Remember last year, when I was beating the drum for a 16-team College Football Playoff? Let’s do it again.
If you need a refresher, take a look at last week’s version. But the short version is this: In my playoff scenario, all ten conference champions automatically make the tournament. The field is then rounded out with six at-large teams. Independent schools would be eligible to make the field as an at-large selection.
With that outta of the way, what would the bracket currently look like under this system? This.
# 16 Northern Illinois (MAC) at # 1 Georgia (SEC)
# 9 Mississippi (at-large) at # 8 Baylor (at-large)
# 13 Texas-San Antonio (CUSA) at # 4 Cincinnati (at-large) )
# 12 San Diego State (MWC) at # 5 Michigan (at-large)
# 14 Houston (AAC) at # 3 Ohio State (Big 10)
# 11 Utah (Pac-12) at # 6 Notre Dame (at-large)
# 10 Pittsburgh (ACC) at # 7 Oklahoma State (Big 12)
# 15 Louisiana (Sun Belt) at # 2 Alabama (at-large)
The Big 10 logjam of Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State sorted itself out when Ohio State demolished the Spartans. If Ohio State beats Michigan, it would open up more spots in this hypothetical playoff for other 1- or 2-loss teams.
The Cincinnati/Houston deal won’t fix itself until Cincinnati has finally played as many conference games as Houston. They wouldn’t play each other until the AAC title game, presumably in Cincinnati. Assuming Cincinnati were to win that game, Oklahoma would currently be the last at-large.
The bottom five spots have been pretty consistent the last few weeks. It is almost certain that in this format, at least this year, the MAC team would be fed to the top seed.
I again point out how all of this would be much more satisfying than the current fiasco we’re looking at in the real world where the Powers That Be will figure out a way to keep Cincinnati out of the playoff, even if they finish 13-0…..