The college football playoff this year got messy.
I think they ultimately got it right, and it probably made things better this year — imagine if the BCS had left out undefeated Florida State! — but the TCU/Baylor situation remains pretty awful.
My old standby has always been a 16-team playoff that is based on conference champions. Including all conference champions is the only way to make every game truly matter, and the only way to make sure nobody is left out. As currently constructed, a 12-0 Marshall team would have been left out. Heck, there was even talk of leaving 13-0 Florida State out. That's crazy, no matter who a team played. And this idea of a selection committee is clearly flawed, too — they left out two 12-1 teams with losses to much better teams and wins against much better teams than a 12-1 team that they put in.
I would propose that as of right now, the 10 conference champions would get in (note: conferences of any size would be required to either have balanced scheduling and common sense tiebreakers, i.e. head to head, or a conference championship game). Then, five at-large teams would make it based on the old BCS rankings and/or a selection committee. For the purposes of this exercise, I will use the college football playoff rankings from this season, and I will use the Massey composite ratings to split up any shared conference championships and rank teams that weren't ranked by the CFB playoff committee, i.e. Memphis would win the American Athletic Conference as the #37 vs. Cincinnati at #40, etc.).
Here's how this would work this year:
Conference champion auto bids:
1. Alabama (SEC)
2. Oregon (Pac 12)
3. Florida State (ACC)
4. Ohio State (Big 10)
5. Baylor (Big 12)
20. Boise State (MWC)
26. Marshall (CUSA)
37. Memphis (AAC)
49. Northern Illinois (MAC)
60. Georgia Southern (SB)
At-large bids:
6. TCU
7. Mississippi State
8. Michigan State
9. Ole Miss
10. Arizona
11. Kansas State
Of course, we have to be realistic here: The only way the big schools are on board with this is if they get a bigger piece of the pie. So the higher ranked team, even if not a conference champ, will host the round of 16 game:
Friday, Dec. 19 - Sat., Dec. 20 at site of higher seeded team:
1. Alabama def. 16. Georgia Southern 35-23
2. Oregon def. 15. Northern Illinois 45-27
3. Florida State def. 14. Memphis 35-27
13. Marshall def. 4. Ohio State 37-36
12. Boise State def. 5. Baylor 35-34
6. TCU def. 11. Kansas State 31-27
7. Mississippi State def. 10. Arizona 41-30
8. Michigan State def. 9. Ole Miss 27-24
Friday, Dec. 26 at neutral site bowl games:
1. Alabama def. 8. Michigan State 31-24
13. Marshall def. 12. Boise State 38-31
6. TCU def. 3. Florida State 38-35
2. Oregon def. 7. Mississippi State 43-37
Thursday, Jan. 1 at neutral site bowl games:
1. Alabama def. 13. Marshall 34-33
2. Oregon def. 6. TCU 38-37
Saturday, Jan. 10 (screw Jan. 12) at neutral site:
1. Alabama def. 2. Oregon 35-30
Wait, why did we need to get rid of the BCS again?
