Nicole Auerbach from The Athletic is reporting that the CFP working group will recommend a 12-team playoff. Six conference champs and six at-large. Top four teams get a bye. First round games to be played on campus.
https://twitter.com/nicoleauerbach/s...096233473?s=21
"Amazing what a minute can do."
Hopefully no more than 2 teams allowed from any conference. I’d also like some minimum of non-power five conference teams (2+) allowed and some clear criteria on non-automatic qualifiers (e.g only one loss, only losses to automatic qualifiers).
Exactly. Especially considering in basketball we hear kvetching from Teams 69, 70, 71 etc.
And now with this format, meaning teams 5-12 would need to win four games to win this tournament, this would mean their season would extend to how many total games? 18? Is that right? 17? As long or longer than an NFL season? Just keep feeding em into the meat grinder . . .
David Tell is also tweeting that "As an independent, Notre Dame would not be eligible for a first-round bye. Irish would have to survive four playoff games to win a national championship."
That might induce some real cogitation in South Bend.
From the article (which I was able to access without a subscription):
"Six highest-ranked conference champions" is probably intended to mean the Power 5 conference champions (ACC, Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-12, SEC) plus a sixth conference champion from elsewhere. But you can imagine a situation where an unranked or low-ranked Power 5 team beats the favorite in the conference championship, and still isn't one of the six highest ranked conference champions in whatever polling system they use.The 12-team format would include the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large spots.
Also, "six at-large spots" is incredibly vague. You would think "highest-ranked" would be used here, but it isn't. Who will be included? Undefeated teams not among the top 6 conference champions? One-loss Power 5 teams not in a conference championship game? Notre Dame and 5 others?
I could easily see this get compromised down to 8. The best way to expand to 8 is to ask for 12.
So this means that
Alabama
Clemson
Ohio State
Oklahoma
get permanent invitations to the playoffs
This makes sense to me. All I know is that recently it has felt some very deserving teams are getting left out. And then someone ends up, er, pooping the bed against good competition, making the frustration even stronger.
Of course there will be whining from team #9, #13, #17 - whatever.
Maybe we can get Lunardi to spend all season making predictions and deciding on "locks."
I never understood why eight wasn't the number they started with. It seemed obvious. Eight teams play the traditional four big bowl games on New Year's Day, just the way we always used to do, except now the games mean something. The winners play in the semifinals the next week , which should still be before the NFL playoffs begin, and the NC game comes the week after that, scheduled in the Monday Night Football slot to avoid the NFL playoffs. You can rotate the sites of the later games around as needed.
I was always shocked they just completely bypassed the long-standing New Years games and made them entirely irrelevant.
Given how physically demanding college football is, I just cannot see giving a team(s) a bye. Just too much of a competitive advantage. Eight has always made the most sense to me. But 16 is better than 12, IMO.