Expand the playoff to 16 teams. Do away with byes.

Take the 16 best teams no matter who they are.

No auto bids. If these smaller schools want to prove they belong, they need to schedule 2-3 P4 OOC opponents every year.

Tulane possibly getting in is atrocious. They lost by 5 TDs to Ole Miss. Vandy, Texas, and Miami would all steamroll them.

I understand teams on the bubble at 17-20 would still of course ***** and moan, but those teams would have 3+ losses. Do better if you don't want to be on a 16 team playoff bubble.

10-2 Vandy deserves to be in with road losses to only Bama and Texas. But they'll get snubbed because they're not a big brand.

16 team playoff would look like this today:

Ohio State
Indiana
UGA
Oregon
Tech
A&M
Ole Miss
OU
ND
Bama
BYU
Miami
Vandy
Texas
Utah
UVA

I don't see how anyone could argue that a team that belongs is not on this list.

Problem is that it doesn't really give G5s a path.

I'm no G5 apologist, but until there's a formal P4/G5 split, you have to give the G5s some feasible path to possibly compete for a Natty, even as unlikely as it would be for them to win it.

Wheres you 11-1 JMU or UNT/Tulane?

#Mke said:

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Problem is that it doesn't really give G5s a path.

I'm no G5 apologist, but until there's a formal P4/G5 split, you have to give the G5s some feasible path to possibly compete for a Natty, even as unlikely as it would be for them to win it.

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Schedule 3 P4 OOC games and win them.

#Mke said:

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Problem is that it doesn't really give G5s a path.

I'm no G5 apologist, but until there's a formal P4/G5 split, you have to give the G5s some feasible path to possibly compete for a Natty, even as unlikely as it would be for them to win it.

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Why? They can make their own path. Schedule tough and win your games.

EngrAg14 said:

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Wheres you 11-1 JMU or UNT/Tulane?

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Tulane lost to Ole Miss by 5 TDs…. Their best win is over who? A 7-5 Duke team? Why do they deserve a spot??

The "problem" is most years half the teams would be SEC teams ("only" 7 this year). That is why ACC/Big Ten/Big 12/Smaller conferences won't agree to this.

SEC would sign up for no auto bids right now.

Honestly y'all may be right actually.

A 12-0 G5 would probably be ranked Top 16.

Only reason they're not in there now is because the relevant G5s this year lost a game or two.

We went from 2 to 4 because teams 3,4 5 were "being screwed"

We went from 4 to 12 because teams 5,6,7,8 were "being screwed"

Now we want to go from 12 to 16? What about teams 17, 18, 19? They just won't complain?

Eventually we'll be the NCAA basketball tournament.

#Mke said:

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Problem is that it doesn't really give G5s a path.

I'm no G5 apologist, but until there's a formal P4/G5 split, you have to give the G5s some feasible path to possibly compete for a Natty, even as unlikely as it would be for them to win it.

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They will have a path: just need a team good enough to get ranked in the top 16

They'll have the sane path as all the other conferences

Heck, Cincinnati as a g5 made it into a 4 team playoff one year

EKG1996 said:

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The "problem" is most years half the teams would be SEC teams ("only" 7 this year). That is why ACC/Big Ten/Big 12/Smaller conferences won't agree to this.

SEC would sign up for no auto bids right now.

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There is a good chance the ACC gets 0 teams in this year…. In the 16 team scenario, they get 2 teams in.

Quote:

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Expand the pla....

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And that's when I quit reading.

Yeah it'd just be awful to watch more post season CFB.

So keep it as is and let Tulane in? They're more deserving than Vandy?

Interesting take.

Goto pods in SEC Big10, 4 spots for each conference. Divy up the other 4 however you want.

Would never happen. What about the ACC?

#Mke said:

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Problem is that it doesn't really give G5s a path.

I'm no G5 apologist, but until there's a formal P4/G5 split, you have to give the G5s some feasible path to possibly compete for a Natty, even as unlikely as it would be for them to win it.

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No you don't. Those teams play soft schedules, unlike the SEC and Big 10. Want to play for a national championship? Join a real conference.

If u just go to 16 u could leave the auto bids. Tulane instead of utah or whoever the last in would be.

Why are we playing a regular season just to have an 8 team SEC playoff?

#Mke said:

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Problem is that it doesn't really give G5s a path.

I'm no G5 apologist, but until there's a formal P4/G5 split, you have to give the G5s some feasible path to possibly compete for a Natty, even as unlikely as it would be for them to win it.

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This, there needs to be a divorce.

No teams outside the top 6 DESERVE a chance to play for the national championship. Playoff is too big as it is.

This is the problem with everybody getting a trophy. Not everyone gets one and you have to make a cut off some where.

amercer said:

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Why are we playing a regular season just to have an 8 team SEC playoff?

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Because the conference is too big and the schedules are not equal. Ole Miss never got to play A&M and Alabama. A&M never got to play Ole Miss, Alabama, or Georgia. Or Vandy or OU.

If you're going to have conferences with more than 12 teams, the only way to get fair representation into the CFP is for the conferences to playoff with each other to determine their representation.

The only solution is for the playoff field to be completely meritocratic. It must be determined by the mathematics of wins and losses, like (I hate saying this) the NFL. Anything else is a compromise that cannot be equally fair to everyone.

That won't happen until there is a top-down reorganization of college sports to that end. Until then, everyone's new playoff plan has been thought of already by someone else and the compromise we'll get is the one that best suits the interests with the most power.

Going to 16 would be about as big as it should ever be. Lots of money to be made, with probably only a minimal chance for anybody not in the top 4.

agnerd said:

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No teams outside the top 6 DESERVE a chance to play for the national championship. Playoff is too big as it is.

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THIS.
The more the playoff expands, the less meaningful the regular season.

I'm a NY Giants fan. And I'm glad they've won 2 Super Bowls in the last 20 years. But in neither season were they anywhere close to being the best team in the NFL. They just got hot (and lucky) at the right time.

Let the NFL be the NFL.

Wabs said:

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We went from 2 to 4 because teams 3,4 5 were "being screwed"

We went from 4 to 12 because teams 5,6,7,8 were "being screwed"

Now we want to go from 12 to 16? What about teams 17, 18, 19? They just won't complain?

Eventually we'll be the NCAA basketball tournament.

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So many were calling this past 8, me included.

This current set up rewards teams on the fringe who are not playing in a confrence championship game, which is now the 3rd best case scenario since all everyone wants is a playoff slot.

Don't start ranking teams until week 3. And cut the ranking off at the confrence games if we want them to mean anything. Alabama and BYU have nothing to gain by playing the game at this point.

Dont know about expansion, but need to do away with autobids.

Its beyond silly that James Madison can get in when Texas, Vandy, and others, may not.

If the teams from the SEC have to run that gauntlet, then the powderpuff conferences can schedule some harder games. That actually evens the playing field.

The debate will continue no matter how many seeds you have. With most conferences going to 9 game schedules, it's going to be tough to measure these teams outside their conference.

When you have too many conference games, how do you really determine SOS?

I say keep the number of conference games to 8 and Power 4 schools cannot schedule FCS schools. Just like in basketball, have a weekend (or two) where B10 teams play against SEC schools and/or ACC teams play against Big 12 schools and vice versa.

Add 4 Group 5 schools and have a mini tournament and see which one emerges and that one will get an bid to CFP.

Who's going to determine the top 16? It can't be humans, or it's open for fraud. You only have to look at the current rankings to see the narrative they'll try and justify.

I think 12 is the perfect number. Don't add to it. And I like keeping the G5 games. Maybe they're a little less deserving, but it keeps those programs engaged and adds a little spice. Someday we'll have a cinderella upset and that'll be fun.

It took an act of God to get what we have now. and keep in mind it was originally the top SIX conference champions.

And can we stop calling them the Group of 5. It's at least six but really more like seven.

Two teams? Thats unfair. We need 4 teams.

Four teams? Thats unfair. We need 12 teams.

Twelve teams? Thats unfair. We need 16 teams.

Sixteen teams? Thats unfair. We need 32 teams.

Thirty-two teams? Thats unfair. We need 64 teams.

TheBonifaceOption said:

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Two teams? Thats unfair. We need 4 teams.

Four teams? Thats unfair. We need 12 teams.

Twelve teams? Thats unfair. We need 16 teams.

Sixteen teams? Thats unfair. We need 32 teams.

Thirty-two teams? Thats unfair. We need 64 teams.

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Everybody gets a participation trophy, I guess. That's the only justification for it.

This charade will continue as long as college football retains its current structure. The only way to make a "perfect" playoff is to shuffle teams to balanced conferences, introduce scheduling to match, and then create rules for determining playoff participants. Basically, reproduce the model found in the professional leagues to ensure fair competition. That leaves out teams that won't or can't complete with the big guys, but the current structure is just inadequate.

HarryJ33tamu said:

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Yeah it'd just be awful to watch more post season CFB.

So keep it as is and let Tulane in? They're more deserving than Vandy?

Interesting take.

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Because you're adding more unnecessary steps to determine a champion. Vandy isn't going to win it all and neither is Tulane. No purpose in letting more teams in. Fetch isn't going to happen.