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 Oklahoma State (Big 12)at #8 Notre Dame (at-large)
# 13 Texas-San Antonio (CUSA) at # 4 Ohio State (Big 10)
# 12 San Diego State (MWC) at # 5 Cincinnati (at-large)
# 14 Houston (AAC) at # 3 Oregon (Pac-12)
# 11 Baylor (at large) at # 6 Michigan (at-large)
# 10 Wake Forest (ACC) at # 7 Michigan State (at-large)
# 15 Louisiana (Sun Belt) at #2 Alabama (at-large)
The biggest change this week is that Baylor entered the field as an at-large after beating Oklahoma. Oklahoma dropped to #13 and out of the field entirely.
The Big 10 logjam of Ohio State, Michigan, and Michigan State isn’t going to sort itself out until Ohio State is done playing both teams. If Ohio State runs that table, 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, Ole Miss would currently be the last at-large.
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…..
AAC- Houston
ACC- Wake
Big 12- Oklahoma State
Big 10- Ohio STate
CUSA- UTSA
MAC- N Ill
MWC- SDSU
Pac 12- Oregon
SEC- Georgia
Sun Belt- Louisiana