mrydel wrote:You would go crazy if you had a year like last year, 8 teams, and you were left out due to a 3 loss ACC conference champion.
Sorry, even if FSU had had three losses instead of zero going into the playoff last year, how exactly would Baylor/TCU, under the committee's rankings, not been in the playoff as Big "12" champion and the first at-large team?
My take on four is that yes, it creates a ton of drama and a feeling of urgency--but only around who Barry Alvarez and company think is #4 versus #5. I'd much rather have the drama of fourth-seeded Ohio State facing off on the field against fifth-seeded Baylor than the drama of "What will the committee do with five P5 conferences [plus an occasional Memphis/Boise] and four slots?!?"
I follow FCS closely most years. FCS started with a 4-team playoff, then 12, then 16, now 24. Each time that happens, the drama over who is selected goes down, because the first team left out at #5 is much angrier about it and has much better season results than the first team left out at #13, and so on. I have no problem with replacing committee drama with on-the-field results, particularly in going from 4 to 8 teams. I don't think you can go beyond 8 for schedule reasons at the FBS level.
And if we had had an 8-team playoff last year, the first team left out, based on the committee's final rankings, would have been three-loss Ole Miss. That is a lot different than leaving out Baylor and TCU (and the other two in, assuming two at-large and one G5 guarantee, would have been #7 Mississippi State and #20 Boise).
Oklahoma
