[stupac2]

Absolutely right.  Going from the BCS to the new playoff system means that we're going from a system mostly determined by biased human voters to a system entirely determined by biased human voters.  Taking the computers out of the picture is a step backwards.  The only improvement is that now it'll be a 4-team playoff, but the selection process for those 4 teams will almost certainly be worse than the selection process for the BCS championship game now.

I really don't think this is a given. The reason the human polls suck so hard is that every voter is an island, they never have their views challenged by anyone, and they have less than 24 hours before games end to turn in their ballots, meaning they can't actually see all the games or consult with any of the statistical good metrics before voting. None of that will be true with the committee, which will all be in the same room, debating, and coming to a communal decision rather than averaging out opinions. That and the purported heavy emphasis on SOS (which has Saban saying the SEC needs to play 9 games) makes me pretty sanguine that the committee's output will be better than the polls.

All that said, we need at least 8 teams in the playoff, so every major conference champion can get in.

[stupac2]

Absolutely right.  Going from the BCS to the new playoff system means that we're going from a system mostly determined by biased human voters to a system entirely determined by biased human voters.  Taking the computers out of the picture is a step backwards.  The only improvement is that now it'll be a 4-team playoff, but the selection process for those 4 teams will almost certainly be worse than the selection process for the BCS championship game now.

I really don't think this is a given. The reason the human polls suck so hard is that every voter is an island, they never have their views challenged by anyone, and they have less than 24 hours before games end to turn in their ballots, meaning they can't actually see all the games or consult with any of the statistical good metrics before voting. None of that will be true with the committee, which will all be in the same room, debating, and coming to a communal decision rather than averaging out opinions. That and the purported heavy emphasis on SOS (which has Saban saying the SEC needs to play 9 games) makes me pretty sanguine that the committee's output will be better than the polls.

All that said, we need at least 8 teams in the playoff, so every major conference champion can get in.