For the time being, the college football playoff system is said to be majorly flawed. The completely subjective four team system currently being utilized always ends up being controversial by the end of the season, as there is always a myriad of teams with a decent argument to be included in college football’s most prestigious bowl games. Thankfully, all of this controversy is coming to an end soon.
Starting next season, the college football playoffs will be expanding from its current four team system to a much more inclusive 12 team format. This format will also lend a new sense of importance to conference championship games, as the top five conference champions will receive automatic bids to the playoffs (with the top four of the five receiving first-round byes). The next seven highest-ranked teams will round out the rest of the pool.
Under these rules, the college football playoffs would be incredibly interesting this year. At the time of writing, the five teams receiving automatic bids would be Ohio State, Georgia, Florida State, Washington, and Texas (the first four teams in that list would be receiving byes). The field would be rounded out by Michigan, Oregon, Alabama, Ole Miss, Louisville, and Penn State. This field would sport a whopping nine teams that had at the most one loss through the first 10 weeks of the season.
Unfortunately, this radically improved format does not make its debut until next year, meaning that great teams will once again be omitted from the playoffs come January. One-loss teams like Oregon and Alabama seem to have extremely low chances to make the , despite them playing extremely well down the final stretch of the season. Many believe it is unfair that good teams such as the ones previously mentioned do not get a chance to compete in the tournament just because of one loss.
Overall, the new format will be great for the sport of college football as a whole and will eliminate lots of controversy in the coming years. Many fans just wish the change came just one year sooner.