(01-05-2018 11:12 AM)_C2_ Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 10:29 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 09:48 AM)ark30inf Wrote:  

(01-05-2018 09:46 AM)HeartOfDixie Wrote:  It would be equally as unfair to put a 12-0 team that had the easiest schedule in college football in the mix.

I'm not alluding to UCF in that statement but speaking generally.

There isn't a "fair" way to do it that everybody in college football would call fair.

Yes, there is. All conference champions get playoff spots like any real sport.

So if Ark-State wins its conference with a 7-5 record and makes the playoffs, while 12-1 Clemson doesn't win its conference so doesn't make the playoffs, that's "fair"?

In most every other sport, that's the status quo. It's not exactly uncommon for undeserving teams to make the playoffs over more deserving teams, look at MLB, where about a quarter century ago a 103-win team missed the playoffs and most years a good team is left out in favor of a weaker one. The same holds true in the NFL many, many times over the years and even the NBA has suffered this because the conferences aren't balanced.

Also in most other sports you don't have 27 of the 130 members that have been added in the last 25 years (and 14 in the last dozen) when most of those are lower level programs that just happen to have a new label and scholarship limit.