I think this is the year there could be a legitimate argument for increasing the college football playoff from the current four teams to eight teams.
This year three of the four teams in the playoff won their conference championship. Not only did Alabama not win their conference championship game, they didn't even play in it.
I believe winning a conference championship should mean something. With that said, my proposal would be this...
Increase the number of playoff teams from four to eight. There would be six automatic bids, then two at-large bids that the committee would choose.
The automatic bids would go like this...
Each of the power five conference champions would get an automatic bid. Those are the winners of the Big Ten, Pac 12, Big 12, ACC, and the SEC. The last automatic bid would go to the highest ranked team from the Group of Five conferences determined by the committee.
The final two at-large bids would be chosen by the committee using the criteria that they currently have established with the exception of being a conference champion since those teams make it automatically.
After the 8 teams have been established, the committee would rank them from one to eight. Then team one would would play team eight, team two would play team seven, and so on.
Lets take a look at how it would work this season.
The ACC Champion is Clemson.
The Big Ten Champion is Ohio State
The Big 12 Champion is Oklahoma
The Pac 12 Champion is USC
The SEC Champion is Georgia
The highest ranked Group of Five is UCF.
We need to determine the two at-large teams, so lets take a look.
The committee really liked Alabama all season and even included them in the final four without playing in their conference championship. It's a pretty safe bet to say they'd have Alabama as an at-large team.
Wisconsin is 11-1, losing only to Ohio State in the conference championship game. They are also currently ranked 6th by the committee, so we'll pick them.
If we go by the current committee rankings, our eight would look like this.
- Clemson
- Oklahoma
- Georgia
- Alabama
- Ohio State
- Wisconsin
- USC
- UCF
So, our matchups would look like this:
Clemson vs UCF
Oklahoma vs USC
Georgia vs Wisconsin
Alabama vs Ohio State
The committee could then re-rank the four winners to determine who plays in the New Year's Day Bowl games.
In this scenario, each of the major conferences is represented as is a group of five team. We would no longer have to wonder how a team like UCF would matchup against the "big boys". This would also keep winning a conference championship a priority. If a team takes care of business in their conference, they will be rewarded with a playoff birth.
So, that's my suggestion. I don't think it will happen any time soon, but with two major conferences being left out this season... you never know.