This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/eastexaslion on 2024-03-23 00:26:28.

This year marks the 155th season of college football since the first game took place in a field in New Brunswick between Rutgers and Princeton. Since then, the game has evolved from a game more closely resembling soccer, organized by students that would be viewed in the hundreds, to a game sponsored by each school’s administration, funded by the richest graduates, and viewed by millions around the country.

However, since the beginning, the picking of champions has been, at best, slightly sane, and at worst illogical. The NCAA record book recognizes 36 different national championship selectors outside of the Bowl Coalition, the BCS, and the College Football Playoff. Even with these NCAA-guided championships selectors, it recognizes 32 different years with two or more champions. In a sense…It’s a mess. Only since 2014, did the FBS schools adopt a four-team playoff, and only this year did we adopt a 12-team playoff, and not without controversy and massive changes to the college football landscape.

A college football playoff existed in the NAIA since 1958 (which was essentially more of an invitational for small colleges in the NAIA or NCAA), and in 1973, when the NCAA adopted a playoff format for Divisions 2 and 3. In 2013 the FCS finally adopted a 24-team playoff, which is the perfect playoff format for me. So what would happen if, since 1869, we would have selected a national champion with a 24-team playoff?

That is what this series will observe, starting from the 1869 season to the 2023 season, we will see what a 24-team playoff bracket will look like in each of those seasons, and use Massey’s matchup tool to simulate these playoff games. Along the way, we will go on and show how football has evolved from a 25-man mob ball to the game we know today.

If you would like to see how each team is selected qualifies for these playoffs, click here.

I will also have predictions enabled for each bracket for everyone to follow along and participate in a bracketology-type game as well as try to answer as many questions as I can in the comments of this post about this project. I hope you join me on my journey in this adventure in CFB history and simulation.

Click here to predict the first bracket (or for the 1869 season, the championship game).