If we are 8th, we wouldn’t be getting screwed, we wouldn’t have earned it on the field during the season

But still crap.

Just to make sure we're on the same page.

Since the CFB playoff started:

2014
5- Baylor 11-1
6 - TCU 11-1
7 - Miss St 10-2
8 - MSU 10-2

2015
5- Iowa 12-1
6 - Stanford 11-2
7 - Ohio St 11-1
8 - ND 10-2

2016
5 - PSU 11-2
6 - Michigan 10-2
7 - Oklahoma 10-2
8 - Wisconsin 10-3

2017
5 - Ohio St - 11-2
6 - Wisconsin 12-1
7 - Auburn 10-3
8 - USC 11-2

2018
5 - UGA 11-2
6 - OSU 12-1
7 - Michigan 10-2
8 - UCF 12-0


I just don't see any of those teams that really should have a shot at the national title based on how they performed.

In 2014 Baylor and TCU absolutely deserved a shot. In fact the team that should have been #6 that year, Ohio State, wound up winning the whole thing. Just about every year since there are 1-3 teams in those lists that could have played for the national title. Also, due to the arbitrary nature of the playoff rankings, some of those teams which made it off the list and into the playoffs might have been no stronger than the ones listed just outside.

I don't see the crime in including all of them in an 8-team playoff. Any eventual winner would be historically credible based on playoff performance alone. None of the champions would be 84 BYU, 90 Colorado, 97 Michigan, or any number of questionably claimed national championships in the history of the sport.

None of those would have been issues in the 4 team playoff right?

97 would have seen Michigan and Nebraska play
(Final Four was Michigan, Nebraska, FSU, Florida)

1990 would have seen this Final Four
(Ga Tech, Colorado ,Texas and Miami)

1984 would have seen this Final Four
(BYU, OU, Washington and either Nebraska or Florida depending on how the balance between the Coach's/AP was decided)

I don't think we would have needed 8 teams to resolve those issues you called out

The fact that Washington declined the invite to the Holiday bowl to go play OU shouldn't be lost on any of us. That one should have been decided on the field.

the next year was another sign. The lone dissenting UPI coach was other than Barry Switzer himself, who voted undefeated Fresno State #1 after the 85 season just to be a prick about the BYU title the year before.

Nonetheless, I don't see the downside to an 8 team playoff. It's not as if any of the top 8 teams, in almost any given year, would be considered "unworthy" if they had two playoff-quality wins to close the year.

Another example might be the end of the 2002 season. Ohio State rode Maurice Clarett to beat Miami, but the fact of the matter is that by the end of that year nobody wanted to play Pete Carroll's nascent Southern Cal dynasty. With the benefit of hindsight, I can easily claim that USC was the best team in the country at the end of 2002, even though they didn't get the chance to play for #1.

"It's not as if any of the top 8 teams, in almost any given year, would be considered "unworthy" if they had two playoff-quality wins to close the year."

The more playoff rounds you have, the more likely it becomes that a three loss (or more) team could be crowned national champion over a one loss team, which, assuming the one loss team had a legitimate schedule, is a plainly unjust result.

If we go to eight teams, we're also almost certainly including conference champs, which all but guarantees an entirely undeserving team will be given a chance to get hot and win the championship. The 2008 Super Bowl is a prime example of something that should never happen in college football. The Patriots went 16-0, including beating the Giants at Giants Stadium during the regular season. They rematched in the Super Bowl, and the Giants gave the Patriots their only loss of the year, in a 17-14 game. On balance, there's no credible argument that the Giants were a more deserving recipient of an award for the NFL's best team that year. The only credible argument is that they won they playoff tournament. But this result makes plain that the NFL playoff is not a good vehicle for determining who the NFL's best team was that season.

Nor would an 8 team playoff in college be a good method for determining who college football's best team was that season. In 2016, putting 10-3 Wisconsin in the same single-elimination tournament as 13-0 Alabama would be plainly unfair. Let's even suppose that Wisconsin had beaten Alabama in the first game of the playoff. Overall, Alabama's performance would still be more impressive than Wisconsin's, even if Wisconsin went on to win the next two games as well. 13-3, versus 13-1.

In short, any single elimination tournament purporting to determine a season champion that could create a scenario where a win by Team A over Team B that would not result in Team A having a more impressive overall season should be invalid. An 8 team tournament fits that bill in college football.

USC was #4 in the last couple of BCS standings before the bowls and would have made the seminfinals


Going back over the last 35 years, every example I can think of, saw any controversy eliminated by a “final four”. Never has a team with a real honest claim on the title been outside that final top 4

I would have taken them straight up against the field that year.

Patterson's team proceeded to beat Mississippi so badly in the Peach Bowl that Georgia had to change its decency laws to televise the game.

ETA: 4 is too small because it allows for the power conferences to screw everyone else. Eight is enough, because it allows for 1-loss NDs, or non-blueblood teams (TCU that year; UCF last year) to have a chance. ND fans should be all about "more chaos" anyway.

TCU only lost one game, to Baylor, which created the tie at the top of the Big XII where Baylor was the conference champion, not TCU.


Was TCU a great team that year? Yes. However, should a team that did not win it's conference regular season or title game (the Big XII didn't have one) be a national champion? If you are Notre Dame or BYU, or other historical independents? Then yes. But TCU was in the Big XII and didn't win the Big XII that year.

The Playoff teams that year

OSU - lost early to a bad VaTech team (I could see TCU being ahead of them) but then they had wins against MSU (8) and Wisconsin (18) on their way to winning their division and conference. Right or wrong, a 1 loss team that didn't win their conference versus a 1 loss team that did, is not a travesty, especially with a win against a team that finished in the top 10 of the CFP final rankings.

FSU - undefeated heading into the playoffs, and were destroyed by Oregon

Oregon - lost one game to a very good Arizona team, which they avenged in the Pac12 title game (beating Arizona 51-13, they are sort of like this year's OU). Again, only had 1 loss, were able to avenge it and win their conference title.

Bama - lost to the previously mentioned Ole Miss (who was destroyed by TCU in the Peach Bowl). Went on to win the SEC with wins over Miss St (7), Missouri (16) and Auburn (19) along the way (those are the final playoff rankings after the championships).


TCU
1) Didn't win their conference
2) Played two games against teams that finished in the final CFB rankings and went 1-1
3) What would be the justification for putting TCU ahead of Baylor? The Bowl results?

I like TCU, and have attended many TCU football games. But that loss to Baylor killed them because it basically made sure they couldn't win their conference unless Baylor lost again, and they didn't. By the end, they were a great team, but I have no problem saying they didn't deserve a shot at the title, because they didn't win the Big XII.

The Va Tech loss was too bad to overcome. And Baylor played an absolute dog shit OOC schedule and got smoked by West Virginia.


But it is not an injustice that a one-loss team (in which it gave up 61 points) that also played a weak OOC schedule that mopped up a crappy conference did not have a shot a title. I will lose no sleep over that. They weren't deserving of a shot at a title, even if they were more deserving than OSU.

Obviously the No. 4 team is often capable of winning a title when it gets hot at the end of the year. But rarely is even that fourth team deserving of a claim to the title. None of Baylor, TCU, or OSU were. I won't lose sleep over their lack of inclusion.

In point of fact, Baylor and TCU were co-champions, and there were no tie-breaker provisions. So, the Big 12 submitted them as co-champions, and that's how the committee evaluated them.

I also don't give a shit whether or not the conference annointed you their champion. A conference championship is an insular, partial view of the season that should be irrelevant to determining who should be or compete for a national championship.

It has also resulted in the regular season being meaningless in every other sport. The last major sport where the regular season matters is college football.

Partly because home field advantage incentivizes teams to give a shit late into the season, and partly because we're still only talking about 16 games each year.

I think you could preserve the meaning of the regular season by giving teams #1-4 a first-round game on campus.

This year, that would look like this:

- UCF @ Alabama
- Michigan @ Clemson
- Ohio State @ Notre Dame (actually, I don't love this for us)
- Georgia @ Oklahoma

I'm watching all of those games!

win or go home. It is March Madness in the fall. The final four is for all the marbles. Why change a great system?

Pre-season rankings artificially bolster--and punish--teams before the season even starts. Teams schedule their way to wins. Conferences vary dramatically in terms of quality. Some teams (like Northwestern this year) get super lucky with their conference schedules.

I don't disagree with your larger point, but there's too much variability in college football for me to buy in to your comparison to March Madness. At least the NCAA basketball tournament directors try to create "fair & balanced" brackets.