Despite 3 of the 4 games being interesting, this year's College Football Playoff process exposed several weaknesses in the current system which need to be addressed.
- The CFP Selection Committee is awful.
They change the criteria every year to get the teams they think will bring in the best ratings, they're exclusionary, and they don't always pick the "best 4" teams.
- There are reserved seats for certain schools
They'll deny it, but blue-blood schools have an "in". They always have and they always will under the current rules.
- Too many good teams are getting excluded
No one will admit it, but UCF/Clemson would have been a much better game than Alabama/Clemson was. That's not soap boxing for small schools. it's just true.
The problem is that when you're thinking about expanding to an eight team playoff there are problems. First, the number of games players are being asked to play. This is a real problem because these are, without a doubt, free laborers for the respective schools. They're ostensibly there to get an education, as long as we keep up that fallacy, it has to be addressed in any plan. Second, how do you do this without hurting the existing bowl system? I would argue that this is not much of a concern, more on that later. Third, there will still be teams left out. On this you will get no argument, but I'd much rather be arguing about the 9th and 10th best teams than the 5th who, in many cases, could run the table and win the whole thing. (see: Ohio State in year 1 and Alabama THIS year).
So there is a lot of ground to cover and a lot of things that need to be addressed. Let's get to it.
1. Keep the selection committee out of it (for the most part).
If you're a Power 5 school and win your championship, you're in. Period. End of story. This year that would have meant that USC, Clemson, Ohio State, Georgia and Oklahoma would be the first five.
If you're the top Group of 5 School (and a conference champion) you're in. Normally this is a pretty easy determination. If it's fuzzy, go to the polls. The highest rated Group of 5 Conference Champion (AP poll, keep the sports information directors out of it) gets the nod. This year that would be UCF. (in fact, in MOST years the decision would not be all that tough).
Now, here's where the Selection committee comes in. The CFP Selection committee would have the job of selecting seeds 7&8. They would be the two most-deserving schools who did not win their respective conference championship. This year I would imagine the decision came down to Alabama, Auburn and Ohio State. Trying to ignore what actually happened I would pick Alabama and Wisconsin.. Auburn would certainly get a strong look, but those two losses cannot be ignored.
So the seeding would be as follows:
1. Clemson
2. Oklahoma
3. Georgia
4. UCF
5. Ohio State
6. Alabama
7. USC
8. Wisconsin
Not a horrible playoff.
2. This could mean up to 16 games for the eventual championship opponents.
That's way too many. The solution to this is pretty simple. Return the regular season limit to 11 games. That way IF a team played in all the possible games, they would still be limited to 15. This will be pretty easy for the SEC teams to accomplish, just cancel your FCS games fellas.
Another way to ensure teams aren't dropping good teams off of their schedule are to discount any wins against FCS opponents. If the SEC wants to play buy games against the FCS for an extra home game, so be it, but it will be considered an exhibition and the win will not count. The loss however could be cause for pushing you out of the playoff all together. So these become very, very high risk games, with no reward.
3. What about the existing Bowls?
You still have them. The existing CFP bowl structure wouldn't even need to expand. You already have the New Year's Six. Four of the six become quarterfinals while two are semi-finals and the Championship Game is an entity unto itself. This year (2018) you play the quarterfinals on December 22nd, the Semi-finals on December 29th and the Championship Game on January 5th, 2019. On a SATURDAY, when it should be played.
Also, to make it fair, since there are less bowl slots, increase bowl eligibility to 7-5. Award every team that finishes with that record or better the allotted extra practices whether they get selected or no. If slots need filling, then 6-6 teams will be considered according to existing rules, and all 6-6 teams that qualify but are not selected receive the extra practices as well. For teams not in the CFP those extra days working are the real benefit to bowl season anyway.
4. Recruiting.
Get rid of the early signing period. Just do it. Now that you have more teams, big name teams, playing in bowl games during this it will make teams think twice about it. Just end this practice.
There was a time when I was an advocate for a 16-team playoff which included all of the conference champions and 6 at-large teams. I no longer feel that way as I believe that in every year taking the top 8 teams will guarantee that the vast majority of teams with a chance to win it will be included. The obvious exception this year might have been Auburn, but they sort-of proved their pretender status with their loss to UCF. And while I hear the arguments of Auburn fans that "UCF wouldn't have beaten us at home" that's a false argument. UCF beat you on a neutral field, not at UCF. I would imagine that Auburn would struggle in the Bounce House as well. Most teams would.
To finish this up: A dose of reality.
Any further expansion of the CFP is not going to happen for many years. The current contract runs through 2022 and there will be little onus to change it, UNLESS a school such as Alabama or Ohio State gets an obvious snub. Given the logical gymnastics that the CFP Selection Committee takes each year to assure this doesn't happen I don't think it ever will.
We're still left with an invitational designed not to determine a true national champion, but to drive ratings, advertising dollars and money for the participating schools. In short, we still don't have a true National Champion in college football, but we never really did.
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