re: The expanded 12-team College Football Playoff is here — and it already has problems.

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The best thing about a 12 team playoff is that we are now arguing about who gets a bye instead of who gets in.

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But perhaps the most pressing issue sure to arise with the new 12-team bracket is a lowly ranked G5 champion’s inclusion pushing out a power league team ranked in the top 12. Only three times in the last 10 years would the top 12 ranked teams have all made the field.

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In 2022, Tulane, ranked No. 16, would have advanced into the playoff as the Group of Five’s highest-ranked champion. The 12-seeded Green Wave would have pushed out 12th-ranked Washington. In 2019, No. 15 Memphis, the G5’s highest-ranked champion, would have gotten a bid over Notre Dame, Penn State and Utah.

In 2015, Navy would have earned the G5 bid into the field as the No. 21st-ranked team in the country. Last year, No. 23-ranked Liberty would have gotten in (Oregon beat that team 45-6 in the Fiesta Bowl, by the way.)

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The selection committee will be faced with the real possibility that no G5 team — even its best champion — is ranked. The question emerged during the bracket exercise, and Hancock confirmed that the protocol is for the committee to choose the best G5 champion among the five league winners — a G5 ranking of sorts.

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