calumnus said:
BearBones said:
Expand the playoff to 8 teams, make the power 5 conference champs auto-qualifiers (plus 3 at large) and watch the TV ratings for the conference championship games soar. That will be especially true for the Pac 12, because we have further to go than most of the conferences.
+1 million
Plus the 3 at large must be champions of their conferences. That would make the confence championship games the first round of a 16 team playoff. The winner of the Pac12 would host its next round game every year on Jan 1 in the Rose Bowl--if it was automatically the winner of the Big, even better.
Three at large berths for the G5 conferences? That would be perfect............... if Cal joined the MWC!
But seriously, the problem with the current conferences is they are not a good size for these larger playoff scenarios. a six or seven team division is not big enough to really have the CCG be a true playoff game because you get some really BAD teams in the CCG, especially when the division are not very even. Look at the BT west, the old B12 north, sometimes the SEC east, and the P12 South when SC was ineligible.
I think 10 team conferences would be perfect... with an 8 team playoff, you could have up to 80 teams with a path. That's more than now where it's essentially 64+ ND. Or there could be at large bids. This would require no more weeks than currently set up for. 9 game conference schedule, 3 OOCs, which would keep it interesting. Plus with fewer 'cross division' games, even the poorer quality teams could go into a CCG with decent records... thus increasing the hype even if they are paper tigers.
I don't know how we get from here to there though. Obviously, the power brokers in teh SEC and Big Ten won't want a 16 team playoff where they don't get 4-5 teams or whatever. If they get any bigger, the divisions would be two separate conferences almost... so in the BigTen something would have to give with OSU/Mich/PSU in the same division.