I would be for an auto bid for Conference Champions but the whole concept of Independent teams has to end. Notre Dame should not be considered an elite program. They truly should be considered a G5 until they are willinng to accept a P5 membership.
I can see a 10 team Conference champions only Playoff working. Top 2 ranked Conference Champions are given byes in the first round.
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So the second round is 6 teams?
I realized this issue after I typed this up.
I think 12 is what works, 10 conference champs + 2 at large, top 4 (so the invitational participants are still happy) get a 1st round bye.
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That would work for me too, anything that doesn’t allow a team to win over 20 games in a row and get left out. I don’t care if it is App State imo.
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After thinking about this more and more, I may be changing my stance on pro-expansion of the playoffs because of selfish reasons.
If the playoffs stay at 4, most P5s will never get there just as G5s will never get in. This would put UH on the same level as 90% of the P5s and with our P5 coaching staff, it enhances our recruiting status since we similar to those P5s.
See https://www.coogfans.com/t/recruiting-rankings-should-be-higher-next-cycle/16510?u=ron1102
If they install a 8 team playoff, those 90% P5s will now have hope of making it in.
I think it should stay at 4 until we have 3 or 4 good recruiting cycles.
There were 4 undefeated teams, Bama, Clemson, ND and UCF.
Dang, you are right! Even worse…
10 teams is very hard to bracket. 8 or 16 works best. A big problem is the increase in the number of games. Schools won’t stand for a shorter regular season because that is lost revenue to all those who don’t make the playoff. So your talking about 12 game regular season, conference championship game (which I would oppose and use best record with tie-breakers), and 3 or 4 playoff games for the two finals schools. So that’s 15 games minimum and maybe 17 if some conferences insist on a championship game and we have a 16 team playoff.
I would think the deeper a conference representative advances in the bracket, the more TV revenue would be available to help offset the lost money from a shorter regular season. Still a tough sell, I think.
High school (North Shore 16-0 this year) and pros play at least 16 games, why can’t college? What is the difference?
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They need to get rid of the neutral sites and let the better seeded team host and expand to 8 best teams selected by a committee. Easy fix.
Or just go back to the old system.
8 is better, but would still be a beauty pageant. Until you have every single team in the league (120+ schools) having a legit chance to get a championship, it is just an invitational.
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If they expand to 8, they should start the playoff Jan. 1st with all the teams playing that day. Then work around NFL playoffs for the next two rounds (similar to what they do with the championship already). It only adds one week to the college football season and you don’t have to worry about more games in December.
All games should be hosted by higher seeds other than the championship. Let the bowl games be bowl games. The reason ticket prices are dropping is because most fans can’t pay for travel, hotel, and tickets to 2 straight road games.
8 is fine if it includes some sort of rule that every undefeated team gets in. I don’t care for a 4 loss Sun Belt or Mac getting into a playoff, but if one is undefeated, they deserve a shot. With that set up, every team in FBS has a chance of winning the championship.
Unfortunately, any playoff expansion will have to include the bowls as there is too much money invested in them to just drop them for home site games.
I’m right there with ya. I’ve been telling people this for years and adding that if they made a fair shot for all for the NC you would actually grow new viewership as non-traditional powers became powers in their own right.
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Yeah, bowls have been the reason for no playoff and extremely slow expansion of the playoff. I was actually in favor of a +1 system instead of a 4 team playoff. Let the bowls play out and then take the #1 and #2 for the championship. You could do that with a 4 team playoff after the bowls also with a requirement you have to win your bowl (should have gotten UCF in it last year). It lets the bowl games still be important and expands the playoffs. Thinking outside the box will not happen in college football though.
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No committee. You will just get more of the same. I like the 10 champs plus 2 with the top 4 teams getting a bye. Champ plays 16 games. It is a win win. Regional bowls can host if you want to keep an outdated bowl system kicking.
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If you’re talking about inviting all conference champs or something, I don’t think a first round matchup with 8-5 Northern Illinois as a 35 point underdog to Bama is the solution for the particular problem the people concerned about interest in the playoff want to fix.
But Bama would be on bye in the first round, so 8-5 NI would play like 9-3 Washington
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