8 team college football playoffs

deanvogs

Well-Known Member
How would you structure it, using this year as an example?

Mine would look like this

-I would award an auto bid to all conference champs.
-Selection committee picks the 3 at large teams.
-Conference champs are awarded a first round home game (has to be a reward for winning the conference and playing the extra game)
-Seeding first round games with highest rated conference game champs hosting lowest rated at large
-Lowest rated conference game champ obviously plays highest rated at large or Big12 team
-No first round repeats of conference championship games (That is why Iowa would play Stanford and not MSU)

So my playoffs this year would be:

Clemson hosting ND
Bama hosting OSU
MSU hosting Oklahoma
Stanford Hosting Iowa


This would force two things:
1) Conference championship game for the Big12
2) ND would join a conference

The only thing I don't like about a 8 team playoff is the advantage for At Large teams, Big12 teams, and Notre Dame NOT having to play an elimination game (conference championship game). There should be a penalty to that, and having to go on the road seems appropriate.
 
This seems reasonable and it would add one more weekend of games. But I think we have been witnessing 3 weeks maybe 4 weeeks of elimination games this year, almost a tournament style of play. Iowa survived multiple weeks of elimination games until last Saturday.

The Big12 eliminated everyone but OU and so on with other teams. So I think 4 teams in better than it was with polls and bowl games and BCS etc and if 4 is better then 8 is probably even more fair.

But I think the current 4 team system is good enough and enough wear and tear on the players.
 
I know I have the minority opinion, but I would like the playoffs to stay at 4 teams. I think moving to 8 could water down the regular season and conference championship games.

Take this year, for example. If the playoffs had 8 teams, Iowa and OSU would probably be in. MSU would be thinking "We beat both of those teams already, now we might have to beat them again?" Or Clemson might have to beat Notre Dame again. Or Stanford against ND again, and so on.
 
I know I have the minority opinion, but I would like the playoffs to stay at 4 teams. I think moving to 8 could water down the regular season and conference championship games.

Take this year, for example. If the playoffs had 8 teams, Iowa and OSU would probably be in. MSU would be thinking "We beat both of those teams already, now we might have to beat them again?" Or Clemson might have to beat Notre Dame again. Or Stanford against ND again, and so on.


^^ very good point and keep it as is with the Final Four of College Football. Mostly blue bloods should apply and be accepted
 
Auto bid to all conference champs is stupid and should be a non-starter. Say a 8-4 Tennessee team wins a terrible SEC East and pulls a miracle in the SEC championship game, doesn't mean they deserve to be in the playoffs. Pick the best 8 teams.
 
Auto bid to all conference champs is stupid and should be a non-starter. Say a 8-4 Tennessee team wins a terrible SEC East and pulls a miracle in the SEC championship game, doesn't mean they deserve to be in the playoffs. Pick the best 8 teams.

Then the conferences need to create divisions that are equal and have parity.
 
How would you structure it, using this year as an example?

Mine would look like this

-I would award an auto bid to all conference champs.
-Selection committee picks the 3 at large teams.
-Conference champs are awarded a first round home game (has to be a reward for winning the conference and playing the extra game)
-Seeding first round games with highest rated conference game champs hosting lowest rated at large
-Lowest rated conference game champ obviously plays highest rated at large or Big12 team
-No first round repeats of conference championship games (That is why Iowa would play Stanford and not MSU)

So my playoffs this year would be:

Clemson hosting ND
Bama hosting OSU
MSU hosting Oklahoma
Stanford Hosting Iowa


This would force two things:
1) Conference championship game for the Big12
2) ND would join a conference

The only thing I don't like about a 8 team playoff is the advantage for At Large teams, Big12 teams, and Notre Dame NOT having to play an elimination game (conference championship game). There should be a penalty to that, and having to go on the road seems appropriate.
the 4-team playoff is good. This is better. I have been saying this exact scenario for years.

The only thing I would add is that the semI-finals should be re-seeded in this way: the highest seed would get the lowest seed. If 8-seed would defeat 1-seed, the 4- or 5-seed shouldn't get the 8.

Wear and tear on players doesn't hold any water. Any division not called Bowl Division plays multiple playoff games.

Worrying about an 8-4 team winning a conference championship is stupid. I mean, it happens all the time.

This puts a premium on winning the conference. Who cares about non-cpnference.
 
How would you structure it, using this year as an example?

Mine would look like this

-I would award an auto bid to all conference champs.
-Selection committee picks the 3 at large teams.
-Conference champs are awarded a first round home game (has to be a reward for winning the conference and playing the extra game)
-Seeding first round games with highest rated conference game champs hosting lowest rated at large
-Lowest rated conference game champ obviously plays highest rated at large or Big12 team
-No first round repeats of conference championship games (That is why Iowa would play Stanford and not MSU)

So my playoffs this year would be:

Clemson hosting ND
Bama hosting OSU
MSU hosting Oklahoma
Stanford Hosting Iowa


This would force two things:
1) Conference championship game for the Big12
2) ND would join a conference

The only thing I don't like about a 8 team playoff is the advantage for At Large teams, Big12 teams, and Notre Dame NOT having to play an elimination game (conference championship game). There should be a penalty to that, and having to go on the road seems appropriate.



* Four 16 team conferences.
* Each conf receives 1 automatic and 1 at large bid.
* Each conf must have 2 divisions.
* Each conf must have championship game between divisional winners.
* Conf champ game winner gets conf auto bid.
* Conf champ game loser does not automatically receive at large bid.
* Conf must determine specific and non negotiable criteria to determine at large bid. Example: Iowa loses B1G game to MSU. MSU gets auto bid. Iowa would need to qualify, using the specific criteria. Whichever team from the entire conf that is the top qualifier, gets the at large bid.
 
I'm okay with a much larger play-off because it would be a lot of fun plus you would know once the finals start that each team played a tough schedule and we wouldn't have to argue about one one loss team over another.

This year, a large playoff would be wide open and probably epic and every team would have a legit claim at being the best team.
 
Bump.

Conference champs have to receive an automatic bid. I don't care if they go to 6 team or 8 team playoff, but if you win your conference you should be in automatically no questions asked. Even if you have a 9-4 record, you earned it in your conference and should go.
 
Still like it best within the P5 system.

or maybe add 6 at large teams not in conference championships to mitigate the one less game advantage — and winners of those are seeded 6-7-8 and travel to 1-2-3.

Eventually there will be 8. Won’t happen until SEC is left out of final four.
 
Selection process, in order of priority.
1. Any undefeated team gets an automatic bid.

2. If there are more than 8 undefeateds, they are power ranked and the bottom team(s) are out.

3. Power-5 conference champs get automatic bids.

4. If rule 1 plus rule 2 equals more than 8 teams, P5 conference champs are power ranked and the bottom team(s) are out.

5. If rule 1 plus rule 2 equals less than 8 teams, all other teams are power ranked and a group of "Wild Cards" fills the 8-team field.

Playoff structure:
1. The 8 teams are seeded 1-8, with the stipulation that the Wild Cards will always be the bottom seeds.

2. The week after the Heisman presentation, seeds 1-4 host home field games against seeds 5-8.

3. December 30 or January 1, semifinal games played.

4. Championship game played on a Saturday night, 8-14 days after semifinals.
 
This is what 2017 would have looked like in my system.

1. Clemson hosts 8. Wisconsin
4. Ohio State hosts 5. Southern Cal
3. Georgia hosts 6. UCF
2. Oklahoma hosts 7. Alabama
 
Selection process, in order of priority.
1. Any undefeated team gets an automatic bid.

2. If there are more than 8 undefeateds, they are power ranked and the bottom team(s) are out.

3. Power-5 conference champs get automatic bids.

4. If rule 1 plus rule 2 equals more than 8 teams, P5 conference champs are power ranked and the bottom team(s) are out.

5. If rule 1 plus rule 2 equals less than 8 teams, all other teams are power ranked and a group of "Wild Cards" fills the 8-team field.

Playoff structure:
1. The 8 teams are seeded 1-8, with the stipulation that the Wild Cards will always be the bottom seeds.

2. The week after the Heisman presentation, seeds 1-4 host home field games against seeds 5-8.

3. December 30 or January 1, semifinal games played.

4. Championship game played on a Saturday night, 8-14 days after semifinals.

I had some time on my hands, so I looked at what this process would have come up with for a bunch of seasons. In light of that, I would make one major change to the seeding procedure. I would maintain steps 1-5 of the selection process, and I would maintain that seeds 1-4 host seeds 5-8 in the quarterfinals. The change I would make is that seeds 1-4 would be guaranteed to go to Automatic qualifiers (ensuring that only conference champs and/or undefeated teams get to host quarterfinals) while seeds 5-8 would be seeded based on quality. This would ensure that a wild card team that is better than an AQ team is seeded fairly, giving the top 4 seeds balanced opponents.

For example, my original plan would have given this result for the 2012 season:
1. Notre Dame (12-0) hosts 8. Oregon (11-1)
4. Stanford (11-2) hosts 5. Florida State (11-2)
3. Kansas State (11-1) hosts 6. Wisconsin (7-6)
2. Alabama (12-1) hosts 7. Florida (11-1)

By seeding teams 5-8 based on quality, it would result in a better tournament:
1. Notre Dame (12-0) hosts 8. Wisconsin (7-6)
4. Stanford (11-2) hosts 5. Florida (11-1)
3. Kansas State (11-1) hosts 6. Oregon (11-1)
2. Alabama (12-1) hosts 7. Florida State (11-2)

(2012 was the season Wisconsin was 6-6 (4-4) and earned 3rd place in their division but played Nebraska in the Big Ten title game because Ohio State and Penn State were both on probation.)

This would also impact years in which a mid-major team went undefeated--earning the right to compete for a national championship--while being noticeably lower quality than the other teams in the field (1998 Tulane, 2016 Western Michigan).
 
The best way would be to dissolve the ACC and have the remaking 4 conferences championship games be the round of 8. Screw anyone that isn’t in a Power 4 conference.
 
Still like it best within the P5 system.

or maybe add 6 at large teams not in conference championships to mitigate the one less game advantage — and winners of those are seeded 6-7-8 and travel to 1-2-3.

Eventually there will be 8. Won’t happen until SEC is left out of final four
.

Bingo. The day the $EC is left out of the CFP is precisely the day before the 8-team playoff is instituted.
 
I like the idea of an 8 team playoff with conference champs getting automatic bids regardless of records. Then add the three highest ranked teams for the three remaining at large bids. The only thing in the committees hands now are deciding the next 3 best teams and use the polls as ranking system to determine matchups. 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, and 4 vs 5. The one team that can upset the balance of 4 team playoff is Notre Dame. In a 4 team playoff, one P5 team is already locked out. If Notre Dame is selected, now you have 2 P5 teams locked out. Now add into the mix, the committee decides one conference deserves 2 teams in playoff along with Notre Dame, now you have the possibilty of 3 P5 teams being locked out! Say ND goes undefeated. Alabama goes undefeated. Clemson goes undefeated. Florida St. loses to Clemson in ACC championship game and has 1 loss. Pac10, B1G, and Big12 champs all have 2 losses. Committee takes Alabama 12-0 vs. Florida St. 11-1, and ND 12-0 vs. Clemson 12-0. Over a Ohio St. 10-2, Stanford 10-2, and Oklahoma 10-2. This is purely hypothetical but not unrealistic. 8 team playoff the way to go.
 

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