Cleanest way to do it IMO with the current conferences is to guarantee winners of the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12 and PAC 12 automatic playoff berths.  Add 3 at large berths and guarantee one of the 3 to any of the smaller conferences who produce an undefeated team.  There’s always going to be an odd man out, but this playoff format guarantees every team has a path to the championship.  Right now, UCF has beaten every team they’ve played and deserves a system that gives them an opportunity.  I think they’d probably lose against better competition, but they as a team and we as an audience deserve to see how it unfolds.

Undefeated AND have beaten at least 2 teams in the Top 25.  This will prevent UCF, USF, and Memphis from scheduling teams like FAMU & Samford as automatic out-of-conference wins.

I don’t think you need the extra qualifier.  It’s not like going undefeated in any conference is easy or that the smaller conferences are routinely pumping out undefeated teams.  If they are cream puffs what does it matter?  They’d likely draw the 1 seed in the 1st round and wouldn’t advance, but what if they did?  

Secondly, we shouldn’t be bending over backwards to excuse teams for not winning their conference.  The system I outlined has room for 3 conference runners up, but what if it were only 2 or god forbid 1 in a season that produced an undeafeated small conference team or two?  The late season rankings are still arrived at from the starting point of the pre-season rankings which are just a an average of the voters opinions.  The system I outlined has a clear path for each and every team to overcome a wrong opinion.  If you add in your qualifier, you’re effectively still penalizing a team for coming from a small conference just like the current system does. 

If you’re going to have an extra qualifier, I’d say maybe just have a requirement that at least one or two of a small conference team’s out of conference opponents needs to come from the power 5 conferences.  I wouldn’t even care if they scheduled a team like Vandy or Duke.  They have no control over what their opponents’ rankings are and shouldn’t be penalized for that if they wind up undefeated considering the rankings are opinion based.  I’m not trying to suggest that the rankings are routinely wrong, I just believe it’s important that every team knows at the beginning of the season that if they take care of their business the system can’t screw them.  And with an 8 team playoff, there’s room for an occasional undeafeated small conference team to get in the mix every once in a while.

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I would say Alabama has to be in. You cannot put a two loss Ohio State team in the playoffs when just a couple of weeks ago, they were destroyed by Iowa to a tune of 31 points. Putting them in would make a mockery of the system. I hate seeing Alabama in the playoffs virtually every year, but this season there is simply no way around it. Oklahoma, Clemson, Georgia and Alabama are the teams that deserve to be in the playoffs. I would put UCF in the playoffs, before I would put Ohio State in.

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I would say Alabama has to be in. You cannot put a two loss Ohio State team in the playoffs when just a couple of weeks ago, they were destroyed by Iowa to a tune of 31 points. Putting them in would make a mockery of the system. I hate seeing Alabama in the playoffs virtually every year, but this season there is simply no way around it. Oklahoma, Clemson, Georgia and Alabama are the teams that deserve to be in the playoffs. I would put UCF in the playoffs, before I would put Ohio State in.

Who has Alabama beaten? The only reason they are in the conversation is because they’re Alabama and they were ranked high in the preseason.

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I would say Alabama has to be in. You cannot put a two loss Ohio State team in the playoffs when just a couple of weeks ago, they were destroyed by Iowa to a tune of 31 points. Putting them in would make a mockery of the system. I hate seeing Alabama in the playoffs virtually every year, but this season there is simply no way around it. Oklahoma, Clemson, Georgia and Alabama are the teams that deserve to be in the playoffs. I would put UCF in the playoffs, before I would put Ohio State in.

Who has Alabama beaten? The only reason they are in the conversation is because they’re Alabama and they were ranked high in the preseason.

Preseason rankings don't matter.  The committee isn't supposed to look at polls.

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Scouting well is all that matters.  Draft philosophy is all fluff.

I would say Alabama has to be in. You cannot put a two loss Ohio State team in the playoffs when just a couple of weeks ago, they were destroyed by Iowa to a tune of 31 points. Putting them in would make a mockery of the system. I hate seeing Alabama in the playoffs virtually every year, but this season there is simply no way around it. Oklahoma, Clemson, Georgia and Alabama are the teams that deserve to be in the playoffs. I would put UCF in the playoffs, before I would put Ohio State in.

I kinda think Alabama is better as well.  But what is the committee looking at, who they think the best team is or who has the better resume?  I believe they are supposed to go with best team, but that doesnt mean they will. If they are going by resume, Alabama's chances took a hit yesterday.  Losing to SEC champion Auburn would have looked better than losing to 3 loss maybe top 10 Auburn.  And Fresno St, who was top 25, lost in their conf championship game as well.  Ironically both Auburn and Fresno St lost in rematches to teams they beat earlier this month.  I imagine if Bama got to play Auburn in a rematch on a neutral field with RB Johnson injured, that Bama would probably win and we'd be considering them a lock.  And in Fresno's case they had to play the championship game on Boise's campus in what was essentially a road game.  And I'm not sure the committee will give them credit for the Florida St win.  Basically played that whole game with Francois.  And if he had been healthy all year, FSU probably wins 9 games and finishes top 25 as well.  Ohio St will clearly have a better resume in terms of wins having beat Wisconsin and Penn St who will both finish 10.  But that loss to Iowa is a killer.  No way Alabama loses by 30 to a team like that.  Iowa finished 7-5 this year... they should have easily lost to Ohio St and finished 6-6.  The only 6-6 team on Bama's schedule is Ole Miss.... imagine the Tide losing that game by 30.  They would be immediately disqualified. As far as looking at the whole resume that losses negates a lot of the positives from the two top 10 wins.

Add it all up I think you can make a strong case that Ohio St's resume is stronger even with the additional loss and the terrible loss to Iowa.  But Ohio St's resume isnt stronger necessarily because of what they did as much as how the schedule played out.  My hunch is the committee doesnt want to take two teams from the same conference and since the argument between Ohio St and Bama is so close, that they'll go with Ohio St.  But a lot of folks were convinced last year that conference championships mattered, and Ohio St got in without one.

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Scouting well is all that matters.  Draft philosophy is all fluff.

I also think we view Bama as being better than they really are right now. Too bad we can't have a play-in game next week with Bama vs OSU @ Everbank Stadium !!

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Clemson, bama, Georgia, Oklahoma. I think they got it right.

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Coughlin when asked if winning will be a focus: "What the hell else is there? This is nice and dandy, but winning is what all this is about."

8 team playoff, all 5 power champions get in automatically + 3 at large, one of which has to be the best non power 5 team. Make the change already.

A playoffs that had these 4 plus Ohio State, UCF, USC, and Wisconsin would be so dope.

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8 team playoff, all 5 power champions get in automatically + 3 at large, one of which has to be the best non power 5 team. Make the change already.

A playoffs that had these 4 plus Ohio State, UCF, USC, and Wisconsin would be so dope.

I agree with this except for the best non power conference team requirement...  Sometimes they all suck.

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8 team playoff, all 5 power champions get in automatically + 3 at large, one of which has to be the best non power 5 team. Make the change already.

A playoffs that had these 4 plus Ohio State, UCF, USC, and Wisconsin would be so dope.

I agree with this except for the best non power conference team requirement...  Sometimes they all suck.

The non-power five already get a guaranteed New Years Bowl, even if none of them are undefeated, and they have won 3 out of 4 of these games.  So, more often than not, they do not "all suck."

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Undefeated AND have beaten at least 2 teams in the Top 25.  This will prevent UCF, USF, and Memphis from scheduling teams like FAMU & Samford as automatic out-of-conference wins.

I don’t think you need the extra qualifier.  It’s not like going undefeated in any conference is easy or that the smaller conferences are routinely pumping out undefeated teams.  If they are cream puffs what does it matter?  They’d likely draw the 1 seed in the 1st round and wouldn’t advance, but what if they did?  

Secondly, we shouldn’t be bending over backwards to excuse teams for not winning their conference.  The system I outlined has room for 3 conference runners up, but what if it were only 2 or god forbid 1 in a season that produced an undeafeated small conference team or two?  The late season rankings are still arrived at from the starting point of the pre-season rankings which are just a an average of the voters opinions.  The system I outlined has a clear path for each and every team to overcome a wrong opinion.  If you add in your qualifier, you’re effectively still penalizing a team for coming from a small conference just like the current system does. 

If you’re going to have an extra qualifier, I’d say maybe just have a requirement that at least one or two of a small conference team’s out of conference opponents needs to come from the power 5 conferences.  I wouldn’t even care if they scheduled a team like Vandy or Duke.  They have no control over what their opponents’ rankings are and shouldn’t be penalized for that if they wind up undefeated considering the rankings are opinion based.  I’m not trying to suggest that the rankings are routinely wrong, I just believe it’s important that every team knows at the beginning of the season that if they take care of their business the system can’t screw them.  And with an 8 team playoff, there’s room for an occasional undeafeated small conference team to get in the mix every once in a while.

Any requirement like that has to be reciprocal.  It takes two to tango. If you require the non-power five teams to schedule a game against a power five team, you should also require the power five teams to all schedule them.  The 'Bamas of the world will try to schedule the most cupcake non-power five team that they can, and succeed, so that a CFP buster like UCF or Houston will always end up with a Vandy or a Maryland on their schedule instead of an FSU or Auburn, but if you make the requirement mutual at least all of the teams will match up.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

I've long said it (painfully so as a Gator homer) Bama fully healthy is the best team in the nation led by probably one of the best college coaches/recruiters to ever step foot on the field.
That D is legit year in and year out and even in a down year they are still tops in a lot of categories.

What Bama lacks is that stud QB, they've never had one, they've never needed one.
If they had one that was like a Watson, or a Winston... imagine how ridiculously unstoppable they'd be.

The argument of "who did they play" holds water for teams in weaker conferences. But the SEC as a whole, in a down year, is better overall than most conferences.
They open the season against contenders and Power 5 schools like Michigan, FSU, WVU... then they for the most part dominate teams to the tunes of 27-6.

I understand hating success when you're a fan of a team that doesn't do so well (see Jags v Pats, I hate Brady, but respect what they do up there as a franchise)
I really don't get all the Bama/SEC hate. They prove year in and year out they aren't soft, they play tougher schedules than most teams, and they are in the dance just about every season. Aside from being salty that "Loser University" isn't as good, why hate on Bama?

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I've long said it (painfully so as a Gator homer) Bama fully healthy is the best team in the nation led by probably one of the best college coaches/recruiters to ever step foot on the field.
That D is legit year in and year out and even in a down year they are still tops in a lot of categories.

What Bama lacks is that stud QB, they've never had one, they've never needed one.
If they had one that was like a Watson, or a Winston... imagine how ridiculously unstoppable they'd be.

The argument of "who did they play" holds water for teams in weaker conferences. But the SEC as a whole, in a down year, is better overall than most conferences.
They open the season against contenders and Power 5 schools like Michigan, FSU, WVU... then they for the most part dominate teams to the tunes of 27-6.

I understand hating success when you're a fan of a team that doesn't do so well (see Jags v Pats, I hate Brady, but respect what they do up there as a franchise)
I really don't get all the Bama/SEC hate. They prove year in and year out they aren't soft, they play tougher schedules than most teams, and they are in the dance just about every season. Aside from being salty that "Loser University" isn't as good, why hate on Bama?

Speaking of the Gators and also the Bama QBs.  Do you remember the day when Tebow announced he was heading to Florida and not Bama ?  I listened at 5pm on 1010xl that day and was happy about the decision.  Now think about this ..... So, I heard Tebow actually reached out to Percy Harvin and got him to chance his decision from Va Tech to UF and then as the story goes, they won 2 championships.   Bama on the other hand had a terrible season and fired Mike Shula and hired Nick Saban.  Looks like the Tebow decision was ultimately a win-win for both UF and Bama.

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I've long said it (painfully so as a Gator homer) Bama fully healthy is the best team in the nation led by probably one of the best college coaches/recruiters to ever step foot on the field.
That D is legit year in and year out and even in a down year they are still tops in a lot of categories.

What Bama lacks is that stud QB, they've never had one, they've never needed one.
If they had one that was like a Watson, or a Winston... imagine how ridiculously unstoppable they'd be.

The argument of "who did they play" holds water for teams in weaker conferences. But the SEC as a whole, in a down year, is better overall than most conferences.
They open the season against contenders and Power 5 schools like Michigan, FSU, WVU... then they for the most part dominate teams to the tunes of 27-6.

I understand hating success when you're a fan of a team that doesn't do so well (see Jags v Pats, I hate Brady, but respect what they do up there as a franchise)
I really don't get all the Bama/SEC hate. They prove year in and year out they aren't soft, they play tougher schedules than most teams, and they are in the dance just about every season. Aside from being salty that "Loser University" isn't as good, why hate on Bama?

Speaking of the Gators and also the Bama QBs.  Do you remember the day when Tebow announced he was heading to Florida and not Bama ?  I listened at 5pm on 1010xl that day and was happy about the decision.  Now think about this ..... So, I heard Tebow actually reached out to Percy Harvin and got him to chance his decision from Va Tech to UF and then as the story goes, they won 2 championships.   Bama on the other hand had a terrible season and fired Mike Shula and hired Nick Saban.  Looks like the Tebow decision was ultimately a win-win for both UF and Bama.

I wouldn't trade those 2 championships for anything... even if it meant Bama's soon to be dominance lol
But yeah I remember...
Unfortunately for Gator country, Meyer bounced out leaving the cupboards pretty bare on the offensive side of the ball and it ain't got right since.

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