8 Team College Football Playoff That Involves 11 Teams Is Actually Quite Good
By Jason McIntyre
Troy Calhoun, the Air Force coach, floated an interesting college football playoff theory in the Gazette over the weekend, and although it sounds crazy, hear him out:
"1. ACC champ 2. Big Ten champ 3. Big 12 champ 4. Pac-12 champ 5. SEC champ 6. Wild card 7. Wild card 8. Group of Five playoff winner That Group of Five playoff would consist of four entrants. He didn’t specify how those four would be determined. Maybe it would be the top-rated champions among the Group of Five. Maybe the top rated regardless of conference."
No argument on the five conference champs. I’ve long been on the wild card idea. The “playoff winner gets the 8th seed” is pretty fascinating. My first issue is when those “play-in” games would be played. Two games would put the 8th seed at a significant disadvantage in their 1st round game.
In a hypothetical, this would have been last year’s 11 teams if I had a vote:
Play-In Games:
Wisconsin vs Louisville
Florida State vs Oklahoma
First Round:
1 Alabama vs 8 Play-in Winner
2 Clemson vs 7 Penn State
3 Ohio State vs 6 USC
4 Washington vs 5 Michigan
But I’m all for hearing more about chopping worthless games off the regular season – pay-to-play, million dollar games against Direction State University – and extending the postseason.
Tell me more, Troy Calhoun!
I don’t want to hear anything else from Colorado coach Mike MacIntyre. He actually said this in the article:
"The bowls are still the pageantry of college football and something I think keeps communities involved in college football. Once you take that out, then I think you’ll see a lot of communities fall away from college football and they’ll keep turning to pro football, I really do.”"
Hey Mike, what “communities” are those? This would assume, of course, that those football fans don’t like the NFL. Also, reminder: Saturday football doesn’t conflict with Sunday football.
Lastly, terrible use of “pageantry.” If exhibition bowl games around the holidays are pageantry, then the sport’s got much bigger problems. In order: The Playoff, the regular season, and then, pulling up the rear, are the exhibition bowl games.