This is going to be fun. I know right now there is yelling. And anger. Disappointment. If you’re a Miami or Alabama fan, looking at the College Football Playoff bracket is painful. But for the overwhelming majority of college football fans, the idea that the best 12 teams will battle for the championship is a dream come true.
The run to the national championship includes two days of triple header games for CFP. The semifinal round begins a five-day run of college football leading right into the first round the NFL playoffs. Overall, it’ll be college football’s version of a Winter March Madness. An event of that level needs its own version of NCAA basketball brackets.
Except doing a straightforward bracket is not quite that simple. There are differences between the 68 teams in the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments and the 12 that will be in the CFP. Below are some ways fans can participate in all the excitement of the College Football Playoffs, each choice offering some positives and negatives.
Before we get to the options, a word of warning. This can all get super complicated when you have dozens of people participating in the pools. Or you get fancy with a proportional payout. Overall we are aiming for simplicity in this post. These are CFP pools that anyone who has light excel/google sheets knowledge can pull off. The core question we’re trying to answer is ‘How can we have fun.’ And now, away to the fun!
Traditional March Madness-style Bracket
Way to Play: Go through the bracket as is, pick who you think will win.Whoever has the most accurate bracket (in terms of number of correct picks) wins the field.
Analysis: This feels lacking in excitement and surprise. Even though all the debate right now is ‘Did Alabama get snubbed?’ in the end the CFP Final will likely be Oregon v. Georgia. College football, as a sport, is chalky. Because of that a 12 team bracket will ultimately end up with very few surprises. In this approach money can be made in nailing the first round but if you don’t sweep there, you can pretty much consider your bracket buy-in cash gone.
Team Draft
Way to Play: Get together a group between 2-6 people. Randomize draft order. Snake draft. Each win by a team equals 1 point, winning the championship is 2 points.
Analysis: We’re getting closer to interesting. There’s a sprinkling of strategy here, nailing the second team you draft could be the difference between winning and losing. And with the top four seeds getting 1st round byes, there’s incentive to take the 5th-12th seeds because they play one extra game and can grab one extra point. Also drafts are dope, so anytime you can draft anything is a win in the fun column.
The twinge of apprehension is that in most years, whoever gets the first pick will be a heavy favorite to win the pool. And the ‘Team Draft’ approach limits the number of people who can take part in the pool. Which means the ‘free money-definitely going to lose’ bracket (typically submitted by your friend with four kids under the age of 7 but who still submits anyways because they want to still be of the whole group dynamic) will most likely not be a thing in this pool.
Auction-Style Drafting
Way to Play: Similar to a fantasy auction draft, each participant is given a budget of fake money (let’s say $30). Each participant nominates a team for the group to bid on. Highest bidder wins the team. Draft ends when all 12 CFP teams are drafted. Each win by a team equals 1 point, winning the championship is 2 points.
Analysis: A bit spicier as we go along here. Evens the playing field more, giving everyone a shot at the top team in the playoff. Value buyers can try to grab the mid-seeded teams. The frugal-minded participants will likely be left with SMU and Clemson at the very end. Overall this approach allows for participants to target who they want, and not be locked out of the pick because their position in the draft order is too low. And again, drafting is dope. Auction-style drafting is doper. Plus you really should be on a Zoom/video conference to pull off an auction draft so it gives you a reason to yell at your friends through your computer.
Blind Bids
Way to Play: Each team in the CFP costs a certain amount. The amount is the inverse of their seed i.e. No. 1 overall Oregon costs $12, No. 12 Clemson costs $1. A participant can only bid on one team. Except for one scenario – any participant can opt for an $8 ‘bet on the field’ where they get all the teams that weren’t bid on. Those teams would likely be the Clemsons and SMUs of the bracket. Those bids are submitted separately to the commissioner. Whichever team wins, the participants who picked that team split the winnings.
Analysis: Are you confused? It’s a little wild but essentially ‘Blind Bids’ lets all participants pick the team they believe will win. But picking favorites will likely lead to low upside in terms of winnings. It rewards the contrarians who choose a less favored team. There’s the added element of the ‘bet on the field,’ which some years will produce a champion and the high likelihood of a good payout. This approach also allows for a wide amount of people to participate, even if there’s likely a goldilocks zone of the appropriate number of participants.
The negatives relates to the confusion of it all. And honestly this whole idea is untested. Going back to the chalkiness of college football, if everyone bets on a number one seed to win, and they do, no one really wins any money.
On the other hand, if there are upsets and there’s a lone bidder who backed the 6th seeded team – and that team won it all – that bidder would be pretty happy. Also, I like the mystery box element of this approach. There’d be a level of excitement to see who everyone placed their bid on, and if you happen to be the ‘lone bidder’ on that 6th seed, the excitement level would be quite high.
