The Case for a Six or Eight-Team Playoff

I’ve been thinking. That’s one of the three things I try to do each day. The college football playoff committee really blew it this year. They made the strongest case yet for expanding the playoffs to six or eight teams.

Going into week thirteen of the season, the conference championship week, you’ll recall that the big question was whether Alabama or Ohio State would get into the final four playoffs. There were solid arguments for each team, actually even better arguments against each team, but someone had to get in. Wisconsin was also a contender, but few thought they could beat Ohio State in the Big 10 championship game (this proved to be accurate). The debate between Alabama and Ohio State was based on the assumption that Auburn (ranked #2 at the time) would beat Georgia in the SEC championship game. After all, they had soundly beaten them previously. That would have put Clemson, Auburn, Oklahoma and either Alabama or Ohio State in the playoffs. So, essentially the argument for that fourth spot centered around putting in a Power Five conference champion (Ohio State) or a team that did not play for their conference championship but just looked like a better team (Alabama). The conference champion versus the “eye test.”

Well, lo and behold, Georgia beat Auburn in the SEC championship game. So now Georgia is in as the SEC champion, having redeemed itself from its only loss. This, of course, knocked Auburn out of its assumed “lock” as the #2 or #3 ranked team. It should have also taken Alabama out of any consideration for a playoff spot. After all, in its last game of the season, Alabama suffered a double-digit beating by Auburn, who was clearly the better team. You could argue that using the “eye test,” both Auburn and Alabama are better teams than Ohio State, but there’s no way you could argue that Alabama is better than Auburn. Even though Auburn had three losses, two of those losses were to teams that are now, or had been, ranked #1. Essentially, Auburn was punished for beating Alabama to win their division and play in their conference championship game. Alabama was rewarded for losing to Auburn and thus getting a free ride in week 13. The only logical and reasonable thing to do should have been to give that fourth spot to Ohio State.

Now back to my point of making a case for a six or eight-team playoff. There are five so-called Power Five conferences (if my math is correct): The Big 10 (which oddly has 14 schools, so their math is not correct), the ACC, the SEC, the Big 12, and the PAC 12. These conferences pretty much cover every region of the country. The playoff committee has always said that conference championship, though not essential, is important. I would propose that the conference champion of each of the Power Five conferences get an automatic bid into the playoffs. Then the committee could select one or three additional teams (depending on whether they go with a six or eight team playoff). This wouldn’t have necessarily put Auburn in (if the committee still insisted on turning a blind eye on Auburn’s obvious beatdown of Alabama), but it would have put Ohio State in. With a six-team playoff, the 5th and 6th ranked teams would have a play-in game at one of the mid-December bowl games. The winner of that game would then be slotted in the #4 seed position for the semi-finals. This would still utilize the current bowl structure and would not extend the season. One team (the #5 or #6 seed) could possibly end up playing 16 games if they should run the table to the final game, but otherwise its still a 15 game season for the top teams. With an eight team playoff, two teams would go to a 16th game, still a minimal concern. Under an eight-team playoff system, both Alabama and Auburn would have made it into the playoffs this year unless a stipulation was inserted whereby no conference could have more than two teams in the playoff.

Hey, I know there’s no way to make everyone happy. One or two teams are going to feel slighted no matter how many teams are in the playoffs. But we can certainly do better than what we have now – at least try to insert some consistency in the process.

I welcome your comments.