teams traveling over 1000 miles but we had a few exceptions. Even if the NCAA pays for it, which i'm pretty sure they do, I could see this idea being dead in its tracks. Yes even if it makes the most sense
Modify the current system
Yea at the end of the day the way they do it isn't perfect but its still pretty solid. Better than what D-II does by a mile and even though we get a lot of rematches, they have generally been really good. Now there are ways to tweak things like say, conference champions are guaranteed a home playoff game and that no conference two members of a conference can matchup in the first round. Under those tweaks we would home team flips like San Diego hosting NAU, Lehigh hosting Stony Brook and CCSU hosting New Hampshire. Weber St would host either South Dakota or Nicholls with Elon hosting the other team. And you could flip a coin on who would host WIU and Furman (yes the homer in me would love a WIU home game, but would people actually go?). Yea you could get more complicated but still a solid base.
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