12-Team Playoff On the Way; 14-Team to Follow

Expansion past four is inevitable. The revenue is too great to pass up. 

Eight seems like a better number but I guess I get why they'd want 12. 

So the top four teams would get a bye, an extra week to rest up. The other eight teams play the first round, then the winners play the top four seeds, and so on. 

Eh. Not the worst thing in the world.

 
I've resigned myself to 8, 12 is a bit much for me. I don't like bye weeks in general - never understood stacking the deck for the teams that have already shown they are probably the best. Seeding to let them play the worst teams first is enough of a reward IMO. In the NFL it does help give some meaning to late season games when teams may have clinched the playoffs but not a bye, but I don't like it in college. 

 
knapplc said:
Expansion past four is inevitable. The revenue is too great to pass up. 

Eight seems like a better number but I guess I get why they'd want 12. 

So the top four teams would get a bye, an extra week to rest up. The other eight teams play the first round, then the winners play the top four seeds, and so on. 

Eh. Not the worst thing in the world.
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And since 5-12 would play at home sites, in theory, you could have matches we've asked for, like (insert SEC or Florida school here) vs. Nebraska in Lincoln, in December, in the cold and snow.  

 
I would still prefer eight.  I think 12 is a bit much but it sure seems like that will be the "compromise".

I can see the logic about an 8-team playoff leaving less room for at-large bids.  But I think that's only on paper.  In practice, I don't think that's really an issue.  At least two if not three of the current four spots are pretty much "automatic" bids anyway, in that they go to the best conference champions.  Notre Dame would have a much better chance to make an 8-team playoff with two at-large bids than a four-team playoff with four "at-large" bids so their argument is pretty lame.  Same goes for the #2 SEC team.  And the best G5 team getting an auto bid into an 8-team playoff would pretty much handle that.

So I think 12 is probably a bit diluted but it sure sounds like that what everyone thinks it will take to do something different.

 
Presuming that would have been the bracket, though, you'd get this for a tournament:

8. Cincinnati - Winner gets Alabama
9. Georgia

5. Texas A&M - Winner gets Notre Dame
12. Coastal Carolina

7. Florida - Winner gets Clemson
10. Iowa State

6. Oklahoma - Winner gets Ohio State
11. Indiana
 

That's not a bad bracket. That's eight reasonably entertaining games before the Final Four. 

 
Not to get the cart too far ahead of the horse but it will be interesting if there are guidelines for the seeding to try to avoid rematches, at least through the quarterfinals.  Or maybe that won't be official but will just happen to end up that way.  Especially if there are three SEC teams.

 
This would probably reduce the amount of early P5 vs P5 OOC games early in the season. However, a great P5vP5 matchup in December sounds a lot better than a early season OOC game that is all hype and usually doesn't produce a great game or indicator on which team will be better later in the year. If you are going to 12 team just remove one early season game.

 
jaws said:
This would probably reduce the amount of early P5 vs P5 OOC games early in the season. However, a great P5vP5 matchup in December sounds a lot better than a early season OOC game that is all hype and usually doesn't produce a great game or indicator on which team will be better later in the year. If you are going to 12 team just remove one early season game.
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If anything I think it enables more big time match ups... more pathways to playoffs means teams arent as tied to going undefeated or losing 1 close game.  Auto locks for conf title champs enables big time programs wanting to play other big time programs early in the year to gauge where they're at and boost the resume, in my opinion.

 
jaws said:
This would probably reduce the amount of early P5 vs P5 OOC games early in the season. However, a great P5vP5 matchup in December sounds a lot better than a early season OOC game that is all hype and usually doesn't produce a great game or indicator on which team will be better later in the year. If you are going to 12 team just remove one early season game.
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I was curious about this as well.  I didn't see any mention of going back to 11 regular season games.  And I don't know if that would fly.  But "player safety" and all...

 
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