He discusses a point I’ve been thinking about lately, namely, the need to diversify the CFP and make it more relevant to the rest of the country.
Here’s something I was not aware of:
“But college football hasn’t had a first-time national champion since Florida in 1996. That’s a problem. The game needs hope for teams outside the Southeast. It needs the possibility of Cinderellas, or at least semi-Cinderellas.”
I have had a vague sense of this circumstance, but I had not tracked down this bit of information. It has been a long time since someone new won the crown.
Personally the FBS/CFP “champion” is a bit of a farce. Anytime you use rankings which are mostly just opinions and debate to decide who should play for the national championship it eliminates a chance at a true national champion.
There are no cinderella’s, nothing like a team making a run at the right time like in college basketball or even the NFL. In the FBS, if you aren’t in a power 5 you have no chance, then even if you are power 5 if you aren’t in the SEC you are already limited.
Personally a 6-8 team playoff makes a lot more sense - all power 5 champions get in, plus 1-3 at large bids. If you want to have a bye then use rankings and top 2 teams have a buy or something like that. I realize that isn’t perfect but better than we have. Winning your conference should get you an automatic bid.
This system - where one of the at large bids goes to a G5 - is the only way there can be Cinderellas in CF. The MWC team will lose 29/30 times to the SEC 1-seed, but that 30th time will be glorious and will be remembered forever.
This is what we all know should happen. It’s what I want, but the next thought I have is knowing that in an 8-team bracket, you know SEC will get two of those bids EVERY YEAR, and no one will fight it. It’ll just become an assumed fact. Not only that, but they’ll fight for a third EVERY YEAR, and they’ll get it more often than they deserve to.
Is that a fair price to pay to ensure that our champ gets in every year? Probably. But I hate it.
In an 8-team scenario, there would HAVE TO be some ground rules about those at-large spots. Like, no conference can get a third team in unless they meet some VERY strict criteria. Like, they have to have beaten both of the other teams from their conference that have the other spots.
Or, honestly, the rule should be that no conference gets more than two in. No conference has three legit NC candidates. Even if they do, that sort of thing should get sorted out in conf play. If your conf slate can’t settle that, the problem is with the conference, not the NC bracket.
Winning your conference should get you into the playoff
8 team would be ideal to find the true national champ
3 at large bids - one goes to best G5, 2 other spots go to the next two “best teams” no more than 2 teams per conference. Top 2 teams get a pass to second round.
Not perfect, but no way there will ever be a big playoff like college basketball. At least in this scenario you could either have a G5 or conference champ with less than stellar record play well at the right time and win it all.