Do you ever think about the difference between playing the early vs late semi-final? As far as prep time, sleep time & rest to get ready for the finals? If not, please just say no or ignore, no need to flame a sincere post that is trying to address a small nuance about preparation time.
I give stuff like this considerable consideration. This year Alabama would have an advantage over the winner of OSU/Clemson since the Bama game will be finished by 7:45 pm, the Tide can get home and watch our game (already acquiring a valuable scout look of the winner) and when our game goes is finished they can simply turn off the lights and go to bed while our night and post-game routine is just beginning. Bama will already be tucked in and fueling for championship wk with a full night’s sleep, ready to wake up early with a head start going into championship week.
Meanwhile our game will be going well past midnight, & our team won’t get home and settled for bed till well past 2-3 AM, still not even having seen our opponent play. Then it’ll be a short night’s sleep to begin prepping for championship week already a little behind.
Definitely not making any excuses, just something that’s always fascinated me. Before the CFP I really applied this thinking during March Madness. The turnaround for the NCAAB CG is the shortest in all of sports. The Final 4 is always on a Saturday, with the Championship game on Monday night. It’s insane!
To me that screams huge advantage for the early game on Saturday afternoon as the 2nd game runs late into the night bleeding straight into Sunday which is their one day of prep for the title game.
I wonder if there is a database or website that tracks and documents these things! National Champions vs National Runner-ups and which semifinal time slot they played in the round before.
Certainly the better team should win more often than not, but in matchups that are genuinely close I wonder if the early game and extra sleep, rest and prep leads to a slight edge that shows itself in trackable data.
Similarly with the NFL, I don’t pay as much attention to this league, but I know they play some playoff games on Saturdays & some on Sundays. Is there provable data that shows teams getting an extra day of prep do slightly better in the next round?
