It’s that time of the year again. How SHOULD the college football playoff look.
It’s not all that dissimilar from the current playoff in structure. It’s just about how teams are selected and seeded. The TLDR is that all conference champs get in. The top 4 conference champs get byes.
Admittedly it was a better format when we had a couple more high quality but smaller conferences. If you still had a functioning Pac-12, then Oregon would probably be in here too. Alas… conference realignment. Still I’m sticking to it.
So first the conference champs
- Indiana
- Georgia
- Texas Tech
- Tulane
- JMU
- Duke
- Boise State
- Kennesaw State
- Western Michigan
That leaves 3 at large spots. Ohio State is obviously the first one. The last 2 would go between Oregon, Ole Miss, and Texas A&M. At the at large spots, non conference scheduling is crucial.
A&M played at Notre Dame and won. They’re in. Ole Miss and Oregon had pretty weak schedules. Ole Miss has the win over Tulane which is fairly big. But then has The Citadel, Georgia State, and Washington State. Oregon doesn’t have a win as good as Tulane. But they did have 3 recent power conference teams and a good Montana State team. Also extenuating circumstances…. Ole Miss lost their coach. So I’m giving it to Oregon.
This is my world. So I’m gonna have some fun with it. Conference champs get seeded above at large. Didn’t win your conferences? Then you’re gonna have to go on the road.
First Round
12. Oregon @ 5 JMU
11. Texas A&M @ 6 Duke
10. Ohio State @ 7 Boise St
9 Western Michigan @ 8 Kennesaw St
Now because its my world and I’m having fun with seeding. Reseeding after the first round doesn’t make much sense. So it would look something like this…
Second Round
WMU/KSU winner @ 1 Indiana
OSU/Boise winner @ 2 Georgia
TAMU/Duke winner @ 3 Texas Tech
Ore/JMU winner @ 4. Tulane
This playoff rocks and you can’t convince me otherwise. There’s a pretty big reward in being #1. You get to play the winner of the two worst conference champs. Winning your conference is VERY important. Making all regular season games and conference championships important. Every single team has an objective shot.