the article, of course, is not an argument against an 8 team playoff. it's an argument against conference championship games. If you are going to have conferences of more than 9 teams, you need divisions and championship games. it would hardly be problematic to expand to 8 given that Division III, where they are actual full-time college students, that have a 32 team playoff.
Since the writer's poll began in 1936, there have been 92 teams a claimed as national champion by the writers, the coaches, the BCS or the playoffs. 88 of them have either won all their games or all their games but one. of the other four, three had a loss and a tie and today the ties would have been resolved in overtime. the 2007 LSU team is the only team to be recognized as national champion with 2 losses. (The 1960 Minnesota team was recognized as national champion by both polls with n 8-1-0 record. In those days, there was no poll after the bowls. The Gophers lost their bowl games and a would not have been voted #1 with an 8-2-0 record. the team that beat them, 10-1-0 Washington or #2 ranked Mississippi who won their bowl game to 10-0-1 or Missouri who won their game to go 10-1-0 and later had their one looss forfeited to them to make them 11-0-0 would have been #1).
Thus, our operative definition of a national champion is a team that won all its games or all but one of it's games. obviously, they need to play a strong enough schedule to be considered a legitimate national title contender, (Central Florida's problem and in the past Boise State's and Tulane's and Marshall's, etc.). That implies it should be a power conference level team, (which would include Notre Dame). Therefore a power-conference level team that has won all it's games or all it's games but one is a national championship contender and should be in the playoff. Four teams is not enough to assure that.
I don't like byes. I think each team should have to the same number of games to win the championship. So I'm a 2-4-8-16 guy. That to me means an 8 team playoff. I don't see a need for 16 teams unless you want to give an automatic bid to every FBS conference champion. Frankly, I think the non-power conference teams should be in a Division II with the FCS teams, (many of them were FCS teams). Then put the current Division II and Division II and the NAIA teams in a new Division III. That's not going to happen so i'm happy with the idea that the best of the non-power conference teams should be in the playoff.
So i go with the idea of an 8 team playoff with automatic bids to the five power conference champions, as determined by the conference championship games, another automatic bid to the highest ranked non-power conference team, (and I would not include Notre Dame - that might get the Irish to finally join for football, too), plus two at large teams.
if the favorites win all the conference championships, that would be:
13-0-0 Alabama, the SEC champ, ranked #1
13-0-0 Clemson, the ACC champ, ranked #2
12-0-0 Notre Dame as an at large, ranked #3
12-1-0 Oklahoma as the Big 12 champion, currently ranked #5
12-1-0 Ohio State as the Big 10 champion currently ranked #6
11-2-0 Georgia as an at-large currently ranked #4 but they will have lost to Alabama
12-0-0 Central Florida as the mid-major, currently ranked #7
10-3-0 Washington as the PAC 12 champion, currently ranked #10/#11
The highest ranked team left out would be 10-2-0 Michigan, currently ranked #8. They were displaced by Washington, not Central Florida. I'd have the first two round in early December at the home field of the higher ranked team and the championship in one of a small group of major bowls on a rotating basis. the teams that didn't make the championship game could still play in one of the other bowl games to give them a chance to end their season on a positive note.
