[wvuauthor]

I know a lot of people on the board would like to see a playoff system, and see the BCS bid farewell...

But I have a question to bring to the forefront...

With the current system it is obvious that some teams are being left out, and a team could essentially miss a chance at the title. But my question is if they go to a 16 team playoff why does everyone think nobody will get left out.

If this happens there will be plenty of two loss teams that get left out, and three loss teams from power conferences that get in. How would this be fair?

[Lefty Noob]

First off, there will always be a question of someone being left out, just as there still is in the basketball tournament. But this way you basically ensure that any undefeated or one-loss team gets a fair crack. That said, 16 teams is too many. That couldn't work... you'd have to cut the season too much. I say go with 10 game regular seasons and 8 team playoffs. Seems ideal to me.

[wvuauthor]

I can't see that ever happening. An 8 team playoff will cause more problems than the BCS. With a format like that there would be entirely too many teams being left out; all we would see are the same teams year in and year out. At least with the NCAA tourney there are 65 slots...

[cjg11582]

There will always be teams left out but if you expand from two to sixteen then the field isn't so narrow. The most logical solution is too include all eleven conference champions and five at-large bids. If a team gets snubbed then the argument "well you should have won your games, then you would have nothing to complain about it" becomes valid. Right now a team can win all of their games and be selectively exculded from a title shot, which is asinine. But for a hypothetical, if there are four teams with two losses and there are only three available spots, then you should have won your games. And really, determining which one of four two loss teams should be shunned is not that difficult.

[wvuauthor]

It may not seem difficult to you, but it will be very hard for the committee that has to make the decision. 16 teams is simply not enough with all of the teams that are available to choose from. Especially with the mid majors becoming more prominent players.

[cjg11582]

Thats true, but if you include all conference champions that should encompass all stand out mid-majors (as well as some undeserving, but obviously its a formality). How often do we see two undefeateds from a small conference? Has it ever happened? And if you are a mid-major who has lost two games, then they are never accredited as having a great season, and thus should not be in a tournament for a national title.
If you use last year as an example, and the 11 conference champs get automatic bids, who would have been the five at large bids?
My guess is it would have been LSU, Notre Dame, OSU, and then two more between Alabama, Oregon, Virginia Tech and Auburn. Virginia Tech and Alabama probably would have been the odd men out, but Va Tech lost in embarassing fashion to Miami, and Alabama lost the last game of the season to Auburn. So I am just not sure how much of a case they have, particularly Alabama.

[wvuauthor]

I agree with that, but at the same time the BCS finally worked out last year. I guess it all comes down to the fact that regardless of what happens somebody is going to be on the outside looking in...

[cjg11582]

Definitely, but I think Auburn and Utah had much bigger complaints in 2004 than any team that would have been questionably excluded from a playoff would have had in 2005.
It is kind of ironic because College Football, much like College Basketball, is a sport that will be dependent on a playoff to determine its national champion, simply because of the sheer volume of teams competing for it. Texas and USC both went undefeated, and they both were deservedly playing in The Rose Bowl. But their regular season schedules paled in comparison to that of an ACC, SEC or Big Ten schedule.

[wvuauthor]

I agree with that..I am going to start a new thread on strength of schedule, etc...