Interesting:
“ Such a concept — multiple automatic bids — may come with a reimagining of conference championship weekend. At the very least, officials have discussed a play-in style conference tournament where winners punch their bids into the playoff. For instance, if the Big Ten gets three automatic bids, perhaps their No. 3 and No. 4 seeds meet in a play-in game.”
I really think the future will be a playoff involving only the Big 10 and the SEC. I’m sure they are mad as hell that Alabama and Ole Miss got left out and they aren’t going to let that happen again.
Anyway, that’s the way I see it. When they talk about how the format was supposed to involve “5 equitable conferences” and now has “4 inequitable conferences” (their words, not mine), then the handwriting is on the wall.
This is like banks making risky investments and wanting a bailout. Nobody made them expand their conferences so much it’s hard to get multiple teams in. Yes, I get I should be an SEC Homer.
Well that’s true - some play 9 conference games instead of 8 because that makes more sense with a 12 game schedule and such a large conference …
There is a highly technical term for what we have going on here…
FUBAR 
Alabama played 4 top 25 teams with 8 games and Indiana played 1 top 25 team with 9 games. SMU played 0 with an 8 game. So maybe it’s not about amount of conference games 
.
Quality of conference is an actual thing. Look at rosters.
Pretty soon the P2 will no longer recruit HS kids. It’s going to be teams with nothing but paid transfers from the colleges of the vast beyond they come and cherry pick out of those other schools.
Nah. It’s really done a good job of adding some depth to some conferences. Vandy, USC (South Carolina), Ole Miss and others were good this season due to it. In years past they would not.
Weighing number of slots based on relative strength of league has a great precedent in Champions League, and I think would be fine for CFP.
The 12 game model was clearly an attempt to have the conference champ games feed into the playoff and stay relevant, but they don’t make sense anymore with the power 2 conf, and they need to get rid of them. (The SEC champ game has been consistently the most appealing champ game but to what end?)
Could be 16 teams starting on current conf champ weekend. Max 3 losses and related scheduling requirements to be “playoff eligible”
Minimum slots:
5-6 SEC
5-6 Big Ten
1 Big XII
1 ACC
1 Best G5
1-3 at large
Maybe 16 teams is too many and would hurt the regular season too much? 8 doesn’t leave room for any non SEC and B1G and it also means 8 less meaningful post season games in a largely post-bowls era.