re: Wouldn't an eight team playoff just shift the controversy down a few rankings?

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Sure, but we all know an 8 team would be way better. I just wish they would've let the BCS rankings determine the 4 or 8 teams, not a stupid committee.

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I don't know that an 8 team playoff would be way better. I believe it would be substantially worse.

Here is the way I look at it: let's roll back the clock to circa 1991. Now at the end of a given season, there might be have been some controversy as to who the best team in CFB was. The 1991 season was a prime example of this as there were compelling arguments for both Miami and Washington. But in any given year, for almost a hundred years, there was never a single year where there were 4 teams that had a decent argument to be national champions.

And so keep the question just as it was pre-BCS and BCS predecessors: who is the best team in college football? This is the question that the BCS was created to help answer more definitively, and that the current CFP has arisen to make sure it is answered even more definitively.

Now I personally think the BCS was fine, and answered the question in most years. But there were some years where a third team had a decent argument (I can't think of a year where a fourth team had a decent argument). And to accommodate those years, we've created a four team playoff.

But when asking, at the end of the season, "who is the best team?" never ever ever in the long and storied history of college football have more than 4 teams had a decent argument as being the best in CFB for that given year. And, as such, any playoff larger than 4 teams is completely superfluous. Absolutely unnecessary. It adds nothing to the table, and in fact takes much off of the table in the form a further devalued regular season , and a playoff consisting of shitty teams that have zero chance of winning.

I think this argument is straightforward and persuasive. In other words, I don't think there is even a decent argument that an 8 team playoff is a good idea.