[BostonCard]

This could have been an eight team playoff.  Indiana, SMU, Tennessee, and tOSU didn’t win their conferences (and in 3/4 cases, didn’t even make their conferences championships).

Oregon, Georgia, ASU, Clemson, and Boise State + 3 at large (Notre Dame, Texas, and Penn State) would have been enough.

BC

True, but those extra games bring in lots of money. I can see the 12 becoming 16 when the $ overwhelms the logic that being a conference champion deserves a bye as a "reward". Just think, Oregon could be playing Alabama in round 1.

That is at the cost of potentially having the players have to play up to 17 games (12 regular season games, a conference championship, and up to four playoff games).  That's an NFL schedule.  It's hard to blame the players for wanting to get paid, but we really should limit the number of games even if it means leaving money on the table.  It's not good for the players, it's not good for academics, and it just cements the idea that college football is a business that just happens to co-locate with college campuses.

The conference championships are basically pointless.  In 3/4 major conferences, the loser of the conference championship made it to the playoffs.  If you want to be charitable, Clemson made it in by virtue of winning the ACC championship, and I don't follow closely enough to know whether ASU would have made it had they not won the Big12. But it is kind of without point.  In fact, what is even the point of having conferences.  A radical proposal would be to let teams cobble together their own schedule each year, piecing together a schedule that produces a combination of marquee match-ups and winnable games, and let the committee arbitrarily sort it out at the end of the year based on record and strength of schedule.

BC

[BostonCard]

This could have been an eight team playoff.  Indiana, SMU, Tennessee, and tOSU didn’t win their conferences (and in 3/4 cases, didn’t even make their conferences championships).

Oregon, Georgia, ASU, Clemson, and Boise State + 3 at large (Notre Dame, Texas, and Penn State) would have been enough.

BC

True, but those extra games bring in lots of money. I can see the 12 becoming 16 when the $ overwhelms the logic that being a conference champion deserves a bye as a "reward". Just think, Oregon could be playing Alabama in round 1.

That is at the cost of potentially having the players have to play up to 17 games (12 regular season games, a conference championship, and up to four playoff games).  That's an NFL schedule.  It's hard to blame the players for wanting to get paid, but we really should limit the number of games even if it means leaving money on the table.  It's not good for the players, it's not good for academics, and it just cements the idea that college football is a business that just happens to co-locate with college campuses.

The conference championships are basically pointless.  In 3/4 major conferences, the loser of the conference championship made it to the playoffs.  If you want to be charitable, Clemson made it in by virtue of winning the ACC championship, and I don't follow closely enough to know whether ASU would have made it had they not won the Big12. But it is kind of without point.  In fact, what is even the point of having conferences.  A radical proposal would be to let teams cobble together their own schedule each year, piecing together a schedule that produces a combination of marquee match-ups and winnable games, and let the committee arbitrarily sort it out at the end of the year based on record and strength of schedule.

BC