FTB Fixes The College Football Playoff

As The Usual Suspects Once Again Play For All The Tostitos, We Present an Alternative Postseason Plan and Answer All Naysayers Before They Can Open Their Mouths

Sure, we’ll take a stab at this…

Format: 8 Teams. Single-elimination tournament. The existing College Football Playoff Committee will seed the teams…1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc.  

Who’s In?: Conference Champions from the SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Pac-12. One Group of 5/Independent representative – chosen by the committee. Two At-Large bids – chosen by the committee. At-Large teams CANNOT be seeded higher than No. 5.  

When: Entire college football calendar gets moved back one week. Conference championship games take place the Saturday after Thanksgiving.  Playoff quarterfinals begin two weeks later — second Saturday of December. Semis and National Championship remain Jan. 1 and the second Monday of January. 

Where: Quarterfinals on college campuses. Higher seed hosts. Semifinals rotate amongst the NY6 bowl sites, as they do now. National Championship remains at neutral site NFL stadiums.  

Any questions?

Yes, you, the annoying-looking fella.

The college football regular season is sacred. It’s the only sport where every game means something! Won’t having an expanded playoff ruin that? 

Let’s address your statement before we tackle your question. The sanctity of college football’s regular season might be the BIGGEST fallacy in all of sports. Really, every game means something? What did the 2020 Penn State-Rutgers game mean? What was at stake when BYU traveled to Coastal Carolina besides a cool, impromptu contest between undefeated teams? How about the PAC-12 title game., the Big XII title game, or the SEC Championship where an Alabama loss likely wouldn’t have pushed Saban out of the playoff and a Florida win probably wouldn’t have gotten the Gators in the Field of 4? WHAT DID ALL OF THOSE GAMES MEAN, HUH?

More opportunities to make the College Football Playoff will create more meaningful regular season games. So, to answer your question, no an expanded playoff won’t ruin that. 

Won’t having 8 teams make the conference championship games irrelevant? 

Quite the contrary. An 8-team playoff format will resuscitate these dying conference spectacles. The last two full-stadium ACC Championships fell approximately 10,000 fans short of selling out. The Pac-12 Championship has NEVER sold out. Even a close, competitive 2019 Big Ten Championship tilt between No. 1 Ohio State and No. 8 Wisconsin only drew a 3.6 TV Rating – the second-lowest in the game’s decade-long history behind 2012’s Wisconsin-Nebraska clunker.

But put an automatic spot in the College Football Playoff on the line and watch what happens. TV is all about STAKES. What are the STAKES? It’s why game shows have cash prizes, why restaurant/small business rescue shows still air, why The Bachelor is basically a sporting event without a ball. BECAUSE SOMETHING VALUABLE OR PRECIOUS IS ON THE LINE!!!!   Money, Financial Stability, Family Legacy, True Love (cough), or in this case, a berth in the College Football Playoff. 

What’s with every conference champion getting an auto bid? 

Look, without automatic bids this isn’t a playoff. It’s an INVITATIONAL. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another team sport without an objective, clearly-defined championship path for every team. Yes, the NFL has wild cards…but teams enter the season knowing if they win their division, they’re in the playoffs. Yes, the NCAA Tournament has At-Large bids, but every eligible school enters the season knowing that if they win their conference tournament, they’re in the Big Dance. 

But what about college football? 2020 proved, once and for all, that Non-Power 5 schools have NO path to play for a national championship. As for Power 5 schools, well, the criteria for reaching the CFP varies depending on brand name, recent historical success and assumed conference strength. 

• No 0-or-1-loss SEC Champion has not made the playoff
• No 0-or-1-loss ACC Champion has not made the playoff
• One 0-or-1-loss Big 12 Champion has not made the playoff (Baylor 2014)
• One 0-or-1-loss Big 10 Champion has not made the playoff (Ohio State 2018)
• The only 0-or-1 loss Pac-12 Champion, 2016 Washington, made the playoff.

More telling, though, is the benefit of the doubt (or lack thereof) given to 1-loss non-champions per conference. 

• 1 of 2 one-loss SEC non-champions made the CFP (2018 Alabama)
• 1 of 4 one-loss Big Ten non-champions made the CFP (2016 Ohio State)
• 1 of 1 one-loss ACC non-champion made the CFP (2020 Notre Dame)
• 0 of 1 one-loss Big 12 non-champions made the CFP 
• Pac-12 has not had a 1-loss non-champion since 2014.

College football is becoming entirely too predictable and too regional. The two highest rated National Championships of the 21st Century both featured a West Coast participant (2006 USC-Texas, 2015 Ohio State-Oregon), so giving large Pacific media markets a reason to watch at least the first round of the CFP helps the overall health of the sport.

But part of college football’s charm is that it fuels debate. Doesn’t this playoff get rid of that?

No, it’s just changes the debate. Fans can argue about which 4 of the auto-bid conference champions should host first-round home games. Fans can argue about who deserves the No. 1 overall seed, and a likely first-round cakewalk vs. an AAC, MAC or MWC champion. And fans can belittle other leagues and programs when debating what non-champions deserve the two At-Large bids. Don’t worry…our CFP format gives you plenty of opportunities to be a prick online. 

Why aren’t first round games at neutral sites?

A few reasons.

• Incentivize Top Teams to Keep Playing: College football doesn’t want NFL Week 17 start-or-sit scenarios. And that’s the potential danger in having a neutral-site-only 8-team playoff – undefeated teams resting starters in conference championship games because they know they’re “in.” However, no coach would take his foot off the gas if a home playoff game was on the line. Home-field advantage in college football is HUGE…and it’d be doubly HUGE in a playoff. Can you imagine Florida coming to Happy Valley for a mid-December College Football quarterfinal? Or Oklahoma having to travel all the way out to Autzen Stadium and play in the rain and mist?
• Affordability: Asking a fan base to pay for two out-of-market playoff trips is already a financial burden. Three might be pushing it too far – especially with powerhouse programs like Alabama and Clemson. Why would Tigers fans pay airfare and lodging to go see Clemson-Western Michigan in Dallas? But another home game in Death Valley, where you can drive and tailgate…yeah, that would work.
•  Atmosphere: Hinted at this in No. 1, but how cool would some of these settings be? 

Why does a non-Power 5 team get an automatic bid? They’re gonna get killed!

Are they? Since 2014, when the CFP threw some crumbs at Group of 5 programs with an automatic NY6 bowl slot, those “little” schools are  3-3 against Power 5 foes – the largest margin of defeat being Memphis’ respectable 14-point loss vs. Penn State in the 2019 Cotton Bowl.

And if they did get killed…who cares. No one complains when Villanova seal-clubs DeVry by 45 points in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, so what’s the big deal if Cincinnati loses by five touchdowns in Tuscaloosa?

If non-conference games vs. Group of 5 teams are factored in a Power 5 squad’s overall resume, then those same small teams should have an opportunity to compete for a national championship, too. 

Hey, these are student-athletes. What about disrupting academic finals?

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahaha.  Good one. 

But what about Notre Dame?

Damn it. Hoped you’d overlook this. Sigh…when it comes to our brilliant format, Notre Dame is the fly floating in our soup. There’s no good answer for this question. Assuming Notre Dame stays independent, the Irish could easily vulture the Group of 5 auto bid a lot of seasons. If Notre Dame joins the ACC, then this is  a non-issue. If they don’t….um….then…(shrugs shoulders).

Anyway, if you’re still reading and curious how our playoff format would have looked in years past, well, you’re in luck:

2014

Notes and Observations: The whole Ohio State/Baylor/TCU fiasco is settled on the field. Buckeyes steal the final home seed with their blowout of Wisconsin. Some debate whether Mississippi State (which lost it’s season finale to 3-loss Ole Miss) deserves the final at-large spot over Michigan State – also 10-2 but without an end-of-season Top 25 win. Dak Prescott vs. Heisman winner Marcus Mariota would have been a fun first-round QB matchup.

2015

Notes and Observations: Man, Ohio State (Ezekiel Elliott, Joey Bosa, Michael Thomas) vs. Alabama, the eventual national champion, in the first round! Easily, the best quarterfinal matchup this year or any year. Notre Dame (10-2) vultures the Group of 5 bid away from Houston (12-1)…which is the glaring weakness in our system. If 10-2 Notre Dame is in a conference, it doesn’t make the playoff this season.

2016

Notes and Observations: Both Penn State and Washington leapfrog Ohio State in seeding because the Buckeyes are ineligible for a home game since they didn’t win the Big Ten. Tons of hype for a PSU-OSU rematch. Alabama getting the Boat Rowers in the first round illustrates the importance of the regular season – because facing a MAC school in the quarterfinals is a HUGE reward for being the lone 13-0 Power 5 team. 

2017

Notes and Observations: Ohio State – who was left out of the 4-team playoff – hosts eventual national champion Alabama in the Horseshoe.  Self-declared national champion UCF gets to prove it on the field. Sam Darnold vs. Baker Mayfield is a cool 2 vs. 7 storyline. 

2018

Notes and Observations: Big debate between blueblood (Michigan) and upstart (UCF) for the final At-Large bid. The CFP ranking had Michigan No. 7, UCF No. 8, but we wonder whether those rankings would have changed if a playoff bid were at stake? Remember, in Michigan’s embarrassing loss to Ohio State, the Wolverines lost several key starters to injury, including All-American LB Devin Bush. Would the committee consider team health, like the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee does, when seeding teams?

2019

Notes and Observations: BIG debate for the At-Large bids. Georgia and Baylor both have two losses. But so do Penn State, Florida, Utah, Alabama, Notre Dame and Minnesota. Wisconsin has three losses, but two came against Ohio State.

2020

Notes and Observations: Crazy year. Crazy playoff. For the first time, a non-Notre Dame Group of 5 entry isn’t the No. 8 seed. That’s because No. 25 ranked Oregon snuck into the playoff by winning the PAC-12. Oklahoma hosts Notre Dame because the Irish didn’t win the ACC.