They will continue to soldier on with their conference tie-ins, though I would suggest they should all move to holiday break and/or the dead time between the championship game and the last playoff game. One or two weeks of solid bowl games with known dates will do wonders for visibility and attendance.
I think conference championship games will now get way more attention. The storylines of say a #10 team in the polls thinking theyre in and then a conf title game upset happens and that chews up a guaranteed spot is compelling. For instance, what if Nortwestern converted one of those turnovers last year and ended up beating an ohio state team that NW defense had in check for a large part of the game? Or the pac 12 title game that most of the nation hasnt paid any attention to in recent years because its either an oregon/utah team or a 3 loss team from the south going for it now gets way more exposure with an automatic tie in.
That’s a good point. Expanding the playoffs may very well contribute towards more parity. I’m still not totally convinced that 12 teams is better than 8. It seems all 12 does is provide more of an unneeded advantage to the top 4 if they will be receiving a round 1 bye. If we’re trying to make it as difficult as other sport’s playoffs then all teams involved should start at the same point. But maybe 12 does provide some added opportunity for some group of 5 or mid major programs and maybe that is a good thing.
I don’t disagree but like I originally said, I’m pretty ambivalent about however they do the playoffs.....at least until Nebraska starts getting somewhere near the discussion.
Over the past 2-3 years or so, I've only watched regular season CFB and a handful of bowl games. Haven't watched much of the CFP due to the lack of parity.