Alternative Realities For 2022's College Football Postseason
Just one week ago, the curtain fell on a remarkable, zany, unpredictable college football season. This year's postseason, including the bowl games was a fitting ending to this wild ride. There were multiple classic games with down-to-the-wire finishes, several weeks on end where one of the title contenders lost in stunning fashion, and as we approached the end of the season, multiple teams played hot potato with the playoff spots. For the first time in playoff history, we had not one, but two thrilling semifinals. That would give way to an equally remarkable, if not equally thrilling, national championship which saw Georgia repeat as top dawgs, thanks to a record-setting blowout of TCU on the biggest stage.
But, most noteworthy of all, it was the first playoff played since the announcement that expansion is coming: the playoff field will move from 4 teams to 12 in 2024, the college football playoff committee announced, heeding the calls for an expanded playoff, which were certainly not new. Pretty much since the announcement that the BCS would be supplanted by a 4-team playoff field, selected by a committee, there were howls that this change-- while welcome --would not be nearly enough. But up until recent years, those opinions appeared to be in the minority, at least publicly and vocally. Most seemed content just to have any semblance of a playoff in college football, and as Alabama and Clemson continued to dominate the landscape, most argued that the regular season was sufficient enough as 'play-in rounds,' especially if a playoff was going to give us the same couple champions every year anyway.
I, for one, am happy that the majority opinion changed, and ultimately led to pressure on the committee to change their minds as well, because I simply don't subscribe to that theory. For starters, for every season in which we have a "clear top 2 teams," there's one like the very first year of the playoff, wherein the Top 2 teams lost in the playoff semifinals and there were at least 4 teams left out of the playoff altogether that had a very legitimate case to be included. Furthermore, who's to say that the playoff would give us the same teams every year? That's the beauty of March Madness, isn't it? The reason it's so hard for teams to even play, let alone win, titles in College Basketball as effortlessly as Alabama has done and now Clemson is doing in College Football is because it's really freaking hard to string together 6 performances against the nation's best teams over the course of 3 weekends every year. If a selection committee handpicked the Final Four in basketball the way they do in football, we'd see Kentucky and Duke trading off titles every season. Instead, despite those programs being consistently among the highest seeds in the tournament, they've won 3 championships amongst themselves in the last 20 years. A wider field means just that, a wider chance for everyone, and thus, less of a guarantee that we'd be seeing the same teams atop the podium year after year.
All this being said, I thought it'd be fun to examine how some of the different playoff ideas would have transpired this year. Specifically, I thought we'd look at the real model beginning in 2024, but some alternate ideas as well, such as an 8-team, a 32-Team and a 'Super League' model. In terms of how these alternate realities played out: I generally would simulate the showdowns (using accurate home-field and weather conditions) via whatifsports.com, although when relevant, I just went on bowl results and/or real-life head-to-head showdowns. It's imperfect, I know, but it's hard to know what else to work with.
ALTERNATE REALITY 1: THE FUTURE MODEL
Brief refresher of the format
12 teams
6 automatic bids from 5 Power 5 conference champions + 1 "Group of Five" Conference champion
6 at-large bids
Top 4 conference champions would receive a first-round bye, while the higher-seeded team hosts the first-round matches at their home stadium
The quarterfinals would be played at four "New Year's Six Bowl" sites, and the semifinals played at the other two
Championship would be played at a neutral site, based on highest-bidding stadium
How it all went down
1st round:
*One note here- I don’t know for sure how the committee will handle first-round regular-season matchups, but my guess is that they might try to avoid them. That’s why I bumped USC down to #11 in this scenario, and Penn State up a rank to avoid another game against Ohio State.*
Tulane rallies to stun the Horned Frogs, much like they did to Heisman winner Caleb Williams and USC in real life. Otherwise, the first round goes chalk, albeit not without good efforts from Penn State and USC.
Quarterfinals:
The two big stories here are the continuation of Tulane’s Cinderella run, as the Green Wave surprise Pac-12 champions Utah early in the Cotton Bowl and don’t relent; and the loss of previously unbeaten Big Ten champs Michigan, as reigning Heisman winner Bryce Young and the Alabama offense prove to be too much for them down the stretch in the Rose Bowl.
Elsewhere, much like they were by Tennessee in the real-life Orange Bowl, ACC champions Clemson are overwhelmed by an inspired Ohio State in the hypothetical Orange Bowl. And in a rematch of their Top 3 regular-season clash in Athens, Georgia again is too much for Tennessee, despite a much-improved performance from the Vols in round 2 in New Orleans.
Semifinals:
The clock aggressively strikes midnight on Tulane’s Cinderella story in the Peach Bowl; much as they did to TCU in the real-life national championship, reigning champions Georgia piss all over the underdog dream and put away their opponents before halftime. In the primetime, second semifinal, though, Ohio State wins the Fiesta Bowl in a thriller over Alabama to avoid an all-SEC championship and book a spot in their 2nd national championship game in 3 years.
CHAMPIONSHIP (Los Angeles):
Fortunately, the simulation of the previous results yielded an easy hypothetical outcome in this playoff format. The national championship showdown proceeds exactly as the real-life 2022 Peach Bowl did: an instant classic of a showdown, with Georgia taking their first lead of the game with just over a minute left, and hanging on to claim their second consecutive title when Noah Ruggles’ kick as time expires hooks wide left. Now, whether that game would have played out exactly the same way in an environment that wasn’t 90% Georgia fans, and without either team having a full month to prepare for it? Probably not. But we work with what we got in these hypothetical scenarios, and what we got would have been one of the best national championship games in the modern era at least.
ALTERNATE REALITY 2: THE 8-TEAM PLAYOFF
Brief refresher of the format
8 teams
5 Power Conference champions, plus 3 at-large teams
If a non-P5 team is unbeaten, they get a bid
Quarterfinal round played at the higher seed's home field, although if one of the teams is a conference champion and the other isn't, the conference champions get home-field advantage regardless of seed
Semifinals and Final use current format
How it all went down
Quarterfinals:
First off, pour one out for Tennessee, who, more than anyone else, got boned by the hypothetical committee in this hypothetical playoff. They finished with the same record as their SEC rivals Alabama, and beat them head-to-head in one of the games of the season, yet the playoff committee (in real life) ranked them one spot behind at seasons' end, which means in this scenario that the Crimson Tide snag the last at-large spot for the playoff field.
Ironically, the simulation for an 8-team field produces a considerably less exciting first round-- or quarterfinal round, for that matter --than the 12-team simulation does. The higher seeds win across the board, with only Clemson and Alabama providing much of a contest amongst the losing teams. And in even in those cases, Hypothetical TCU and Hypothetical Ohio State had the game salted away pretty early in the 4th quarter. This does, interestingly enough, provide support for my (and many others') hypothesis that more games = higher chances for both upsets and more exciting games. And no, I did not doctor the results to back up my thesis. Scout's honor.
Semifinals:
CHAMPIONSHIP (Los Angeles):
Since the format of the 8-team playoff would essentially just add a bonus round to the existing model, and these results yielded the exact playoff field from the existing model... why bother simulating the rest when we know what happened? Just as we did in real life, in this scenario we conclude the season with two classic, unforgettable semifinals in Atlanta and Phoenix, only for Georgia to beat the ever-living daylights out of TCU in L.A. to claim the champiohship.
ALTERNATE REALITY 3: THE 32-TEAM PLAYOFF
Brief refresher of the format
32 teams
All 10 Conference Champions
22 at-large teams
Split into regions, a la March Madness
"Regional Finals" would be bowl games held at neutral sites (typically existing bowls, though a few new "northern" ones may need to be added)
Semifinals and Final use current format
How it all went down
1st Round (winning teams are in all caps, conf. champions with asterisk)
Somewhat surprisingly, the simulation here yielded 0 upsets out of 16 games in the first round, with the Top 4 seeds progressing to the Round of 16 in each bracket. I highly doubt that is actually how it would have gone in real life, but I also can't argue that too many of the top 4 teams in any regional are prime upset suspects, based on how they played down the stretch and/or in the postseason.
Round Of 16 and Quarterfinals (winning teams are in all caps, conf. champions with asterisk)
Where the first round was all chalk, the action picked up a bit in the Round of 16 and quarterfinals. Penn State upset Clemson in an overtime thriller in Death Valley, Will Reichard booted home a game-winning field goal to help Alabama hold off Heisman winner Caleb Williams, and Washington upset Utah in an exciting all-Pac 12 showdown. Then, in the Elite Eight bowl games, Georgia took care of Penn State handily, but Washington's underdog run continued with a surprisingly easy victory over Michigan in Minneapolis. And in the other two, both the Liberty Bowl and GuaranteedRate Bowl were 'can't-miss' games, but ended with Ohio State conquering Alabama, and Tennessee knocking off top-seeded TCU in front of a very favorable crowd in Memphis.
Semifinals and Final (winning teams are in all caps, conf. champions with asterisk)
Once again, the alternative universe in question has yielded two things we experienced in our real-life universe: the Georgia-Ohio State thriller (this time once again in the Peach Bowl semifinal), and Georgia winning the title yet again. This specific playoff would have been extra sweet for Dawg fans, though, as they would have been able to claim the trophy by beating rivals Tennessee for the second time this season. The Vols' "Cardale Jones' Ohio State"-esque run with Joe Milton at QB was impressive, and was good enough for a comfortable win over upstarts Washington in the Fiesta Bowl semifinal, but finally ran out of gas against their rivals in the final, as a Stetson Bennett-to-Brock Bowers connection put the Dawgs up for good, with just a few minutes to play.
ALTERNATE REALITY 4: THE SUPER LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
Brief overview of the format
6 teams from each conference
4 automatic bids for division winners, 2 at-large teams
Seeding (and at-large bids) based on CFP ranking
Higher seed hosts, 2 highest-seeded division champions in each conference get first-round byes
Conference championships and National Championship played at bowl sites and neutral-site, a la current playoff format
How it all went down
Yes, this is a shameless plug for my own wild proposal for College Football, from just before last season. I don't know that such a drastic shift is the best idea for the sport, but for a game that's increasingly starting to mirror both the NFL and club soccer in its money and exclusivity, why not combine the best of both NFL (regionalized divisions and quality postseason format) and European soccer (promotion/relegation, preservation of traditional rivalries)?
I simulated the outcomes of both the 2021 and 2022 seasons based on real life head-to-head results when applicable, and final Sagarin rating when not. You can take a look at what the divisions, and each team's record looked like this year here. Here's how the 2022 Playoffs would have looked:
1st Round and Quarterfinals (winning teams are bolded)
For the most part, the division winners held serve in the first round of the tournament. Kansas State held off their real-life conference foes Texas, my beloved Tar Heels sprung the upset over Penn State (must be that raucous Chapel Hill home advantage), and Clemson with new quarterback Cade Klubnik took care of USC at home. The one exception was poor Utah (who is not faring well in these alternate timelines), as Alabama proved to be too much, even in Salt Lake City.
The conference semifinals also saw the spoils go to the higher seeds with one exception. Real-life SEC teams Georgia and Tennessee cruised against their real-life ACC opponents, and Michigan eked out a tough, big win over Alabama in a chilly Ann Arbor. But, in the National Conference, Ohio State were upset at home by an upstart Kansas State team, preventing fans in that timeline from getting to witness the classic Georgia-Ohio State Peach Bowl showdown.
Semifinals and Final (winning teams are bolded)
The conclusion of the Super League playoffs draw some inspiration from real life: in the National Conference Peach Bowl, Georgia plays the part that real-life Alabama did in the Sugar Bowl, and easily pulls away from plucky Kansas State in the second half. Later on, in the American Conference Fiesta Bowl, Tennessee subs in for real-life TCU (who, remember, isn't even in the Super League in this scenario...but don't worry, Horned Frog fans, your amazing season will result in you being promoted up for the 2023 season) and edges Michigan in a wild thriller.
That leads us to the same championship that the 32-team playoff yielded, an SEC East rematch between Georgia and Tennessee. In the Super League, the two obviously play in different conferences, but would have still faced off as each other's permanent rivals. Just like in the 32niverse, Tennessee with their backup QB at the helm put up a valiant fight, but a late Georgia touchdown saw them close out their second straight national title.
There you have it: different playoff formats this year very well may not have created different champions in our simulations, but they did result in different championship games. And even if they had not, they sure offer the possibility for a much more entertaining and satisfying route there. Will we ever see at least one of these postseason visions come to fruition? For the first time in my life as a college football fan, it feels inevitable, but the wait will be excruciating.
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