Why the College Football Playoff needs to go to 8
2018 in College Football has been another year full of fan arguments for why one team should get into the College Football Playoff, or why another shouldn't, based off the same objective standard laid forth by the College Football Playoff Committee. Is it just fans that are ready for a change?
Division 1 College Football, the only sport in the world where everyone who competes doesn't have a fair shake at the ultimate pinnacle of the sport. A National Championship. If you want me to be frank, realistically only 14% (18 Teams) of Division 1 College Football is really ever able to qualify for the College Football Playoff. Those teams would be as follows
Clemson Florida State
Miami Oklahoma
Penn State Texas
Ohio State Michigan
Michigan State Washington
USC Oregon
Georgia Florida
Alabama Auburn
LSU Notre Dame
Of those 18 teams, only 10 of them have ever competed in the playoff in its current format. Alabama has never missed the playoff, Clemson has only missed once in 2014, Oklahoma has missed twice in 2014 and 2016. Other than those 3, you have had 7 other competitors. FSU in 2014, Ohio State in 2014 and 2016, Michigan State in 2015, Washington in 2016, Oregon in 2014, Georgia in 2017, and Notre Dame in 2018. For a playoff touting that one of its main goals is having Universal Access, even going as far as to say "Every FBS team has equal access to the College Football Playoff based on its performance. No team automatically qualifies.", while having a banner of every FBS conference logo on the header of its site. It sure is doing a very poor job. This is where we come to a conundrum for most college football fans. If you're going to go to an 8 team playoff, which format are you going to use?
The 8 Team Playoff Format
As many have heard myself and David attest on the show, we are huge proponents of the 8 team model. This is the model that consists of 5 Power 5 Conference Champions, the overall Group of 5 Champion, and 2 At-Large bids. The playoffs would consist of three rounds. The Quarterfinals played on the second to last Saturday of December at the highest seeds home stadium. The Semifinal played the last Saturday of December, locations working as they currently do now, which is a rotation of the New Year’s 6 bowls. Finally, the National Championship played on the first Monday after New Year’s Day, at the same sites as currently formatted.
For the goal of continued access, and enrichment of the regular season, there is also a rule in which no conference is allowed more than 2 teams in the playoff (Sorry SEC fans, you're not getting 3 teams into the playoff). At-Large teams must be selected by a tiebreaker format that begins with Overall Record. If another tiebreaker is needed, selection will go to the team who won in the head to head. If this didn't happen, it moves on to conference record, then Top 25 Wins, Points Per Game on Offense, and Points Per Game allowed on Defense. With this formula, you will for sure be able to differentiate between multiple teams throughout the season and clearly get an At-Large bid selection.
However, this model would require a little tweaking to how college football currently runs its playoff system, which is why we believe this is the best format. It’s not a complete destruction of the current system and rebuilding from scratch, it taking what currently works well, but not well enough, and adding some changes to work towards the best system possible. Such tweaks would be Auto Bids, Selection and Scheduling rules. That's it! Nothing else needs to be changed! When you change these 3 rules, you're giving all 130 teams a shot at a National Championship. Not only this, but you give so much more meaning to the regular season than currently exists.
Let’s take 2015 for example. In the 8 team playoff model we're discussing, one of the At-Large bids in this season would have gone to North Carolina. Yes, you're reading that correctly, the Tarheels of Chapel Hill, would have been in the playoff. Why? Because they took 2nd place in the ACC, winning the ACC Coastal with an 8-0 conference record, then lost to Clemson in the ACC Championship Game making their final regular season record 11-2.
The Tar Heels were 1-1 vs Top 25 opponents as well.
Some may be looking at this and thinking, "ah, but Will, Ohio State ended the year 12-1, and plays in the B1G. They should have got the invite over UNC". This is where I will state that yes, Ohio State ended the season with somewhat identical numbers as UNC. Both were 1-1 vs the Top 25, and both were really good on offense and defense. However, UNC got the nod because Ohio State lost to Michigan State giving the Buckeye's 1 loss in conference, whereas UNC didn't lose until the Conference Championship Game. If the Buckeyes were to have won on that fateful November night, they would have played in the B1G Conference Championship Game against Iowa, sealing both Iowa and Ohio State into the Playoff, with the B1G Conference Championship Game being about seeding, and as you will see later, the highest seed in the Quarterfinals of the Playoff gets a home game, making this B1G Championship Game that much more important. As for how would UNC not make the playoff? They would have had to lose somewhere in their conference games.
This is what adds more intrigue to the regular season. In 2015 when the preseason rankings came out, North Carolina was ranked 48th in the Coaches Poll, and unranked in the AP Poll. They didn't crack the Top 25 until Week 10, where they were ranked 21st in both the AP and Coaches poll, and then in Week 11, they were ranked 23rd in the playoff poll. So in the current format, UNC's season ended Week 1 with their 4 point loss to South Carolina. There is absolutely no way North Carolina moves into the top 4 by beating Clemson in the ACC Championship Game. Absolutely no way, even though Clemson was ranked #1 by everyone. They may have moved up to something like 6, but if they would've beat Clemson, both Iowa and Michigan State would have been in over UNC.
So with the format we have been discussing, North Carolina's entire season doesn't lose championship aspirations after week 1, and neither does anybody in the entire country. The entire season has more meaning for a longer period of time. In that same 2015 season, the Hydra Division (B1G East) wasn't decided until the final week of the season when Michigan State beat Penn State. Had Michigan State lost to Penn State, with Ohio State beating Michigan, that gives the Buckeye's the Hydra Division crown and an opportunity at winning the conference and getting a home game in the playoff.
With this format, the playoff since 2014 would have been amazing! Look at these games
2014
Quarterfinals
December 20th
(1) FSU ACC Champ vs (8) Marshall G5 Champ in Tallahassee, FL
(2) Oregon PAC 12 Champ vs (7) Wisconsin At-Large 2 in Eugene, OR
(3) Alabama SEC Champ vs (6) TCU At-Large 1 in Tuscaloosa, AL
(4) Ohio State B1G Champ vs (5) Baylor Big XII Champ in Columbus, OH
Semifinal locations
December 27th
Rose Bowl
Sugar Bowl
National Championship
January 12th
AT&T Stadium Arlington, TX
2015
Quarterfinals
December 19th
(1) Clemson ACC Champ vs (8) North Carolina At-Large 2 in Clemson, SC
(2) Alabama SEC Champ vs (7) Stanford PAC 12 Champ in Tuscaloosa, AL
(3) Michigan State B1G Champ vs (6) Iowa At-Large 1 in East Lansing, MI
(4) Oklahoma Big XII Champ vs (5) Houston G5 Champ in Norman, OK
Semifinal locations
December 26th
Orange Bowl
Cotton Bowl
National Championship
January 11th
University of Phoenix Stadium Glendale, AZ
2016
Quarterfinals
December 24th
(1) Alabama SEC Champ vs (8) Colorado At-Large 2 in Tuscaloosa, AL
(2) Washington PAC 12 Champ vs (7) Ohio State At-Large 1 in Seatlle, WA
(3) Clemson ACC Champ vs (6) Western Michigan in Clemson, SC
(4) Penn State B1G Champ vs (5) Oklahoma Big XII Champ in University Park, PA
Semifinal locations
December 31st
Peach Bowl
Fiesta Bowl
National Championship
January 9th
Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
2017
Quarterfinals
December 23rd
(1) Clemson ACC Champ vs (8) Wisconsin At-Large 2 in Clemson, SC
(2) Oklahoma Big XII Champ vs (7) Alabama At-Large 1 in Norman, OK
(3) Ohio State B1G Champ vs (6) UCF G5 Champ in Columbus, OH
(4) Georgia SEC Champ vs USC PAC 12 Champ in Athens, GA
Semifinal locations
December 30th
Sugar Bowl
Rose Bowl
National Championship
January 8th
Mercedes-Benz Stadium Atlanta, GA
2018
Access vs Excellence, and other issues
Many critics, especially those in the twitter verse, have come on the record and stated that expanding the playoff will congratulates mediocrity, makes football more about access than excellence, or other statements of that nature. I am going to address this issue, and state that these opinions are false. Just because your record as an At-Large is 10-3, doesn't mean you're a mediocre team. I am speaking of Wisconsin in 2014, who would have received the 8th seed in the playoff because they won the B1G West, went 2-2 vs the Top 25, and had the 2nd best resume based off what I've explained prior. Yes, they lost to Ohio State 59-0 in the B1G Championship. However, they took care of business the rest of the season, and their entire body of work throughout the season, gives them more than enough to try and get things done and meet Ohio State again. In 2014, the playoff we've been discussing involves
(1) FSU ACC Champ vs (8) Marshall G5 Champ in Tallahassee, FL(2) Oregon PAC 12 Champ vs (7) Wisconsin At-Large 2 in Eugene, OR(3) Alabama SEC Champ vs (6) TCU At-Large 1 in Tuscaloosa, AL(4) Ohio State B1G Champ vs (5) Baylor Big XII Champ in Columbus, OH
If this were to go chalk minus Wisconsin in this hypothetical situation, this would have been their National Championship run. Win at Oregon in Autzen against Marcus Mariota, another trip out west to the Rose Bowl beating Nick Saban and Alabama, and then finishing off the season beating Florida State in Jerry World. Tell me again how Wisconsin would have been mediocre in this situation.
The Wisconsin hypothetical is what leads me to the question of Access vs Excellence. Right now, who is determining this standard of excellence? The AP? The Committee? Who? What? The same committee that is currently made up current Athletic Directors of Oregon, Oklahoma, Ohio State, Georgia Tech, and Florida? Tell me how Gene Smith is supposed to be competent in the committee with everything that went on at Ohio State this year. This same committee that plays the rules and process like the PAC 12 League Office and Officials do? On a whim!?
Why is this something that is determining excellence? Should we talk about the AP? The same AP that Joel Klatt blasted by stating the AP poll is full of confirmation bias and incompetence? Why can we not just eliminate these questions and settle everything on the field with a clear structure? What about the 8 team playoff doesn't allow for excellence? You still have to win you conference to get an Auto Bid. In order to be an At-Large team you need to have at minimum the second best conference record in your own conference, and then you need to watch around the country to see who you need to keep pace with.in order to get that At-Large Bid. This is a world in which B1G fans will watch their games in the evening, only to rush home after a win to watch the later Big XII and PAC 12 games to make sure their team is keeping pace with the other competitors in the country for playoff spots. A world where, just because you have 1 bad game in October, where you just didn't have it, you're not completely out of the playoffs because what truly defines an excellent team, is how they react to adversity. Well, then why are we punishing an Ohio State, or a Washington because they faced some unique situations which unfortunately landed them a loss in October, but in reality, in late December, they are easily one of the best teams in the country. It’s time to stop this farce of an invitational guised as a playoff. It’s time to let the entire country in on the party, and to settle who is in, and who is out on the field. Stop letting those who can't stay up past 10 pm to watch a game and put in their Heisman votes just days after receiving the ballot before all the games have been played, decide the fate of the teams playing for the National Championship. If you enjoyed this article, make sure to let us know. If you didn't, make sure to let us know as well.
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