[canes21]

I posted this in the playoff thread, but was catching up on this thread and saw you all talking about the current playoff system and potential expansion, so I will leave the post in here as well if that's okay.

=====

We are most likely never returning to a format similar to the BCS system or before, and I have always been against playoff expansion, but at this point it has to happen. I hate the idea of taking away the magic of the regular season where perfection is near required to reach a title game/major bowl, but the playoff system has created a climate that is stale. The same handful of teams are getting into the playoffs constantly, they are in return gathering up all of the talent, bowl games are losing their luster as more and more players sit out theirs.

I hated the idea of going past 6 or 8, but really, 8 to 16 is needed at this point. I'd rather actually see G5 teams and some At Large bids over watching some combination of Bama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Notre Dame, and Georgia getting the 4 spots. Expanding the field and having some games played on campus could actually reintroduce some magic into the college game. Imagine a first round where all conference champs (at least seeds 1 through 8) get home field advantage and we have some matchup where a G5 school like Boise makes it and hosts an At Large Georgia in Idaho on their campus post-Covid with a packed house.

That sounds completely worth it over what CFB has turned into at this point. I've seen some people suggest 16 spots, all conference champs get in automatically, then the rest are At Large bids. The issue with this system is that the #1 seed potentially has a harder game than the #7 seed for example. Bama may end up playing an At Large Georgia while an #8 seed G5 school plays another G5 school.

Maybe this is a horrible idea, but I'd suggest you seed the first 8 teams by committee rankings. Then have the top 8 teams pick who they host in the 1st round starting with #1 then #2 and so on. This allows a #1 seed Bama to pick some poor G5 team to play in the 1st round instead of getting an At Large like Georgia thrown their way. The #8 seed doesn't get to select who they play, but at least in this scenario whoever is the 8 seed gets home field advantage.