(10-31-2017 09:11 AM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(10-30-2017 11:06 PM)Kittonhead Wrote:  

(10-30-2017 04:38 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  I think it's inevitable that we'll end up with an 8-team playoff WITH auto-bids for the P5 champs. This is about control and power and *automatic* access is what that's all about. The P5 doesn't want merely a 90% or even 99% chance of making the playoffs every year: they can and will demand a 100% chance. They want their conference championship games to become de facto playoff games regardless of the rankings of the participants (and they want the increased TV revenue that comes from those de facto playoff games that doesn't have to be shared with any other league).

Autobids are going to be perceived as a power grab by the G5 and a move back to the autobids of the old BCS era.

The next move could be a plus-one where traditional bowls are preserved and more are playing for a national championship in theory going into the final 2 weekends of the season.

A team from in a conference to win a national title would have to do the following.

1. Win the division.
2. Win the conference championship game.
3. Win the bowl game.
4. Earn a Top 2 final ranking.

There would be none of this Ohio State sneaking in without winning their division crap if only 2 teams from the country make it. That is because if they don't win the B1G they don't go to the Rose Bowl and instead have to play a 2 loss SEC team or something in the Fiesta Bowl.

I like the plus one format (and in some ways would have personally preferred it to the current 4-team playoff, particularly the preservation of the traditional bowls), but the TV networks made it VERY clear that they want (AKA only paying top dollar for) a 100% unambiguous elimination tournament. That is how it’s always going to be going forward. We’re never going back and, to the extent that there’s ever any change, it’s going to make that format larger.

The fact is that the general public simply isn’t bothered by an Ohio State team like last year making the playoff. This is a conference realignment board, so we’re inherently obsessed with conferences, meaning most of us (myself included) put a lot of weight on conference champs. However, that’s just not critical for the casual fans that matter, just as they don’t care who won their respective conferences in the NCAA Tournament. Besides, why should 2016 Ohio State be treated any differently than 2017 Notre Dame just because OSU is a member of a conference? That has always been the dilemma with imposing any conference champ requirement in a 4-team playoff.

The only difference with an 8-team playoff is that it’s simply large enough to hold all 5 P5 conference champs automatically. The size provides flexibility to grant auto-bids while still having enough at-large spots to logically include all of the non-champs and independents that are legitimately elite. That last part is critical because that’s what the TV networks demand. They *want* teams like 2016 Ohio State and this year’s Notre Dame team in the playoff without question. Those are the people that matter as opposed to the conference-focused people like us.

Or more to the point a team like 2011 Alabama. TV knows that a 4 team tournament where 2011 Alabama would have been left out for a #10 I think they were Wisconsin- they know the general public would never have accepted a playoff w/o Alabama. And that it would have never been viewed as being legitimate at all. And the thing is, when this came around was just after 2011 Alabama.