With the first set of rankings being released Tuesday by the College Football Playoff selection committee, it’s time to complain again about how the playoff is too small and needs to be expanded. Before you get excited about that idea, let me be the first to tell you that it’s not going to happen any time soon. The unfortunate reality is that it would be almost impossible to restructure they CFB Playoff given the contracts with the NY6 bowls. But the playoff should eventually be restructured. While Alabama and Clemson are certainly two outstanding teams, I think America is sick of seeing them win the national title year after year.
There are a couple key issues most fans seem to have with the current format. First, the pool is too small. Suppose that every Power-5 conference champion is undefeated. If there are only four spots, who gets left out? Second, despite the small number of teams, the selection committee has allowed multiple teams from the same conference to compete. In 2017 UGA and Alabama both made the CFB Playoff, despite Alabama not even playing in the SEC conference championship game. “East-coast bias” is real and unfair to a lot of teams north of the Mason-Dixon line and/or west of Mississippi. Third, Group-of-5 conferences realistically have almost no chance of making it in. It would be ridiculous to say that a one-loss team such as Memphis, Appalachian State, SMU, or Boise State doesn’t deserve a chance to make the playoff, but to this day there have been no Group-of-5 teams to make the cut.
Here is my simple solution that I think addresses all of these issues in a fair manner:
The playoff should be expanded to eight teams. Five bids would go to the Power-5 conference champions, i.e. the ACC, Big 10, Big XII, Pac-12, and SEC. The remaining three bids would go to Group-of-5 teams and/or independents. To qualify for a bid, a team must (1) have at least 9 wins against FBS teams and (2) be the conference champion if they are affiliated. Qualified teams will be ranked by the number of wins, with Sports-Reference’s simple rating system (SRS)* being the tiebreaker. The top three teams would receive the three bids. If there are not enough Group-of-5 or independent teams to meet these requirements, the remaining bids will be picked from the entire pool of remaining FBS teams based on wins and SRS. All eight playoff teams would be seeded according to the simple rating system, with No. 1 playing No. 8, No. 2 playing No. 7, etc.
*Simple rating system is a rating method that uses average point differential and strength of schedule. For example, Clemson plays weak competition, so their strength of schedule is poor. However, they obliterate these teams, so their point differential is really high, indicating they are a strong team. The simple rating system accounts for both of these factors and balances them.
I like this method because it gives every team a reasonable chance to make the playoff. There is no bias from the selection committee because there would be no selection committee. Every team would control their own destiny. For a Power-5 team, if you win your conference championship then you make the playoff. Simple. For a Group-of-5 team or independent, if you reach 9 FBS wins and win your conference (if affiliated), you’re in. If you’re one of the best in the nation and playing other good teams your SRS rating will reflect that, and you’ll make the cut.
These are the currently expected match-ups under these rules based on conference championship odds from ESPN and current SRS ratings from Sports-Reference.com:
- No. 1 Ohio State vs No. 8 Notre Dame
- No. 2 Clemson vs No. 7 Boise State
- No. 3 Alabama vs No. 6 Cincinnati
- No. 4 Oregon vs No. 5 Oklahoma
What do you think of my playoff format? Do you like it? Hate it? Think the current system should be left alone? Do you want a 64 team playoff like basketball? Let me know in the comments, and thanks for reading! Make sure to follow me on Twitter @LTS_tweets.
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