Perfecting the College Football Playoff: The Six Team Proposal

By Shea Raftus

Twitter: @realsheatheone

The first playoff has been set and there’s already a lion’s share of controversy. Admittedly, as a life-long Ohio State fan I am happy with the result. However, I do feel these four teams are the correct four teams bias aside. This debate has been beaten to death however over the past few days so I decided instead to focus on a solution that I think is perfect for college football: The six team playoff. Many are clamoring for eight, but I believe that is one too many and would reward non-deserving teams. I’ve been a proponent for six teams for years. No system is perfect but this system provides the closest thing to it. Amid this controversy, I felt like this would be a great time to layout my six team playoff for proposal for college football.

The Criteria:

1. Each conference champion gets an automatic bid IF they have two CONFERENCE losses or less. This criteria does a few things: First, it doesn’t penalize teams for scheduling tough out of conference or reward teams for scheduling cupcakes. Second, it removes teams who have stumbled multiple times but happened to win the conference championship game get rewarded on one game and not a whole season. Third, it guarantees most conference champions of a bid.
2. Having two losses does not eliminate you from the competition however. The only thing it does is remove your automatic bid. The at large teams will then go to the committee who will not only rank the conference champions but choose the at large teams. In most years, the 2 loss conference champion will get in based on
3. After the eligible conference champions are ranked and the at large teams are chosen, the top two ranked conference champions will receive an automatic bye into the semi-finals. The third and fourth ranked conference champions will then get home games the weekend following championship weekend versus the lowest ranked conference champion and/or the at large team(s). The winners will play in the semi-finals against the top two teams with the winners of those games playing the championship game. Automatic conference champions will always host a playoff game or have a bye unless they are the lowest ranked conference champion.
4. The location of the semi-finals and the championship game will rotate between five locations: Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas, Sun-Life Stadium in Miami, Florida, and the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California. During years where these locations are not used for the semi-finals or championship game, these games will be the locations of the rest of the “Big 6” major bowls that we currently have. As you can see with these locations, each conference is represented with a neutral site location in their area.
5. Notre Dame with one loss or less will be treated as a conference champion. In years where all conference champs meet the automatic bid criteria, a Notre Dame team that meets these criteria would take the place of the at-large spot.

The Case Study:

Obviously, much of this can’t be done without a case study. I’ll go back and use the past four years as a case study including this year and do my best to assume what the committee will pick (*-denotes automatic bid).

2014:

1. Alabama*
2. Oregon*
3. Florida State*
4. Ohio State*
5. Baylor*
6. TCU

This year actually would have worked out perfect for my system. All the conference champs met the criteria and TCU was clearly the best at-large team. Alabama and Oregon would receive the first round byes while Florida State and Ohio State would host Baylor and TCU respectively the weekend following the end of the regular season.

2013:

1. Florida State*
2. Auburn*
3. Stanford*
4. Michigan State*
5. Baylor*
6. Alabama

Again, the system works perfectly. All five conference champions met the criteria and Alabama clearly at the end of the regular season would have been the best at-large choice.

2012:

There are two variations of this year because in most years an eligible conference champion would not be ineligible according to the NCAA, so there’s an “If Ohio State was eligible” and a “If they weren’t” case study for this particular year.

If OSU Eligible:

1. Notre Dame*
2. Alabama*
3. Ohio State*
4. Stanford*
5. Kansas State*
6. Florida State*

With OSU being ineligible it would have been:

1. Notre Dame*
2. Alabama*
3. Stanford*
4. Kansas State*
5. Florida State*
6. Florida

I know for this year you may ask, “Where’s Oregon?” As impressive as they looked, they didn’t win their conference championship or even their own division. And when looking at comparing the resumes, the committee would have certainly picked one loss Florida with four top twelve AP wins in a much stronger conference over Oregon.

2011:

1. LSU*
2. Oklahoma State*
3. Oregon*
4. Alabama
5. Stanford
6. Wisconsin

There was a ton of controversy in 2011 with the whole rematch fiasco, but my system works to a tee here. As you can see, the three conference champions that meet the criteria get rewarded get in, while the two conference champions that did not make the criteria (Wisconsin and Clemson) are up for selection by the committee. Clemson likely would not have been chosen due to the ACC being a poor conference along with having three losses. Wisconsin does get it in but loses their right to host a playoff game because of their two conference losses. Alabama and Stanford both get ranked ahead of the Badgers due to both playing in a much stronger conference, both having stronger resumes and a better out of conference schedule (Wisconsin’s was very poor that year).

As you can see with the rules and criteria laid out along with the four-year case study, this system does a bunch of good things:

1. Rewards conference strength while also guaranteeing worthy conference champions a spot. The byes and the hosting of the first round of playoff games are examples of this.
2. It doesn’t penalize teams for scheduling marquee out of conference games. With only conference games counting in the automatic bid criteria that the system establishes, teams are free to load up on marquee games that could help get them a first round bye or a home playoff game in the committee’s eyes without being penalized. Less Northwestern State and Georgia Southern, more USC and Alabama.
3. It still allows worthy non-conference champion teams a shot at the title. Worthy at large teams such as Alabama in 2011 and 2013 and TCU this year would get a shot at a national championship while still rewarding the merit of conference champions by giving worthy conference champions home games and byes.
4. It eliminates unworthy conference champions such as 3-loss Clemson in 2011.
5. It still keeps the value of the regular season. If you just go back and look, there are tons of teams ranked number 7 or 8 in years past that had no reasonable argument to compete for a national championship at the end of the year. Going to eight would not only devalue the best regular season in all of sports but also reward the unworthy.

No system is perfect. However, this system provides the most positives and the least amount of negatives and would solve most legitimate qualms of our current system and systems of the past. And that is about all you can ask for in a sport such as college football that has the most amount of subjectivity involved in by far.