re: The simple fix to the College Football Playoffs

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None of those 3 teams are legitimate championship contenders, so I would think they're all better off in the scenario where they have the best shot at winning at least 1 game.

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I don't disagree with your thought process on this but from their point of view those teams are one less game away from the title game despite whatever slim chance they have. They only have to win 1 to get to the semis which is higher profile and payout than the quarters. ASU was a 4 and 13 away from doing this.

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Your idea might work for this year, but who knows how it will work out next year. A completely random team might be hot at the right time so anything can happen

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I struggle to see how this idea would not work in some other scenario. If a team got hot, they'd still be in, but this seeding is just the best way to make sure that the actual rankings play more of a factor in where teams get seeded to have more equitable matchups.

Redfish, if only I could upvote you 1000 times.

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My fix here is simple: the top 4 conference champions should only be guaranteed a top 8 seed, and I'm okay with still having the 5th conference champ get in.

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I think that’s better than what we have today, but I would take it a step further - don’t modify the seeds based on conference championships at all. Instead, just give conference champs home field priority in the first round.

That would have given us:

5 Notre Dame @ 12 Clemson
- winner vs. 4 Penn State

8 Indiana @ 9 Boise State
- winner vs. 1 Oregon

6 Ohio State @ 11 Arizona State
- winner vs. 3 Texas

10 SMU @ 7 Tennessee
- winner vs. 2 Georgia

To me this accomplishes a few things:
1. Teams who win their conference and finish in the top 4 are still rewarded with a bye, but without potentially getting screwed by seeding in the process.
2. In cases where a team is likely to finish top 4 regardless of conference championship outcome, they are at least rewarded with a higher seed (which is more meaningful if the rest of the seeds aren’t manipulated).
3. Teams who win their conference and finish in the 5-8 range are rewarded with a guaranteed home game.
4. Teams who win their conference and finish in the 9-12 range are rewarded with a guaranteed playoff spot (they might not make the CFP otherwise) and are very likely to get a home game.

The downside is that you can run into some oddball scenarios where one of the 4 best conference champs has to play on the road in round 1. For example: if #9 B12 champ plays @ #8 ACC champ while #12 G5 champ gets a home game. But that’s a worthwhile tradeoff, IMO, to preserve seeding.

No way in hell Penn State should have played SMU, then Boise State. That’s my main complaint. That and Oregon playing Ohio State in the second round.

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Notre Dame should be seeded ahead of both of them due to having only one loss to their two. Records matter and one loss is better than two even if that one loss is a bad loss.

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It's asinine to think losing to one shitty team is better than losing to two quality opponents.

Just go to 16 teams to help Alabama. No byes. 4 consecutive weekends no breaks get it done

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Conference champs should just fall in line like everyone else.

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Basically making conference championships irrelevant. When the championship is irrelevant, basically the conference structure itself is irrelevant. In effect, we are getting rid of one of the things that has made college football so wildly popular.

Each year there’s 2-4 teams capable of winning a natty. We’ll never have a situation where 12 teams are competitive. Even with 8 teams, that’s too many, but would work better than 12. Going to 16 would be even worse for blowout scores. However, too much money is being made with having 12 teams, so I don’t see that number getting smaller.