(01-11-2021 03:07 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-11-2021 10:07 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(01-11-2021 12:19 AM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(01-10-2021 10:35 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(01-10-2021 07:50 PM)ken d Wrote:  Let's think about that. Your view is one I shared when I proposed this. But consider what happens now if 15th ranked Northwestern upsets 3rd ranked Ohio State in the B1G CCG. With only four CFP slots, the Buckeyes almost surely get knocked out. But with 8 CFP slots, maybe Northwestern is still not one of the 6 highest ranked champions and gets left out of the CFP. But would Ohio State drop far enough to also be left out, or could they still get in as an at-large?

The whole point is that the Big Ten doesn’t (and the other P5 leagues don’t) even want that to be a discussion. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the #1 reason for an expansion to an 8-team playoff (outside of just straight up making more money) is so that there will be auto-bids for the P5 100% guaranteed even if their champ is 6-6 (much less ranked #15). We can debate whether that’s a good thing or not, but that’s the reality of why an 8-team playoff would happen in the first place. A “top 6” conference champ system where the Sun Belt champ (much less the AAC champ) gets in instead of the Pac-12 champ just isn’t happening.

Who has said 8 teams is about autobids for the P5 so they can be 100% guaranteed?

If autobids were such a priority why didn't the P5 insist on a playoff with autobids last time around?

Yeah, that's why I don't think the P5 care as much about 100% guarantees in an 8-team playoff as FT does - if it is so important why has it never existed, up to and including this very day?

Doesn't compute for me. I do not doubt that the P5 would like their champs to automatically all get in, but I just do not necessarily think it is a requirement in their minds to go to 8. It never has been before.

Of course you can’t have auto-bids for the championship in a 4-team playoff (or 2-team playoff under the old BCS system) simply because of math! If you’re talking about a conference champ requirement to get into the the 4-team playoff, then that’s very different than an auto-bid. A “straight 4” is the only real way that you could have a 4-team playoff because that small of a playoff field is inherently going to be 100% subjective (so the criteria to get in ought to provide maximum flexibility). The equation changes completely when the playoff field is large enough to have every power conference to have an auto-bid, though, which wasn’t ever mathematically possible before.

Look - there are reasons why one might favor a “straight 8” playoff over an auto-bid (even though I don’t personally agree with them). However, I don’t think the lack of a conference championship requirement for the playoff in the past means anything in a larger 8-team playoff field. Ultimately, an 8-team playoff effectively will consume all of the major bowls, in which esayem correctly noted that the power conferences *do* have (and always had) auto-bids, so that’s the big resulting shift that I don’t think that a lot of straight 8 proponents or arguments against P5 auto-bids are taking into account.

The Rose Bowl was, at the very worst, the 2nd most valuable bowl game in the BCS system and is the 3rd most valuable bowl game in non-playoff years in the current CFP system... and the Big Ten and Pac-12 auto-bids were valued accordingly to the point where “Contract Bowl = Power Conference”. In contrast, a non-playoff Rose Bowl that is going to be the 5th best bowl game in an 8-team playoff system isn’t going to provide the same auto-bid value to those P5 leagues. You can go on down the line with the SEC/Big 12 auto-bids to the Sugar Bowl and ACC auto-bid to the Orange Bowl.

The auto-bids for the P5 to non-playoff Contract Bowls will inherently be devalued in an 8-team playoff system... and the P5 sure as heck aren’t going to expand the playoff to receive *less* guaranteed money. The only way that value can be replicated (or more importantly, exceeded) is to have those Contract Bowl auto-bids *within* the 8-team playoff system.

Of course you can't have 5 auto-bids in a 4-team playoff (like the CFP) or a 2-team playoff (like the BCS), but, there was no law saying the organizers of these systems had to progress from 2 teams to 4 teams, etc. If having auto-bids was so darn important, they could have designed an 8-team playoff with them in 1998, or in 2014. But they didn't, so obviously it was not a deal-breaker at those times.

As for auto-bids, yes, I think there will still be two major bowls outside the playoffs, and those could have auto-bids for P5 champs left out of the playoffs. Yes, those bids will be diminished in value, but since it is pretty clear that the vast bulk of P5 champs will make the playoffs anyway in Straight-8, that won't be an issue.

As for money, all of the above siad, I agree that if a 5/1/2 model makes clearly more money than other variants for the P5, then we will likely get that. That is yet to be seen.