A college football playoff was a popular topic of discussion when I first started writing sports columns. It seems like it was only 45 years ago.
Wait. It was 45 years ago.
Since then, college football has progressed considerably. There are now four-team playoffs, the most recent of which culminated with Georgia beat TCU so badly that the NCAA should give the Horned Frog program the death penalty — or at least ban it from picking up a football for next year.
Now back to the playoffs, which aren’t expected to include TCU for five years, regardless of how many games they win. Not after 65-7.
The playoff field will expand to 12 teams in 2024 and generate so much money that everyone associated with the sport will be paid as much as a licensed Tennessee football coach. But the number of teams is not as important to me as the selection method. That’s why a format suggested by a longtime friend from my hometown of Clinton, Louisiana, caught my attention.
Kay’s idea: First, let’s take the five Power Five conference champions; then, let’s take the five finalists from these conferences; Finally, add two teams from the Group of Five conferences.
In this scenario, 10 of the 12 teams would be decided by what happens on the field, not a meeting of the College Football Playoff committee. I’m all for that.
I know what you’re thinking: “No one cares what one of your childhood friends thinks about the College Football Playoff.” If you want a playoff plan, consult your literary contributors. They are the experts.
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Anyone who reads this column regularly knows that I place my readers above everything else: family, friends, pets and life itself. So I presented Kay’s plan to five of my award-winning literary contributors: Mark, Mark, Marie, Mike, and Mike. I call them the “M Squad,” which I rely on for the unofficial operations of this column.
The first response from M Squad was negative. The second too. Then the 65-7 happened. As a result, I tweaked Kay’s plan to make it fair for everyone, especially the SEC.
Let’s face it. Not all Power Five conferences are the same. We are reminded of this at almost every national championship game, every NFL draft, every national signing date and every time TCU plays Georgia in Los Angeles. To paraphrase a popular slogan: “The SEC just means better.”
If I had shuffled the playoff field after the Georgia-TCU game, it would have looked like: Georgia, Ohio State, Tennessee, and Alabama. After tweaking Kay’s plan, I came up with this:
The top four teams in the SEC standings would qualify for the playoffs. The same would be true for the top two teams in the Big Ten, unless one of those teams lost to TCU (look out, Michigan). The conference champion of the Pac-12, ACC and Big 12 would also qualify.
However, if TCU won the Big 12, the conference would have no playoff representatives. But from what I saw Monday night, it won’t happen again.
I realize it’s complicated. In fact, when I presented the plan to a member of M Squad, she responded, “I don’t want to think too hard. This sounds too much like calculus.
So, a quick overview: four teams from the SEC, two from the Big Ten, one each from the Big 12, ACC and Pac-12.
Without doing any math, you should be able to determine that that’s nine teams.
I would increase the field by adding the conference champions from the two highest-rated conferences outside of the Group of Five. This would give work to the CFP selection committee.
The 12th The playoff team could be selected via a play-in game between the fifth and sixth best teams in the SEC.
You may be wondering, “But what about Notre Dame?”
As much as I appreciate Notre Dame’s place in college football history, you can’t have an independent in a playoff format based on a conference championship. My advice to Notre Dame: Join a conference.
Maybe he could replace TCU in the Big 12.
I executed my revised playoff plan by Kay. She said something like, “I don’t care if all 12 teams are from the SEC. »
But that’s way too extreme. For the moment.
John Adams is a senior chronicler. He can be contacted at 865-342-6284 or [email protected]. Follow him at: twitter.com/johnadamskns.
