re: The playoff is broken. It needs to expand to 8.

Here's a good example of why the playoffs have made things more stale:

2013 - Alabama is generally considered one of the best two or three teams in the country throughout the year. They go into the Iron Bowl undefeated and ranked #1 but wind up losing to Auburn in arguably the greatest game of football ever played. Being saddled with a late-season loss is too much for them to overcome to get back into the top 2, and they wind up on the outside looking in as Auburn takes on FSU for the national title.

2017 - Alabama is generally considered one of the best two or three teams in the country throughout the year. They go into the Iron Bowl undefeated and ranked #1 but wind up losing to Auburn in a game that was not particularly close. Although they are saddled with a late-season loss, they are still able to sneak into the playoffs at #4, and they proceed to win the national title.

The playoffs make things stale because it gives the best teams a built-in second chance. Things were more exciting when any loss felt like a potential season-ender.

Expanding to 8 teams is the dumbest idea out there. Can you name a team in the last 6 seasons that was ranked 5-8 before the playoffs that could have won it all?

8 games does nothing but delays the inevitable #1 vs. #2 matchup and adds more bloody playoff blowouts.

Bring back the BCS

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I mean, if you really want the “excitement” of the capricious nature of polls and how they are biased against late season losses more so than early season losses,

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No they aren't. If they were then A&M would be in the playoffs and ND would be out.

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Due to recency bias, I don’t think the average college football fan nowadays remembers how unsatisfactory it was to not have the championship settled on the field.

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I do agree with this, though. I like the playoffs. They just need to go back to taking the top 4 teams from the BCS standings.

Has anybody seen how the BCS would have had the standings this year?

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No they aren't. If they were then A&M would be in the playoffs and ND would be out.

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Well, most of the time, if there is a decision to be made between two one loss teams, the one with the earlier loss gets the nod to go to the BCS/playoffs.

Notre Dame broke that trend, but that’s more so because the Notre Dame name recognition bias trumps every card Texas A&M had.

It's a pipe dream and I know it'll never happen but, if we went to 8 teams, this is how I'd like to see it:

1. All Power 5 Conference champs get an invite.
2. Highest ranked Group of 5 Conference champ gets an invite.
3. Winner of the Commander-in-Chief's trophy gets an invite.
4. 1 at-large team gets an invite.
5. A team must have 10+ wins against FBS competition to get an invite; this rule trumps all others. If any teams listed in the categories above do not have 10+ wins, their spot is replaced by an additional at-large team. The committee is responsible for picking the highest-ranked Group of 5 team and any at-large teams, and seeding them...

Requiring 10+ wins would keep the regular season at least somewhat important. The Group of 5 would be represented by at least one team but could have more. We could honor the military academy teams by giving them a potential path to participate as well.

For the most part, the conference championships would be like play-in games...but there'd be at least one at-large bid available, and perhaps more, to include worthy teams that didn't win their conference for whatever reason...

You won't get the best 8 teams every year, but I think you'd definitely get the top 4 each year which would be my goal. With each region of the country participating, as well as giving the Group of 5 a guaranteed slot and the service academies a viable path, I think it'd largely increase interest nationwide.

While 8 is kind of diluting realistic champions, it seems kind of inevitable to keep the P5 conferences happy that have been left out several times (Big XII, Pac 12).

There's NO reason to guarantee the G5 a seat at the table, as they aren't the ones bring value to this. I think the P5 champs and 3 at large bids (which could be a 1 or more G5 teams in any given year) is a reasonable middle ground. Otherwise, don't be surprised to see the P5 break off completely to form their own D1 super league and just compete against each other in CFB.

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This line of thinking is why football will be on the chopping block in a decade. You never know what could happen.

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Name one team that won the championship that came as a complete surprise.

You never know.

The reason it will be on the chopping block is because
1. People keep wanting to water it down.
2. Instead of being player personality driven, they want to make it issue driven. (Thanks, ESPN)
3. Dumb rules changing so often and fast people no longer understand the game.
4. People want to pretend G5 teams have a shot at a Championship and play football as well as the P5 teams.
5. Salaries are spiraling out of control, putting undue pressure on coaches to cheat more blatantly.
6. The media wants to control who goes to the playoffs, what issues are important and must be pushed.

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No. It wouldn't. Everybody claimed a 4 team playoff would satisfy everyone. Now it is 8/ Next it would be 16.

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This.