Inevitably, the issue in expanding the CFP is ensuring that the P5 does not lose value in any of the following: losing potential home games during the season, losing value in its conference championship games, nor does it "lock out" any of the P5 conferences. Additionally, it must give flexibility towards Notre Dame, who will not join a conference, but still provides tremendous value on a national scale if they are in the conversation. From a national perspective, there simply is just not enough push from networks or advertisers "demanding" that all of the G5 Champions are included, so that is definitely not a requirement. Finally, I do not think an autobid from the G5 is required either because the last think the committee (or the audience) would want is a 9-3/8-4 top-ranked G5 team that is being forced on the playoff (just like a 9-4 Northwestern would have ultimately hurt the playoff as well). Ultimately, I think a committee can continue with the present ranking format and resist providing auto-bids, whether to conference champions or a G5 representative.

This year, under the final rankings, we could have seen:

Alabama v. UCF
Clemson v. Michigan
Notre Dame v. Ohio State
Oklahoma v. Georgia

However, what would have been interesting had the committee bumped Washington (PAC Champion) over UCF (Top G5) at #8. That certainly would have been an interesting conversation.