[needle]

If this were a four-team playoff year, everyone (neutral fans) would be happy and looking forward to seeing undefeated Indiana and one-loss Ohio State, Texas Tech and Georgia all play.

Biggest gripers would be Ole Miss at 11-1, but with a head-to-head loss to Georgia (by eight points); Oregon at 11-1, but with a loss to Indiana that would be objectively worse (at home, by two scores) compared to Ohio State's loss to Indiana, and Texas A&M at 11-1, but they would have a multi-score loss as their last game of the season.

Texas Tech's lone loss would have come on the road by four points while playing its back-up QB the entire game because of injury. We also would be hearing a lot about the (made up) importance of a team winning its conference championship, and most of us would have nodded along simply because having TT in a four-team playoff is objectively more fun than having two SEC teams and two B1Gs or three B1Gs and one SEC team.

The system would have worked!

[needle]

If this were a four-team playoff year, everyone (neutral fans) would be happy and looking forward to seeing undefeated Indiana and one-loss Ohio State, Texas Tech and Georgia all play.

Biggest gripers would be Ole Miss at 11-1, but with a head-to-head loss to Georgia (by eight points); Oregon at 11-1, but with a loss to Indiana that would be objectively worse (at home, by two scores) compared to Ohio State's loss to Indiana, and Texas A&M at 11-1, but they would have a multi-score loss as their last game of the season.

Texas Tech's lone loss would have come on the road by four points while playing its back-up QB the entire game because of injury. We also would be hearing a lot about the (made up) importance of a team winning its conference championship, and most of us would have nodded along simply because having TT in a four-team playoff is objectively more fun than having two SEC teams and two B1Gs or three B1Gs and one SEC team.

The system would have worked!