(06-29-2021 12:31 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote: (06-29-2021 01:28 AM)BruceMcF Wrote: (06-28-2021 10:53 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote: They have no answer yet as to what the 4 conference champs who do not make the CFP are going to do.
Nor are they likely to have any answer different from today.
What's proposed is an 11 game format, with 4 conference champs left out.
What I'm proposing is making it a 12 game format which pits the two highest champs left out. This makes it improbable that and P5 champ would be left outside without at least an access bowl.
I'm not saying they are likely to do this but I'm saying I believe it would be a good idea and a replacement for the traditional access bowl of the G5.
They are going to view the guaranteed access for a minimum of one non-Contract Bowl conference into the championship
as an upgrade to the access bowl ... which itself is far from a traditional concession, since it is only as old as the CFP itself. The previous BCS versions of access were qualified by ranking.
So
also demanding a cross subsidy to generate a big money bowl for the seventh and eighth place conference champions seems to me like a bridge too far.
Quote: To be perfectly honest competing for a national championship isn't realistic for a MAC program like it is for a few of the AAC. MAC doesn't pay enough to put up a Top 10 team on a sustained basis. But going 11-2 is realistic but not a playoff worthy type record. Access bowl can then be the answer for a good MAC season.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be nice to have it to shoot for, I'm just saying that it's hard to see that version.
If the 2023 date slips because there are too many people with vetoes to satisfy everybody, then for a 2026 new contract negotiation, the version I can see as a possibility for getting up, even if not a likelihood, is if there is a semi-finals bowl rotation, they
also have those bowls host the first three at-large out and the seventh conference champion in a suitably big money for "first out of the CFP" bowls. Since the PAC-12 proposal for a P5 autobid got knocked down, that might attract support from the PAC-12 as an airbag in case they crash to 7th conference champion in a year, and the PAC-12 might be able to talk the Big Ten into supporting it.
Even that is asking them to go from a minimum of one non-Contract-Conference spot set aside to a minimum of two. I am not opposed to making an ambit claim, even if it is a bit of a long odds ask, but asking for a minimum of three non-Contract-Conference spots to be set aside seems to me to be too big a jump for a single negotiation cycle.
And existing bowls with tie-ins with conferences that get pushed down by the two extra high value bowl games would cry foul, which is why even that would not likely to get up if the 12 team CFP is being pursued as an extension of the existing contract.