The College Football Playoff System: Who’s hot and who’s not?


College football’s quest for a system to determine a worthy champion has been a long one — from the traditional AP national champion to the Bowl Coalition to the BCS, and now, a four-team playoff. The playoff has been an enormous success bringing in more revenue and higher ratings. There is no question the playoff is not only a financial success but also a success for the game of college football.

In the BCS system, Florida State and Alabama would have battled it out for the national championship, but neither of those teams played in the CFP championship game. Ohio State earned the 2015 national championship more than any team that came before them. Not only that, but the success of college football in America is also due largely to the stakes of every game to the national championship picture, and the intensity of every game throughout the first season of the college football playoff was through the roof.

Nonetheless, this still begs the question of whether four teams are enough to determine a true champion. During the first year a playoff was held, the lowest seed in the field won the championship. Those, such as former football player Mark May, say that college football just got a new system and needs to give it at least several years. Others say it must expand to eight teams eventually, but what about six?

History shows that four teams are not enough to determine the best team in college football at the end of the regular season, and there were several No. 5 and No. 6 teams in history that were in the running for the best college football team that season. TCU fans and Baylor fans would agree with that statement. This past season’s TCU’s team only lost at No. 5 Baylor and walked over No. 9 Ole Miss team in the Peach Bowl. Baylor had the best win of any of the top 6 teams beating TCU. Both these teams were, without a doubt, part of the discussion of the best teams in America by the end of the season.

Furthermore, after the 2013 season, No. 5 Pac-12 champion Stanford and No. 6 Big 12 champion Baylor were in the running for the best teams that season. The year before that No. 5 Kansas State won the Big 12 and would have been in the national championship game if it was not for an awful performance at Baylor, and No. 6 Stanford was without a doubt one of the hottest teams to end the season and was the only team to beat No.4 Oregon. These are all championship-caliber teams that never got a chance to compete for a national championship.

The playoff should thus be expanded to six teams, but eight teams in a playoff might be too much and would dilute the stakes of the college football regular season. This year’s No. 7 and 8 teams were Michigan State’s and Mississippi State Teams. In all, Michigan State beat Jacksonville St., Eastern Michigan, Wyoming, Nebraska, Purdue, Indiana, Michigan, Maryland, Rutgers and Penn State while losing to national champion Ohio State and runner-up Oregon. Their best win had been against a mediocre Nebraska team only four of these teams were bowl eligible. Mississippi State beat Southern Miss, UAB, South Alabama, LSU, Texas A&M, Auburn, Kentucky, Arkansas, UT Martin and Vanderbilt, but lost to SEC champion Alabama, who earned a playoff berth, and No.9 Ole Miss. Their best win were against No. 19 Auburn and No. 23 LSU.

There is no doubt the two are good teams, but both had chances to prove their worth against championship-caliber teams yet failed. Putting teams like these in a playoff takes away from the intense every-game-counts atmosphere that college football has thrived on. Teams would not have to win games against top 10 teams, but just beat the Nebraska’s and Auburn’s of this year to make the playoff. Regular season top 10 or top 5 matchups would not be played for a spot in the playoff but simply determine the seeding of the teams. If teams like Michigan State and Mississippi State can afford to lose to teams inside the top 20 and beat the rest of the opponents on its schedule, the intense atmosphere of every college football game goes away, and the sport changes from every game counts to most games count.

Fielding a playoff is not just about determining the teams with the best bodies of work and best resumes, but as Ohio State shown this year, it’s about finding the hottest teams at the end of the season. As a result, I would put forth the argument for a six-team playoff. Several sports in the NCAA use it already (such as water polo). It is the perfect way to maintain the intensity of the college football season while at the same time discovering a true champion while expanding the revenues, ratings and the intensity of the college football season.