(12-14-2018 04:45 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(12-14-2018 11:22 AM)McKinney Wrote:  

(12-14-2018 11:02 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  If we have an 8-team playoff, best to just have all at-large, no guarantees for any conferences, P5 or G5. That's a level playing field for everyone, and doesn't allow a team to leap-frog others merely because they win a conference - which proves nothing about how good they are versus teams from other conferences. If the B1G or SEC champ is only the 10th best team, then they don't belong in the playoffs ahead of better teams.

If there ever was a time where that excuse of "we'll be arguing why #9 got left out" was valid, it's here. If you do 8 at large you'll be in the same situation we have now. It'll just be with crappier matchups. Teams that should have been given a shot will be left out.

Nope, just the opposite: A conference champ auto-bid model is far more likely to put outrageously questionable teams in than just ranking the top 8. E.g., imagine if the PAC title is between 10-2 Utah and 7-4 unranked UCLA, and Utah's star QB is suspended before their CCG and UCLA eeks out a win?

You'd have a bad 8-4 UCLA team in the playoffs ahead of many teams that were clearly better. You can't ever have that in an 8-team playoff chosen by people, because people will never randomly choose the #23 team to be in the playoffs.

The worst situation you could likely have would be this year - #9 Washington, PAC champ, would be out in favor of #8 UCF. But Washington lost 3 more games than UCF, including losses to Auburn, Cal, and Oregon, none of whom are world-beaters, and all the computers have UCF ranked ahead.

Washington doesn't have much of a case, not worth worrying about. No #9 in an all at large model ever will.

Then the Bruins get in. Such is life. In the NFL the AFC West is likely to produce two 11 win teams; one of those win be the 1 seed and the other a 5 seed that will likely travel to either Houston or Pittsburgh. You are focused more on the potential entrants as opposed to the qualifications to the postseason. Autobids with imperfect entrants is preferable to a committee as no selection group is going to pick a G5 school if other options are available.