As crazy as it seems now, there was a time with college football when there was no playoffs. The top teams would be determined by the press and a coaches poll and then they would get the top bowl games, depending on who won those games and by how much, another poll would be done to determine who the real "national champion" was. I recall several times that there was a lot of controversy created by one team being chosen and over another and there were plenty of accusations of team politics and conference politics playing into who gets the national champion title.
I'm sure there was more than one instance but I recall when Nebraska and Miami were declared "co-champions" and well, that didn't make anyone at Miami or Nebraska happy as well as the rest of the sporting world. A real tournament, a real playoff system, was something that fans had been lobbying for for many years and finally they got it in 2014. However, that was also a flawed system because the 4 teams that were invited to participate in it were chosen by the same sort of poll including coaches and the press. There were plenty of people that really didn't like this and a lot of teams that felt as though they were not given a chance because they were in a less favored conference.
Even though the selection process is actually very complicated, there was always going to be a team or two that feel as though they were snubbed because their conference isn't deemed difficult enough. There were tons of cries of Alabama getting preferential treatment over other teams as well. In the very first playoffs, TCU and Baylor were excluded from the tournament despite the fact that they had the exact same record of every other team in the playoffs other than Florida State, who was undefeated. Florida State always get criticism because they are in the ACC which is generally regarded as a conference that skips football in anticipation of basketball season and honestly, they kind of have a point.
The only way to have a true national champion was to have a real playoffs with more than 4 teams invited. This year was the first year that they have done that and while most people are happy with the selection a few teams were also excluded but whatever man, we can't have 100 games in the post-season.
Pay special attention to the number 1-4 teams according to the national ranking system that is largely decided by the same people who decide who is invited to this tournament in the first place. They are, in order, Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State. There was only one team that felt truly snubbed this year and that was Army, a team who had fewer losses than 3 of the teams that did get invited.
All 4 of the top teams were eliminated in their first playoff game and this is important because it showcases that if it weren't for the changes in the post-season in college football, those "top 4" teams wouldn't have even had to play the teams that eliminated them. We would have had a false national champion no matter who won it. Notre Dame and Ohio State are in the final next week and with a ranking of 7th and 8th respectively, we can say without much cause for fuss, that if it was still a 4-team playoff, that they definitely wouldn't have been invited.
So I think that this 12-team playoff system is far overdue. It took us over 100 years to get here but now I don't think that anyone can complain about a "selected champion." Every team has to earn it. On the other side of things I do feel bad for Army getting snubbed but when you look at their season and see that they defeated such powerhouses as Lehigh, Florida Atlantic, and Tulsa, maybe you can understand why they were left out. The only time in the entire season that they faced a ranked opponent was against Notre Dame, and Army got destroyed in that one 49-14. I think you could very easily make the argument that had Notre Dame not let off the gas in the 4th quarter, that it would have been more like 60-7 as a final score.
The playoff system was badly needed and it is here to stay. I just wonder what the hell took so long?