24 Team CFP?

[HRE Otto IV]

The rhetoric that the regular season doesn't matter is bunk. Tell the 140 teams that didn't make the playoff that the regular season didn't matter. In a 4 team playoff does the regular season matter when a legit contender is left out because they're ranked 5th?

There usually wasn't a fifth team that was a legit contender. Now with the mega conferences and no round robin divisional play (let alone conference), it is harder to weed out the top teams.

I have a hard time rationalizing more than 2 teams from a conference being worthy of making a playoff. Once you get past that, it makes the regular season less meaningful. But like I said before, with division less conferences the regular season no longer weeds teams out.

With a 24 team playoff (assuming every conference champ gets in) last year you would have:

-the ACC's 3rd place team (but only ACC team to make it)
-the B1G's 5th place team (4 teams in)
-the B12's 5th place team (4 teams in)
-the SEC's 7th place team (7 teams in)


But again with no divisions or round robin play it screws up the conference standings.


With 16 teams (assuming Top 6 conference champs get in) you would have:

-the B12's 2nd place team (2 teams in)
-the ACC's 3rd place team (2 teams in)
-the B1G's 3rd place team (3 teams in)
-the SEC's 6th placed team (6 teams in)

That is a lot better but still makes the SEC season less meaningful. It also is a bit of a farce not having every conference champ in the tournament. If we had the 10 conference champs and only 6 at larges, it would work great. But there is no ways the powers that be will allow that.


Even with the 12 teams last year we had FIVE SEC teams.


I also think it is an issue with neutral site games in the quarterfinals. That too diminishes the regular season. The better teams should have a home field advantage at that stage. It wasn't fair last year for Ohio State to play Miami in Dallas vs Columbus. The year before it wasn't fair that Oregon played Ohio State in Pasadena instead of Eugene.


Edit
I forgot to break down a 16 team all conference champ that I mentioned above:

-the B1G's 3rd place team (3 teams in)
-the SEC's 5th place team (5 teams in)

This would make the playoffs super exclusive. But we still have the mega conference issue. Without divisions the SEC had four teams at 7-1 in conference. There was no chance to weed out who were the best SEC teams.

 

[sufandu]

Don’t lose games and you won’t be left out

That's right. Just schedule cupcakes, and you're all set. Make sure you're in the weak division of your conference too.

"Don't lose games" is an overly simplistic comment. How many times have we had 4 undefeated teams in a season? How many times did we have multiple 1 loss teams to choose from to round out a 4 team field? How many times have we known a team is better than another despite having a worse record because the 0 or 1 loss team played nobody any good. I guess you think UCF deserved the NC in 2017. Which 1 loss team should UCF have replaced in that year's playoff?

 

[sufandu]

There usually wasn't a fifth team that was a legit contender. Now with the mega conferences and no round robin divisional play (let alone conference), it is harder to weed out the top teams.

We don't know because the 5 ranked team didn't get to play until recently. Miami was seeded 8 last season and made the championship game Ohio St. won the first year as the 4 seed.

It's not necessarily that there aren't more than 4 legit contenders. It's that we aren't smart enough to definitively know which 4 should be the contenders, so you expand beyond that to make sure a real contender isn't left out.

I agree that no more than 2 teams from any conference should make it. In the bloated conference era I prefer an 8 team playoff. In the ideal world I memtioned in a previois post with smaller conferences, 16 is perfect. Get rid of the byes.