The 12-Team CFP Proposal, Good or Bad?

There is exciting news in the College Football World today. We have learned the details of a proposal to expand the College Football Playoff.

As an algorithm that has a sole purpose in to ranking the teams worthy of the CFP invitation, I am excited by this new proposal. While I have a different belief as to how the season should work, this change is a welcomed one, and almost as good of an alternative as any.

There are things I like, and things I don’t.

The biggest positive is rewarding the Conference Champions. That has to mean something, and until today it hasn’t. Winning a conference makes you eligible for a bye, and gets a virtually guaranteed spot in the CFP (as a Power 5 school). It also gives (at minimum), the best Group of 5 team a chance, one they have been deserving of for a long time. It seems like these first-round games (at least) will be in home stadiums, which will make excellent environments for games.

My reservations are in regards to the field. The margins between teams 10-14 are very thin, and right now we have no system to determine deserving teams besides the opinions of the CFP Committee. A lot of teams in this range are coming off of losses in Conference title games, or lost to the contenders previously. Some sort of larger voting pool or mathematical formula (Power Digits) should be used to determine the differences in these teams. Expect Power Digits to continue and be very vocal about the deserving team cutoff.

The biggest negative is the devaluing of the regular season. Now, teams around #10-14 can have 2-3 losses, and still contend for titles against the very same teams that beat them previously. We have also seen many times when team #4 in the playoff is well behind the other competitors, there's no guarantee that these games will be "good" either.

In 2019 (our last full season), the 4 bye week teams would be: LSU, Ohio State, Clemson, and Oklahoma, same as the playoff 4. The playoff matchups generated for round 1 would be:

5. Georgia (SEC loser) vs 17. Memphis (6th Champion)

6. Oregon (5th Champion) vs 11. Utah (Pac-12 loser)

7. Baylor (Big 12 loser) vs 10. Penn State

8. Wisconsin (Big Ten loser) vs 9. Florida.

Oregon vs Utah happened the week prior, for the Pac-12 championship. Oregon won, and under this format would have to play Utah again. (Would the committee purposely alter true rankings to get better or different matchups? Either they live with immediate rematch possibilities or they are fraudulent in advocating their fairness.)

3 of those teams (Georgia, Baylor, Wisconsin) had already just lost games to the teams getting the byes, and Utah just lost to Oregon.

The next four teams out are 12. Auburn, 13. Alabama, 14. Michigan, and 15. Notre Dame, all who could argue belonging over Utah, and would each draw bigger interest from the national media. I have no clue who would get the nod from the CFP (Since Utah was a top 4 candidate before losing to Oregon).

Assuming a normal bracket seeding, our next round would be

1. LSU vs Wisconsin / Florida (rematch)

2. Ohio State vs Baylor / Penn State (rematch)

3. Clemson vs Oregon / Utah

4. Oklahoma vs Georgia / Memphis

With specific winners, we get more regular season rematches. Expanding the playoff gets us some new games, yet also recreates regular season games that were already played. Sure, the NFL does this already, but then what makes a regular season LSU vs Florida matter or memorable? We don’t remember the NFL regular season games of previous years. That’s where the magic that is college football is ruined a bit.

Outside of massive upsets, the regular season clashes of titans will go unnoticed against father time. We remember the Steelers-Ravens games of the playoffs, not their week 7 games. We exchange the 14 weeks of regular season chaos for 2 weeks of massive games. I will personally select the regular season slate.

I also don’t think teams with 2-3 losses and no conference titles should be battling for the trophy. They failed to build a resume strong enough for contention.

In all, it’s a much better format than the 6 or 8 team method proposed by the media and the masses. (Why that method sucks, read here). It’s a good solution, but not the greatest. Under the current format, every game is a playoff game. Will I enjoy the expanded playoffs? Absolutely, I just think there are better ways to do it. And I could be wrong, in practice I may come around and love it. I have a positive viewpoint of it at the moment.

That better and realistic solution will be published soon.

Stay tuned to the Twitter, @PowerDigits as I'll share what previous brackets would have looked like.