re: With the playoff now, does it mean anything to play in, say, The Rose Bowl?

Mmmhmm.

It's okay, bud.

I know things aren't peachy in Baton Rouge right now, so it's only natural to downplay your rivals' accomplishments. Good luck going through this tough patch.

You are trying sooooo hard.

It's kind of cute, in a amusing kind of way.

I don't take bait from insecure fans.

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It essentially doesn't matter. The conference has tie ins and will get a certain amount of money regardless

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Precisely.

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It's like a participation trophy and fundraiser for the school.

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Yup

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This is why they need to just get rid of the bowls and come up with an 8-16 team playoff

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I called that shite, too.

Once tyou get a plus 1, then they will say you need 8. Once you go 8, they want 16.

I know. I'm just saying win or lose bowls are pointless. Sure it's fun to travel to Nashville, Dallas, Nola, or wherever during the holidays for bowls, but in the grand scheme of things they don't mean anything.

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Your team just sucks a little bit less than mine.

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I don't bite, because I am awesome

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They need to make it where the power 5 conference champions have a guaranteed spot and 3 at larges. A team like Houston should then get looked at first for the at larges, (a non power 5 team that has 1 loss) then look at the second best teams in conferences like Ohio State ect.
8 team playoff would look like

1 Clemson v 8 Houston
2 Bama v 7 ND
3 MSU/Iowa v 6 Stanford
4 OU v 5 OSU

probable semis

Clemson v OSU
Bama v Stanford

Championship
Bama v OSU (probably 2 best teams)

This is why the playoffs are an example of killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

There are 100+ major college teams, there's really no way to say "who's best", no matter the format. Picking 4 teams from a pool of 5 major conferences + Notre Dame doesn't really tell you anything. It's completely possible the current incarnation of the Big East (AAC?) might be better, as crazy as that sounds. One of their teams laid waste to one of the better SEC teams.

Bowls used to serve a couple of purposes- bragging rights for winning something at the end, and national exposure. Teams that got in got extra weeks of practice; remember Dinardo back at LSU, saying how big that was to get into the Indy bowl, just to get those weeks? It got LSU back over the hump, and back on track towards being a top 20 team overall.

Teams could all claim they were the best, and their fanbases were happy after the season. We could win the Sugar and brag, USC or Michigan could win the Rose and brag, Oklahoma could win the Orange, etc. Sure, there was some grumbling about polls, but the fact remained you won something you earned by having a good season, and it felt good. Look at coaching legends like Bowden, Paterno, Tom Osborne, and count the national titles. Actually not a lot, they were there forever and averaged less than 1 title a decade. Didn't matter, because a lot of fans thought they were still the best team, and you couldn't argue the point.

Now, look at what it's become: 4 teams will have games that matter, only one will be happy of the bunch, and as for the rest, usually there is some letdown for not being in the real games. It didn't really matter that LSU lost to Notre Dame last season, or that Alabama lost to Oklahoma 2 years ago.