12-Team CFP Bracket

I would be okay going to an 8 team system, and would love it if they had home games for the first round and maybe the second/semi final round.  I think the best teams are the top 8 by the end of the season and 12 teams is too many.  I don't think home games would ever happen, especially after the Rivalry Week games at Michigan and Staae.  The SEC would cry about having to possibly go play in the snow!

I was all for an expanded playoff prior to two weeks ago.  Now, for me it is a wait and see where Michigan is ranked next year.  If they are ranked lower than 4, then we should definitely have an expansion.  If not, then this is the perfect system already.  I bet Ohio State fans are all for an expansion about this time. Go Blue!

I agree about the number of games played being too much. I think the opt-out's for bowl games supports this. If the players really loved playing more games, even high round NFL draft picks would be excited to play in a bowl game. 

I think the solution is to:

1) Drop the conference championship games. Most conferences (other than the Big 12) do the Division vs. Division format so you get some really dumb scenarios. An Alabama vs. Georgia 2021 game is the minority. More times than not, it's a legit top 4 team going up against a 2 or 3 loss team ranked between 12 - 20. Anyone remember 3 loss K-State knocking off #1 Oklahoma? How about OSU playing a tight game with NW for 3 quarters? 

2) Mandate that all conferences play at least 10 conference games. The SEC & ACC playing 4 trash games a year is such a farce. You can't force them to schedule better out of conference games, but you could limit the number of out of conference games. This would provide a better picture of who the best team in the conference is since the championship game would be removed. 

This also sticks it to the SEC & ND. The SEC because they just added Texas and Oklahoma and now they can't figure out a schedule to prevent all of their top teams from playing each other. ND because JOIN A CONFERENCE! 

Everyone plays 12 season games with all final games taking place no later than Thanksgiving weekend. 

The top 8 (ranked by committee) are seeded into the playoffs. 3 rounds later you have a champion.

15 games total for 2 teams. 

14 games total for 2 teams

13 games total for everyone else eligible for the playoffs or bowls. 

All bowl and playoff games could be completed in the Dec - Jan 1 time period with bowl games interspersed between the three weeks of playoff games. 

I would argue that the regular season for basketball doesnt mean that much. Both Michigan teams that went to the national title game this decade only finished 4th in the Big Ten. 

"Destroys the regular season" may have been a bad argument when the 4 team playoff was created, but for a 12 team playoff it is pretty valid. With a 12 team field you are letting in multiple 2 loss teams. Not only does this basically guarantee a spot for every year for  Alabama, Georgia, and OSU, it means that every team's first loss is meaningless.    

Because it'll basically be impossible for osu and um to make the four team playoff in the same year and osu still has a really freaking good team and will into the future...?

Why the obsession? Simple: This scenario, or something very close to it, is very likely happen in the very near future, based on real conversations that are happening within the CFP right now. So this is a thought experiment to see what the current most likely proposal would look like this year. It's more about coming to grips with a likely future reality than it is about throwing out our own proposals or being unhappy with Michigan's lot this year, etc.

My $0.02 is this - the super-elite teams are hard to recruit against because they are always in the playoffs. An expanded playoff schedule helps the next tier of team in recruiting because they will also be in the hunt year after year (OSU v UM, Wisc, PSU, MSU). This levels the playing field a bit. The other main point about a 12-team playoff being too many game, well, DII does it. I'd be ok giving up a conference championship game and declaring a winner the old way, but winning it on the field is pretty exciting, even if it's a blowout.

The NFL now has a 14 team playoff.  That means 43.75% of NFL teams make the playoffs. 

If we were to use that same ratio, that would be 6 BigTen teams making the playoffs. 

That's missing the point.  The main point is that you have to have a damn near perfect season in college football, to have a shot at the national title.  Expand it to 12 and you don't.  And the gap between the Lions and the best teams in the NFL is infinitesimal compared to the gap between UMass and Alabama.  There's enough parity in the NFL that it's silly not to have a pretty big playoff.  College football, you can flat-out ignore three-quarters of the teams before the season even begins.  The Cardinals are the winningest NFL team right now, but it makes sense to see how they'd do against some of their competition in a playoff game before we crown them NFC champs and stick them in the Super Bowl.  But it makes no sense to see how Georgia would do against Pittsburgh (hint: they'd wipe the floor with Pitt.)  Anything beyond about 6 teams in college football is just bracket masturbation.

You bring up Georgia's sole loss yet ignore Baylor's resume.  Do you actually know to whom they lost? It's a bit of a red flag.

Yes, Baylor lost to a bad TCU team.  I ignored them (and everyone else) because most people don't think they deserve a shot at the national championship anyway.  As I said, Alabama, Michigan, and Cincinnati are the only remaining teams at this point that arguably do.

College football being your favorite sport means what, exactly?

It means a lot to me, and to others who feel similarly.  I was giving my opinion on the topic at hand.  A huge reason college football is my/our favorite is that regular season games have such large stakes.  That would be gradually destroyed by expanding the playoffs.  E.g., Ohio State loses a game in a shocking upset, then again to Michigan?  "Eh, whatever, OSU will still make the playoff as a 6-seed."  It would become like Duke basketball losing to Virginia Tech in January: kinda cool for a minute, but the stakes are basically nothing.  At most, it would be like Green Bay losing a random game to the Bears and getting the 2- instead of the 1-seed.  Sure, it's an "upset" but, whatever.

12 of 32 teams making the playoffs is the NFL model; 37.5% of teams making the playoffs.

My comparison to the NFL was not in the percentage of teams that make it, but that the continual rematches (teams can play up to three times) detracts from each earlier event (i.e., most of the regular season.).  In college football, we have 12-13 games to collect data points on 75-130 teams.  Rematches only muddy the picture.  (Not to mention, if Georgia-Alabama rematch, both games would be played in aesthetically awful, NFL stadiums.)

This is why I do not want pundits and fans who produce/consume endless hours of NFL minutiae, only taking casual glances at college football, then suggesting it needs to be more NFL-ish.

More fun?  Under this model a lot of the games are meaningless.

Alabama had to win the SECCG to get in the playoffs.  Under this model it was merely seeding.  Same with Michigan against Iowa.

Eight teams with autobids for Power 5 conference champions gives the best balance. The value of conference championships is increased while giving a shot to three good teams who might have a blemish or caught a bad break (e.g. us if Purdue doesn’t beat Sparty). The 12-team format is too much and generally unappealing. Forcing one or more conference champion to play in the opening round while the others have byes is pretty unfair since they’ve already played an extra game just to get to the CFP  The rematch issue is a big problem and will keep recurring because those four extra teams will come from whatever the hot conferences are that year; you add two more SEC and BIg Ten teams, say, and odds are you’ll often get rematches unless you throw out the concept of seeding by quality. 
Eight is enough. 

especially when you think about Cincinnati being dinged for being a "G5" school. They were a very, very good team in a P5 conference until the ACC raided the 'names' of the big east and left Cincy holding the bag. 

There is a reason why those conferences look like they suck when there are some good teams in there that end up losing because they play in those conferences. Cincinnati would have a hard time keeping everyone upright and winning everything if they go through such conference. Not impossible but would be harder.

They bring a lot more eyeballs to TVs, which pays for all of this. 

How about the fact that 6-6 teams in the ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12 have losing conference records, but 6-6 teams in the AAC have winning conference records?

Also the AAC's 1-6 record against the ACC, Big 12, and Pac-12 combined, including 8-0 (in conference) Houston losing to 3-6 (in conference) Texas Tech, and 5-3 (in-conference) UCF losing to 4-4 (in-conference) Louisville.

What makes those conferences better than the AAC is having better football teams.

"Power 5" is completely false at this point. The ACC, Big 12, and Pac 12 have proven what lately? What makes those conferences inherently better than the AAC?

I respect the Big 12 the most of those three.  9-game round robin, Kansas the only reliable doormat.  I hate championship game rematches but it turns it into a 10-game conference schedule for the champ.  The Pac 12 is similar but lacks any elite programs.

But the ACC?  Clemson + bunch of junk.  I'd argue Cincinnati basically played the same schedule this year that Clemson has for several years.  Including "at ND" as their tough game.  Clemson deserves to be regarded as elite, but not because of any imaginary "P5" designation.