Top 16 Team Playoffs, No mid-major auto bids!!!!

[tc66tc]

I have made pstats file that will use the Top 16 teams for the
playoffs. No more automatic bids for mid-majors. I have seen as
many a 5 SEC teams in the playoffs; normaly it is 3 teams per
major conference. All a mid-major has to do to make the playoffs
is be in the top 16 in the final GDS Poll.

I have cut back on the number of bowl Tie-Ins since the Major
conferences send on average three teams apeice to the playoffs.
Each major Conference has 4 bowl tie-in. With the reduced number
of bowl games this keeps them from being so watered down. Also
each midmajor conference gets one bowl tie-in. But with 9 at-large
bids, all teams that really deserve a bowl game will get one.

Also of the bowls games I got rid of, i tryed to keep the tie-ins close
as possible to real life. The only exception is I put took the WAC
Champion tiein from Denver (MPC CPU Bowl), and used the Hawaii bowl.
As a fan I would rather travel to Hawaii in December than to Denver.

Normaly there are 56 (47%) teams in the postseason bowl games, with this
setup it drops that number of postseason teams down to 48 (40%) teams
(16 playoff, 32 in bowls).

Heres a breakdown the bowls:

New Orleans		SunBelt	1	open		
Las Vegas		MWest	1	open		
Motor City		MAC	1	open		    
Hawaii			WAC	1	open		 	
Independence		open		open		  
Insight			BEast	3	Pac10	4	   
Alamo			Big12	4	Big10	4	 
Holiday			Big12	3	Pac10	2	 	
Liberty			CUSA	1	open		 	
Peach			ACC	3	open		 
Sun 			Pac10	3	open		 	
Meineke Car Care	ACC	4	BigEast	4	  	
Capital One		SEC	2	Big 10	2	 	
Outback			SEC 	3	Big 10	3	  	
Cotton 			Big 12	2	SEC 	4	  
Gator			ACC	2	BigEast	2

Bowls that are no longer played:
Bowls denoted with a *infront
of it, will be used as a playoff
site.

*Emerald
*Houston
*Poinsettia
*MPC CPU
*Rose
*Orange 
*Sugar
*Fiesta

GMAC
Fort Worth
Champs Sports
Music City

Let me know what you guys think of it.
Download here

[Meat]

Havent had a chance to use it yet....but this is the setup I was hoping for...thanks for posting your hard work.

[Cooleyvol]

I'm curious as to how the file selects teams for bowls.

Let's say Tennessee is ranked 18th, but 4th in the SEC.

They don't make the playoffs, but which bowl do they go to. (Let's say the top 3 in the conference are Top 16 ranked.

Do they get the top SEC tie in?

[tc66tc]

SEC breakdown

Champ:	#3  Florida		11-1
#2	#15 Alabama		 8-4
#3	#18 Tennessee		 9-2
#4	#16 LSU			 9-2
#5	#20 Auburn		 7-4
#6	unr Arkansas		 7-4
#7	unr Georgia		 6-5

Florida, Alabama and LSU would make the
playoffs; since they are all in the final top 16
in the GDS poll. After the playoff bids are filled
the Conference Bowl Tie-Ins will be filled by
the order finish in conference.

SEC Tie-Ins and who gets it..

Capital One	SEC #2	#18 Tennessee
Outback		SEC #3	#20 Auburn
Cotton		SEC #4	unr Arkansas

[tc66tc]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

I'm curious as to how the file selects teams for bowls.

Let's say Tennessee is ranked 18th, but 4th in the SEC.

They don't make the playoffs, but which bowl do they go to. (Let's say the top 3 in the conference are Top 16 ranked.

Do they get the top SEC tie in?

That is excatly right, they would get the Top SEC tie-in since they are "the best" SEC team available for the bowl.

[GTMarc]

I did something similar in my mod I made for my own league. And I've discovered I really like the 16 team playoffs with all the big teams in there.

If I go back to the stock game for a future career, I suspect a change like this is one I'd definitely make ... that is at least get rid of the automatic bids for winning the conferences that aren't the power leagues.

[udlb58]

I like the idea of the top 16 going to the playoff because if a playoff ever happens for real, I believe it will be this format. But I also like the setup where all conference champs get an automatic bid because of the upsets. I have even seen a #16 take down the number 1 team once or twice.

[GTMarc]

Has anyone tried to edit this in an active save file?

I'm trying to see if I could set my own playoff teams after the conf. champ games. So far I think I've found two out of three required edits, but the third seems out of reach to me .... so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has tried this.

The two I found. Both in stats.dat. There is a "Playoffs" table, which seemed kinda obvious. But then there is a bowl history table which already has the playoff teams filled into the first week of bowl games.

What seems to happen, but what I don't see where, is that the games are already in the schedule, and the above edits don't change this. So has anyone tried this and figured out how to do that part?

[GTMarc]

PS ... what I'm trying to do in my mod/game.

I'd like a super conference, the top 12 programs in the country playing each other in one league. Then have other conferences based entirely on the recruiting regions with the next 12 best teams in that region in this conference. Teams from both tiers are elligible for playoff berths.

What I'd like to tweak is that two things. To me, the game over-rates the teams from the regional leagues with shiny 11-2 records and under-rates the teams from the super league with 7-5 records against the best programs in the country. So for the playoffs, I wanted to set a limit of 2 teams per regional league, which left 6 spots basically for the super league teams. Usually it looks like this will boost the super-league from about 4 to 6 teams in the playoffs.

The other reason I'd like to do this is that I'd like to avoid "in-conference" matchups in the first round. And that includes the 6 super league teams, so there's usually at least one match-up to change.

Because of this, I'm usually wanting to mess with the bottom half or so of the playoff seeds and who they play.

One reason I'd like to do all of this is that I'd like to use the playoffs from the year before to fill in 8 of the 12 teams into next season's super league. The 8 teams that win the first round playoff games become next year's super league, with some "provisionals" for teams that were highly ranked or with the highest prestige.

So, that's why I like 6 teams from the super league making the playoffs, because that means 6 teams from this year's super league have a chance to prove on the field that they should get back to the super league the next year. And since they won't be playing each other, those teams will all have matchups against the top teams from the regional leagues. It seemed the perfect way to decide who goes up to the super league and who goes down.

Since I can't do that, there's a problem with this setup in that the teams that make the super league seem to get screwed the next year. They play a horrid schedule, and then get under-ranked for playing .500 football against the best in the land. Since they are under-ranked, they don't get a playoff berth and wouldn't get back to super league the next season.

Oh well, I guess I can always just get by with the playoffs as-is, and maybe make it where you have to win a championship of the regional leagues or the national title to get to super league. That will at least protect six or seven of those teams and keep them up in super league. I am a bit curious to see what happens to prestige ... does going 4-4 in super league help or hurt your prestige?

[sportsfanmas]

I'm a little bit confused, I downloaded this file into my BBCF folder, but when it came time for the playoffs, it was the same 16 team format, with all conference winners, and all bowl games. What'd I do wrong?

[Meat]

I tried this file and got a crash when transitioning from the regular season to the playoffs....anyone else having this problem? Using a crap team and my team did not make the playoffs or a bowl? Is this file working well for the others that use it?

[Cooleyvol]

Did you guys create a new league using the pstats.dat file that he edited?

[Meat]

Yep...I started a new leauge for the crash. I just started another new leauge and it seems to work now....One other question....This I noticed spots 1-15 matched the end of season computer ranking for the playoffs spots...however the 16 seed in the playoffs went to West Virginia which ranks 23 in the GDCS, 30 computer rankings, 40 RPI, 23 media, 22 coaches...basicaly replaces Virginia Tech in the playoffs VT is 16 GDCS, 13 computer, 16 RPI, 19 media, 19 coach. WV is the big east champ though and VT finished fourth in the ACC costal...do the major conf still get auto bids? Not a big deal just curious as I thought this file went top 16 regardless.