Playoff would have given UGA several more shots at national title
Assuming the Big 10 representative to the BCS presidential oversight committee doesn’t manage to derail things, it looks like we’re headed toward a seeded four-team tournament for college football with the teams picked by a selection committee.
The committee will be charged with taking conference championships and strength of schedule into account, so there’s no guarantee that the teams that finish 1-4 in the polls will be selected, but more often than not that’s likely to be the case. In some instances, though, a team ranked #5 (or lower) might squeak in.
The real plus of such a system is that at the end of the regular season four teams have a shot at the national title instead of just two, which set my son Bill and I to wondering if such a playoff process had been in effect in the past, how often would Georgia have had a chance to play their way to a national championship?
Looking back, it turns out the Bulldogs would have made the playoff or been in contention for selection by the committee 11 times: 1942, 1946, 1959, 1966, 1968, 1976, 1980, 1981, 1982, 2002 and 2007. Note: For this exercise in alternate history, we defined a UGA team as being “in contention” if it was ranked in the Top 5 at the end of the regular season.
In looking at the hypothetical matchups, it’s interesting to note that UGA likely would have gotten to face some more legendary coaches (Woody Hayes, John McKay) and more games against Bear Bryant and Joe Pa, and would have been matched up against some famous players/teams, like the infamous SMU Mustangs of 1982.
There also might have been a rematch with Clemson in 1981. And while we wouldn’t have gotten Notre Dame in 1980, Georgia likely would have played the Fighting Irish in 1966.
Georgia probably would have had a tougher time winning out for the national championship in 1980 with a semifinal and final to play, but UGA might have won titles in other years, since they would have qualified at least a few times.
Let’s look at the years in question, using the final regular season AP or BCS poll.
We mainly concentrated on the era from Vince Dooley on, but let’s first take a brief look at the Wally Butts years:
In 1942 UGA finished the regular season #5 (they later finished #2 in AP and #1 in varying polls after a Rose Bowl victory for a share of the national title). With Frank Sinkwich and Charley Trippi in the backfield, there’s a decent chance a selection committee might have put the Dogs in a four-team playoff.
In 1946, Georgia finished the regular season ranked #3 (and wound up finishing #3 in the final poll as well), so a playoff berth would have been assured.
The 1959 Dogs finished the regular season ranked #5 but with 2 first place votes and a big-name quarterback in Francis Tarkenton, so again there’s a chance they would have been selected by the committee.
In 1966, Dooley’s Dogs won the SEC and finished the regular season #4, which using the playoff system that’s being considered now would have resulted in #4 UGA vs. #1 Notre Dame in a semifinal, with the winner of that game facing the winner of #2 Michigan State vs. #3 Alabama. The odds would have been against the Dogs, but that was a typical never-say-die Dooley team that might have pulled an upset. In reality, Georgia’s actual finish was #4 with a win over SMU in the Cotton Bowl.
Would Jake Scott have played for the 1968 national title? (University of Georgia)
In 1968, SEC champ Georgia finished the regular season #4, which would have resulted in #4 UGA vs. #1 Ohio State (coached by Woody Hayes), with the winner facing the winner of #2 USC (John McKay) and #3 Penn State (Joe Paterno). This was a very talented but temperamental Bulldog team that in reality finished #8 after losing to Arkansas in the Sugar Bowl, so how the Dogs would have fared might have depended on how much Jake Scott and company partied the night before.
In 1976, SEC champion Georgia finished the regular season #5. Had they somehow managed to get selected by the committee, we know how this one would have turned out because in reality they lost in the Sugar Bowl to #1 Pittsburgh, which is who they would have faced if they could have somehow grabbed the #4 spot in the playoff.
Now we come to the Herschel years, when Georgia won three straight SEC titles.
In 1980, as we all know, Georgia finished the regular season ranked #1, which would have resulted in a semifinal matching #1 UGA vs. #4 Oklahoma, with the winner facing the winner of #2 Florida State vs. #3 Pittsburgh. Definitely a tougher road to the title than what actually happened, which was the Dawgs winning the championship after a Sugar Bowl win over #7 Notre Dame.
Georgia would have made the playoff in each of Herschel Walker's years. (Associated Press)
Georgia finished the 1981 regular season ranked #2, which would have resulted in #2 UGA vs. #3 Alabama (Bear’s second to last team and final good team), with the winner facing the winner of #1 Clemson vs. #4 Nebraska (which was the actual Orange Bowl matchup that Clemson won). Clemson, of course, had beaten UGA earlier that year. It would have been a great game had Georgia made it to a rematch. In reality, Georgia finished #6 after a loss to Pittsburgh in the Sugar Bowl.
In 1982, the Dawgs finished the regular season ranked #1, which would have resulted in #1 UGA vs. #4 SMU (Craig James! Eric Dickerson! Herschel Walker! NO PASSING!!!) with the winner facing the winner of #2 Penn State vs. #3 Nebraska. In reality, Georgia sadly finished #4 in the final poll after a Sugar Bowl loss to Penn State that shouldn’t have happened.
In the Mark Richt era, Georgia would have definitely qualified for the playoff once and possibly made it another time.
In 2002, Georgia won the SEC championship and finished the regular season ranked #3 in the BCS poll, which would have resulted in #3 UGA vs. #2 Ohio State in a semifinal, with the winner facing the winner of #1 Miami vs. #4 USC. That would have been quite a challenge, but certainly would have resulted in more interesting games than what we got in reality, where the Dawgs beat #14 FSU in the Sugar Bowl and wound up #3 in the final poll.
A playoff system might have given Knowshon Moreno a chance to play for the national title. (Associated Press)
And 2007 is one of those cases where a playoff definitely would have resulted in better matchups than we got in the BCS. Georgia finished the regular season ranked #5 in the BCS poll (though #4 in the AP and coaches polls) and went on to crush #10 Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl and finish #2 in the final poll.
Many at the time thought the Dawgs would have been ranked higher had they won their division and/or conference. But by the end of the season Georgia, with Matt Stafford and Knowshon Moreno, was probably the hottest team in college football and there’s at least a strong likelihood the selection committee would have put them in the playoff.
Had that happened, likely fourth-seed UGA would have faced #1 Ohio State, with the winner facing the winner of #2 LSU vs. #3 Oklahoma. I think the Dawgs could have taken Jim Tressel’s Buckeyes, which might have resulted in … an all-SEC national title game with one of the teams not having won its own conference division. And this despite there being a playoff!
Which, no doubt, would have had folks elsewhere in the nation howling for a new system of determining college football’s national champion …
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226 comments Add your comment
DawginLex
June 22nd, 2012
1:13 pm
Nancy?
Ok Elvira if you want to continue acting like a 5 year old, have at it.
TossSweep
June 22nd, 2012
1:13 pm
…and it makes you feel good to think of the ‘what if’s’ especially when each year, there’s always talk of being in the hunt then get disappointed. That’s what losers do. Alas, another night for Propofol.
SSIgator
June 22nd, 2012
1:15 pm
Appearntly???
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
1:24 pm
Well good. You clearly differentiate yourself from all the losers in sports fandom by refusing to engage in such a hypothetical exersize.
DawginLex
June 22nd, 2012
1:27 pm
toss sweep
Only an idiot thought we were in the hunt every year under richt.
He got hire in 2001 and had never been a coach
do you actually think that reasonable UGA fans thought we would go undefeated that year?
What he did in 2002 was amazing.
Overall, he has overachieved more than under but it is time to win big.
He was allowed to stink the place up and keep his job. now he has a DC to get it done and his 2 main rivals in the East rebuilding.
The time is now with no more excuses
now if that makes me delusional then we will agree to disagree but your inane baseless bashing makes you look silly
Wilson Pickett
June 22nd, 2012
1:31 pm
The committe deal is a big (Joe Biden) deal and the obnoxious and overbearing yanks will run that show and ruin the playoff just like they have our country. Just wait unitl Notre(big hat and no cattle) Dame, Mitchegin, and Tattoo U has a decent football team and then the committee will stick it to everyone else!
It must really suck to know the best and biggest game your program won was Hawaii…That must be one hell of a trophy on display…
Pilfer Dawg
June 22nd, 2012
1:36 pm
DawginLex- Yes there are some delusional Dawg fans but YOU are not, nor am I. They just like to heckle because they don’t like UGA. Remember my man- they are the fans of the other teams, not UGA. And they are more obsessed with UGA than we might be, and we love the Dawgs
WishingDawg
June 22nd, 2012
1:39 pm
If we did this. If we did that. If we……blah! blah! blah!
Go If ’s!
Pilfer Dawg
June 22nd, 2012
1:40 pm
Wilson- You do know your’e on a UGA blog right? Just wanted you to know because you don’t belong here skippy
DawginLex
June 22nd, 2012
1:40 pm
Wilson pickett
Was your son one of the bullies on the bus with Karen Klein?
@DawginLex
June 22nd, 2012
1:46 pm
You are fighting a losing battle if you are using logic to deal with some of these posters, many of whom are jealous/envious of our wonderful university.
Talk about living in the past- just about all the posts referencing Herschel come from anti-Dog fans. These same people that talk about the past are the ones bringing up Jan Kemp, which happened about 30 years ago.
They never get around to the part where UGA reacted (some say overreacted) by installing stricter academic standards that put UGA at a disadvantage for several years, and cost us some top talent that we had to play against in the SEC/ACC.
My guess is that very few actual UGA posters (as opposed to some fakes with ‘Dawg’ in their handle) are predicting undefeated seasons. The great majority of UGA fans are knowledgeable enough to know that with our tradition and Richt’s past success (6 top ten finishes, etc.) it is not at all unreasonable to expect us to make a run at the SEC. Much of the media concur, if you go by preseason ratings.
Finally, am hearing some very good things about Tunsil and Seymour, on the recruiting front. This appears the year Richt gets a top three recruiting class, which is necessary to combat Mr. February, Nick Saban, who can flat recruit.
DawginLex
June 22nd, 2012
1:52 pm
Great post
I wonder all the time why we are supposed to fear a program that we have beaten 3 out of the last 4 times, who backed into the national title game last year and is most likely going to get shut down very soon for all the booster payments going on????
Brainiac(Dawg for life/Richt fan for life)
June 22nd, 2012
1:53 pm
@ DawgIn Lex:
Willie Pickett has not reproduced thank heaven!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7576DAWG
June 22nd, 2012
1:59 pm
Notre Dame should be warned right now that with them not having to play a Conference Championship that they will have to play at least 5 top 20 teams with two or three ending in the top 10 for them to ever get one of the four places. This type system could guarantee Notre Dame one of the four spots every year because there are so many Catholics in the North East and kill the credibility of the four play off system if they don’t have enough hard games.
As a few have stated the only fair system will be an 8 team playoff. Yes you will get a few teams that are not worthy and don’t deserve one of the playoff spots but with eight teams you will be able to include a team from one of the weaker Conferences every once in a while , which will satisfy them and it will just about guarantee the SEC will have at least two representatives and a team like the 2004 Auburn Tigers won’t get slighted . It will nearly Guarantee the the Big -10 and Pacific-12 will have at least one representative , which will satisfy them .
This is too easy and would be acceptable to most all College fans. I can’t come up with even one legitimate argument against an 8 team playoff if we want the real National Champion in College Football.
"The Georgia Way"
June 22nd, 2012
1:59 pm
As long as Richt is head coach, UGA will not play for a national championship.
Frank Lane
June 22nd, 2012
2:00 pm
Bill,
This is a great article. Gets me fired up for the upcoming system.
TossSweep
June 22nd, 2012
2:01 pm
….woulda coulda shoulda makes a nice conversation around a campfire with beer on one hand and pork ribs on another…and most of which are Monday morning quarterbacks. Loser’s mentality.
bham dawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:04 pm
@DawginLex… that’s pretty funny. I tell you what though i don’t feel that sorry for her. Hell i would ride a bus and let kids make fun of me all day if i could rake in a half million that quick.
UGA Friend
June 22nd, 2012
2:13 pm
Could someone explain who Nancy or Elvira is? I have not seen Nancy`s name on this blog. Is she someone like Samantha?
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:18 pm
The monday morning Q-Bing reference doesn’t even fit the point you are making. It’s almost the exact opposite, actually.
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:22 pm
I don’t think you even understand what that term means, or more to the point- the context in which it is used.
Abnerish
June 22nd, 2012
2:25 pm
“so there’s no guarantee that the teams that finish 1-4 in the polls will be selected, but more often than not that’s likely to be the case.”
I really hope that is not the case. The whole point of the selection committee is to find the 4 best teams, not rubber stamp the AP polls or the BCS rankings (will they still publish those?). The best analogy for me is selecting the #1 seeds in the basketball tourney. How often are those the teams ranked 1 thru 4 in the AP rankings? I personally love how insignificant the rankings are in basketball, but rather how important the RPI is. I think Barnhart said it earlier this week that he wanted to see a football version of the RPI that the committee can use to help them rank the teams.
We Run the East
June 22nd, 2012
2:29 pm
pickett was on target with the first part of his post. Notre Dame is totally irreleveant as a footballpower but will get all kinds of support for playoff, same with Michigan, OSU, Nebraska, OKlahoma, etc… I am so happy to see SEC dominate these former powers (SC whipped Nebraska in bowl game). my they never return to prominience, just get dominated by SEC!
godawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:33 pm
Sure an eight team format would be better, but how are you going to do that and not add a sixteenth game? The schools will never go for a 16 game season.
Or…would you like to see maybe a 9-game SEC schedule plus Tech an SEC Championship game and then a 8 or 16 team playoff?
Never happen….
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:35 pm
UGA friend. It depends on which one you are talking about. The “Nancy” that was considered a clever insult way back in 1983, or the “Nancy” that is used by folks who don’t have the capacity to come up with anything more original today?
Dirty Dawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:39 pm
Come on folks…sure we’d like to ‘win it all’, but a lot of these comments are beginning to remind me of just about the only ‘positive’ feeling I ever get when I buy a lottery ticket – namely, the ‘thinking’ about how I would feel and act if I actually won. Yeah, I think we can win every game on the schedule, and if we can do that we can win the SEC, and if we can win the SEC…well, you get it. But now’s not the time for anything much beyond ‘cautious optimism’. Then we can ‘big dog’ the hell out of em all.
Ted Striker
June 22nd, 2012
2:41 pm
EXCELLENT column. Excellent. Fantastic research. Thanks for your due diligence.
mgdawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:47 pm
In 2007 at the end of the regular season UGA was ranked 4th in the BCS. Then during conference championship week 2 of the top 4 lost. Usually when this happens teams just move up, teams don’t get leap frogged, UGA did and stayed at 4. No analyst even entertained the question should UGA be ranked number 2 and play in the national championship. Of course, this year when the same thing happened with alabama, the media darling, it all made sense that they should be in the NC.
Rationale
June 22nd, 2012
2:48 pm
Would someone please go ahead and tell Kirk Herbstreet to shut up.
godawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:49 pm
Hilarious that there’s an ad on this page for Florida season and single game tickets. There’s a loyal fanbase for you…:-)
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:52 pm
No offence there Dirty Dawg, but a lot of what comments? I read every one and didn’t see a single one talking about winning it all. In fact I hardly saw any that even talked about Georgia in any sort of a feel good way.
What comments are you talking about.
godawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:53 pm
…not to mention a waste of advertising money. Good use of donor funds UF!
Dawg Haus
June 22nd, 2012
2:54 pm
It is pretty funny, godawg. I didn’t know there were Gator fans till SOS showed up.
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
2:58 pm
Got pictures of the dueling Williams up there.
Hit a Single
June 22nd, 2012
2:59 pm
Greed and ESPN are going to kill college football. The money is so good right now, but it won’t last and the whole outfit will be in the same shape that our education system is and that is broke. They better enjoy it now. There is way too much emphasis put on the National Championship Game. Way too many teams in the country that will never have a chance to get there.
Hmmmmmm!
June 22nd, 2012
3:01 pm
So what you are saying then is that UGA would have actually had to have earned that 1980 championship? Wow! Then that would have left them with none.
reebok
June 22nd, 2012
3:03 pm
Good research, and a fun ‘thought experiment…’ I am looking forward to the 4-team playoff. 2 great semifinal games followed by a winner take all matchup will be analogous to the NFC/AFC Championship games weekend followed by the Super Bowl.
Bulldog59
June 22nd, 2012
3:06 pm
Speaking to the point of the article (1) more often than not, the consensus top 4 teams will at least win/lose the Championship ON THE FIELD. (2) An 8 team playoff would be best, but most likely, adding up to 3 games for any team (actually only the 2 teams in the final play 3 games) was probably a big part of the decision to limit the playoff to only 4 teams.
evillurks
June 22nd, 2012
3:16 pm
Boy this one is taking the usual mutt “if this and if that” talk to a WHOLE different level!!
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
3:20 pm
Could a #8, or a #16 seed team win it, I suppose. But the reality is that there really are only 2-4, teams in the country that could be considered as the “best” by the end of the year. Then there is considerable fall off.
The point is not how much difference is there between # 5 and #4. The point is how much difference is there between #5 and #1.
Adding more teams would certainly make it harder- some might say more admirable- for the best team to win the NC. But it would not nessesarily make it more accurate.
Richard Cranium
June 22nd, 2012
3:22 pm
Bill do you really get paid for this crap? Seriously.
Joey
June 22nd, 2012
3:28 pm
UGA Friend, it’s simple. Certain fans of UF, AU, and especially Tech come on any item about UGA, and hurl insults, which is fine. All’s fair . . .
But if you counter the insults, you get called a girl name, or crybaby, or coolaid drinker, or a lot worse. They couldn’t care less about the topic at hand – and probably, truth be known, couldn’t put up a credible argument about the game of football.
So good luck wading through the garbage, but don’t complain – Bill may give you the advise he gave me – “read the Blawg and skip the comments.”
UGADawg83
June 22nd, 2012
3:37 pm
Either scrap the bowls entirely and go with a complete playoff or scrap the system we have now and go back to the bowl system with the big 4 bowls on New Years Day. Most all of those games were relevant in the national championship game.
UGADawg83
June 22nd, 2012
3:38 pm
Should have said picture and not game.
clint
June 22nd, 2012
3:40 pm
I like the idea of a committee. If you look at this past year where Stanford was ranked #4 and Oregon #5 in the final BCS standings. Oregon was the Pac 12 champion and had also beaten Stanford handily on Stanford’s home field. However Oregon had 2 losses (one of which to LSU) while Stanford only had 1 loss. I think Oregon deserved to be in a playoff before Stanford and a selection committee probably would have put them in instead of Stanford.
ozzfest
June 22nd, 2012
3:50 pm
GREG McGARRITY IS GOING TO HAVE TO PULL ***BOTH*** FEET OUT OF HIS MOUTH.
KING WIMP HAS SCHEDULED A CUPCAKE AFTER CUPCAKE ON OUR HOME SCHEDULE FOR YEARS TO COME….AND NOW WE FIND OUT THAT “STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE” WILL BE A FACTOR IN THE PLAYOFF CALCULATION.
FELLOW BULLDOGS…McGARRITY SHOULD BE FIRED…OR WORSE…FOR THE 2012 HOME SCHEDULE.
HE TOLD ME HE DID THIS TO GET US QUOTE “TO ATLANTA”…MEANING THE SEC CHAMPIONSHIP. DUDE, THEIR IS A BIGGER PRIZE NOW…YOU NEED CANCEL THE GARBAGE GAMES FOR FUTURE SEASONS…IMMEDIATELY!
KING WIMP….ALL ABOUT $$$ FOR UGAA ….NO HEART, NO GUTS….AND NO SOUL.
ENJOY YOUR LUXURY BOX FOR THOSE 10,000+ EMPTY SEATS LABOR DAY WEEKEND.
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
3:52 pm
If polls are still involved, and obviously they would be….it has always seemed to me that ANY playoff, even a 4 team would allow the voters to be more honest. Takes away the tendency to “arrange” the game. Just vote for who they actually thought was the best teams in order, and let it work out for itself. Then layer in a selection committe, voter would be further immune from( Oh, lets call it espn-esque influences).
A good example would be the 2007 season. Let me say for the record that I had no issue with LSU. I thought our SEC conference champ was (one of) the best teams at the time. But what I didn’t think was honest or customary was the manipulation it took of several teams and spots to work that all out.
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
4:00 pm
It seems to me that we are more likely to get better matchups in the big bowls as a result of this (4 team BCS playoff) and DOES make then relevent again.
AltamahaDawg
June 22nd, 2012
4:03 pm
Or will these 4 team not play in a bowl game? I guess not.
Bill King
June 22nd, 2012
4:10 pm
The plan apparently is for the semifinals to be rotated among the current BCS bowls (though that list may change). And then the national championship game will be a week later.