(01-13-2018 03:12 AM)Stugray2 Wrote:  Kittonhead,

It's easier with the autobid. Undefeated is really not the test. Why punish a Houston or Fresno State or Cincy for scheduling a couple really hard P5 schools and losing one of those? You would just encourage strong G5 schools to never schedule OOC games against top 30 P5 schools. So undefeated is a very bad idea.

The other alternative, setting some arbitrary threshold of ranking or some other criteria, is very hard to judge, because a school running off victories against the likes of Charlotte, ODU, USM, UAB, FIU, simply cannot be measured against a school having to slog through WSU, Stanford, UW, USC and Colorado in the same stretch. So are you relying on a bunch of sports writers and their bias? Or are you relying on some computer program ranking? Or just squinting your eye and making a WAG that they are or are not good enough?

The simpler thing is to just let them in.Boise State their really strong 2004 year probably would have been a 4 seed, this year's UCF team probably a 6 seed, and all other G5 in the Playoff era 8 seeds. It's far better to just limit the committee to seeding the 8 teams, and picking the best two at-large .

I think its not well understood how difficult it is to go undefeated.

How many undefeated regular seasons has the G5 produced since 2000? I'd say at most probably about 8 undefeated seasons.

If the schedules of the G5 are going to 95% of the time say they don't belong in an 8 team playoff, then maybe they don't belong in the playoff.

Its not like you'll have 5 undefeated G5 champs represented in the playoff, even if its a theoretical possibility. At best I believe is 2 undefeated teams from the G5 ranks.

But from a recruiting standpoint anyone in the G5 could say if they run the table they could make the playoff. That to me is better than an annual autobid for the "highest ranked champion" something the AAC can exploit as the deepest conference in the G5 for recruiting purposes but hurts the others.