Yes, there are flaws in any consideration but I surely prefer an 8 team format over a four. Yes automatic bids for the conference champs no matter how they are chosen It makes sense to me to eliminate the championship game as now done but the champ should get the auto bid. The other three should be the apparent three best teams in collegiate football Div1 or whatever they call it these days. Finding a way to select those three will be tough of course. There is no perfect method for football IMO.
I’m good with four. Not perfect, but much better system than we had before. If we go to 8 it will just be a matter of time before we hear the calls for 12 or 16.
No…4 is fine.
I want to see the playoff expand to eight teams and include Power Five conference champions and the highest-ranked Group of Five team. If UCF goes undefeated, even against a weaker schedule, it should have the ability to play for a national championship in its subdivision. Otherwise create a fifth subdivision to split the Power Five and Group of Five.
An eight-team playoff would not be difficult to implement. The quarterfinal round could be played on campuses a week or two after the conference championships, then the bowls could still serve as semifinal matchups and the season can be finished by Jan. 6-10.
Almost word for word what I have said! 
As I have said before, I think a 8 team playoff is best, but I am no unhappy with a 4 team playoff.
BTW, to answer a few of the “questions.”
Yes a committee but it will only pick few of the teams.
Yes there would be automatic qualifiers. If Northwestern had won, they earned the right to go. Remember when we won the SECT (basketball) in 2000? We weren’t going without winning the SECT. We won, we went, Vandy stayed home. Oh well.
There are lots of options about what to do with Group of 5. As Matt posted, I have said top G5 gets in. You COULD say, “the best G5 school gets in” or you COULD say "the best G5 school gets in if they are ranked in the top 12 (15, whatever.)
The argument about “Finals” is SO MUCH phooey. They don’t worry about how much school baseball players miss (including finals), basketball players miss, etc. It further affects only a few schools. That can and would be worked out, easy.
8 teams. No question. With an 8 team playoff this year we would get Georgia and Ohio State…who are both probably better than Oklahoma…or at least they might well be and should get to see if they are on the field.
Let the selection committee choose them. Same system exactly.
The controversy over who should be #8 is more palatable than who should be the 4 seed. IMO.
I would like to see 6-8 teams b/c you’re going to always have that many think they have a chance.
Someone will always want to add teams to the playoff, 6, 8.12 ,16 or more. It is our nature, we want one to extend the season and two get our favorite team also. I think four is about right for a physical team like football. 16 games is enough for these still very young men.
[quote=“hog584”]
Someone will always want to add teams to the playoff, 6, 8.12 ,16 or more. It is our nature, we want one to extend the season and two get our favorite team also. I think four is about right for a physical team like football. 16 games is enough for these still very young men.
[/quote]16 games means eight-team playoff. As of now, with four teams, only 15 games get played at most.
I don’t care.
I just want Arkansas to be in the playoff.
Please…
I’ve had most of these same questions myself for quite a while. I don’t think it’s as easy to have one as many think.
The question about finals bothers me, but as Greghog points out, baseball players don’t get breaks for finals. (At least I think that’s true. Finals are usually the first week in May.). However, I consider that more an indictment of the way we schedule college baseball than as excuse to do the same thing for football. Maybe someone can tell me how, or if, they accommodate players’ needs for study & finals.
I still think money will eventually drive us to an 8 team playoff, but if we’re to have one, I’d want a committee to pick the best 8 teams. I wouldn’t give an automatic bid to any conference champion & I sure wouldn’t give an automatic bid to a G5 team.
I think it depends on what you are trying to achieve.
If it’s to make sure the likely two best teams or two most deserving teams have a chance to play each other then 4 more than covers that almost every year including this one.
If it’s to transition towards college basketball which gets less and less attention during the season and everyone just waits for the tournament then go for 8 or heck 16.
I would argue 6 is the max if it’s the first goal. Pick as many as you want if you just want to watch a good tournament at the end of the year.
Six of course would require a bye involved.
As far as baseball players are concerned there can be no games scheduled during finals week per SEC rules! That maybe an NCAA rule but I am not sure of that.
I have posted here for years (and my thoughts on this go back to before there even was an HI board - prior to the BCS) that the way they are doing it now is THE best way. The NCAA finally came around to my way of thinking a few years back (never really thought they would, to be honest).
There are two types of “errors” you can make at this point - (a) occasionally leaving a team (or perhaps, 2) out that may have a plausible case to be included; or (b) having teams involved that do not, by the results of their regular season, really belong (or, to put it another way - have not EARNED their way in) among the playoff participants.
My preference is clear, and it is partly because it is part of the unique culture of college football - I want the playoff to be more exclusive, with only the teams that absolutely have earned their way in. In some years, that will mean that a very good team - like Georgia this year - will NOT be included because as good as they might be, they lost TWO games, including a “winner definitely gets in” SEC Championship game that was a de facto “play in” game. Even with that close loss, they would have almost certainly been included but for a 3 TD loss to a good - but not “elite” - LSU team. So, we all acknowledge how good they are. But games were played that would have enabled them to ensure they were included in the CFP, and they LOST those games.
Others bemoan the fact that Central Florida is not in. Their case is different. They did not lose, but (1) their SOS was mediocre (89th according to Sagarin) and (2) even then, they did not dominate their opposition as the teams that are in the "Final Four’ did. Sure, it would be interesting to see what they would do in a CFB situation, but the novelty factor does not override the fact that 4 other teams earned their way in ahead of UCF (and others would have been in ahead of them as well).
And while there are years when it’s not easy to determine who #4 should be, there are also years when there is a clear cut #1 and #2 and there really isn’t a need to have even 2 more teams. it doesn’t happen often, but it does happen. In such a year, it would be borderline criminal to have 6 “filler” teams included in an 8 team playoff.
I’ll go back to this, and it may seem cliche; but every game DOES matter in the regular season now. if you expand to 8 - most certainly at any number above that - you greatly dilute the importance of regular season games AND increase the chances that these fabulous once-a-year rivals will meet again in the post-season. I like the fact that when, say, Michigan beats Ohio State (if that ever happens again), then they have a whole year of bragging rights. That’s one of the cornerstones of college football tradition. I hate “rematches” in the post season for football. You may say it happens in basketball and baseball, and it does. But those are different sports that play a LOT more games anyhow. The culture just IS different. Always has been.
If ever there was any “tweak” to it (and I hope there is not), I’d most agree with a six team playoff in which the top 2 get byes, and 3 plays 6, 4 plays 5 and the winners meet #1 and #2 in semis. I’d have the winners of the Power 5 conferences (leave it up to each conference HOW they determine their rep), and a “wild card” that would be the highest ranked Independent or Group of 5 team, unless they were outside of the top 10 - something like that.
I love the playoffs how they are. But I also love March madness, the college world series, and the NFL playoffs. If it gets bumped to 8, then hey I’ll be excited for more crazy college football games. If someone wants to expand it from there, that’s fine with me too. If it gets too big, we’ve already seen that the powers that be aren’t afraid to change the way things are done, so it could be trimmed back down.
I heard a really interesting idea on a radio show here in CoMo last week that I think would be cool to use in college football: limit the number of games an individual player can play in a season. It might be tough to track and enforce, but say you stay at 12 regular season games, but any one player can only play in 9 or 10 games (excluding postseason). Then, everyone is a little fresher for the (potentially expanded) postseason. Plus, I think it would be cool to see everyone get more playing time, and it could really put the 4 game red shirt rule to good use.
Now, I don’t think that would ever happen, but I thought it was a cool idea.
100 % agree with wizard on this one. The playoff in college starts game 1.
NCAA Division 3 - 20 team playoff
NCAA Division 2 - 16 team playoff
NCAA FCS - 12 team playoff
NCAA FBS - 4 team playoff
Appears to me that an 8 team playoff would be in order.
The NCAA and others argue that more games would not be in the best interest of the student athlete. So, does this playoff structure throughout the NCAA mean that the NCAA places less value for the student athlete at the other Divisions?
If so, then that entire argument is hypocrisy!
Get it to eight sooner than later and assure that all power 5 Champions get an automatic berth and 3 at large berths.
Go Hogs!
The lower divisions don’t play at neutral sites, which simplifies things greatly.