I have never been in favor of a full-fledged playoff and I hope we never see it. It would be bad for college football. The OSU-Michigan game was a playoff whether the Wolverines like it or not. Rutgers-Louisville was a playoff for a BCS bowl at least and conference title games like UF-Ark still need to carry weight and be important. CFB has THE best regular season of any sport by far. UF-Auburn was huge and the loss almost cost Florida dearly. With a playoff it's not nearly the big deal it was. I have thought a plus one was a good thing but how would you play the bowl games with the fanfare you have now? The Rose Bowl on New Year's Day is still the great reward it should be. Maybe a plus one would work but can you see the expense of Michigan fans going to the RB and then coming home for a couple of days and then flying to say New Orleans for a title game a week later after beating USC? I'm not sure that would work but if there is to be a playoff type change a plus one is it for me.
An 8 team playoff with bowls for the rest would work just fine. The arguments that the regular season wouldn't matter are totally hollow, and besides we might get to see some decent intersectional games instead of the steady diet of 1AA's everyone is going to be playing from now on. MCG. I wonder if your attitude would be a little different if Michigan was playing Ohio St?...
Pretty funny article with more than a grain of truth in it's basic premis. I would say however that by the time we would get down to team 8 I can not worry to much about the whatever howls of protest might be made for teams that didn't get that 7 or 8 spot. Now it seems most years we have a pretty good idea of one of the teams but it's much more muddled as to who's the 2nd team. I would be happy if we just started with the plus one model and use two of the four BCS Bowls as semi finals with the winners meeting a week later. All handled on a rotating basis of course. In football I don't see the need to go below 8 teams, the difference drops a lot more rapidly than in basketball. Just my thought, but it was an enjoyable article.
I personally think that it would be louder and worse than it is now...we only had debate over two teams (and not really all that much debate at that.) You try to get 8 teams and yeah, they'll be no argument over the top 4 or 6, but the fight to determine who "deserves" those final slots...based on all the criteria that we argue these things now...amongst all those teams and conferences that will contend...will be loud and long. You might howl just a little if it was decided that Fla. was #9.
No matter what some team will get left out of the chase at the end and they won't be happy about it. In a four team race Wisconsin would be howling if 2 loss LSU was selected ahead of them for example.