There's no need for 8. And really, there's need not for 8.

An 8 team playoff allows the greedy, communist conferences to guarantee themselves a spot in any such playoff, regardless of whether or not the team is actually deserving.

And, just like in the old BCS system, to keep the less powerful conferences happy, they'll get a guarantee of inclusion for their teams that may be undeserving as well.

But shit, even if we just took the best 8 teams as ranked by the college football playoff committee, this year, we'd have:

Alabama (13-0)
Clemson (13-0)
Notre Dame (12-0)
OU (12-1)
UGA (11-2)
tOSU (12-1)
Michigan (10-2)
UCF (12-0)

You're telling me that in order to determine college football's champion, we're going to put Alabama and Michigan in the same single-elimination tournament? That's bullshit.

Last year, we would have had 11-2 tOSU, 12-1 Wisconsin (with no wins of note), 10-3 Auburn, and 11-2 USC (who we absolutely destroyed) in the playoff.

No thanks. The 8th best team in the country doesn't deserve that chance. And some lower ranked conference champion sure as shit doesn't. Under the Conference Champ scenario this year, three loss Washington would have gotten in.

Want to get rid of meaningless conference championship games? Great, I'm all in support. Schedule your game like the Big 12 does, or get rid of it entirely. But don't ruin the playoff.