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University of Mississippi

Enough of eight. Four teams is the right number for the Playoff

Dan Wolken
USA TODAY Sports

Guessing what year the College Football Playoff expands to eight teams is practically a sport within a sport by now, having started the moment the four-team playoff was conceived and rising almost to the level of foregone conclusion after Year 1.

College Football Playoff executive director Bill Hancock talks openly about whether the playoff is going to get bigger.

Hardly anyone in the industry except Playoff executive director Bill Hancock talks seriously about whether the playoff is going to get bigger, only when: At the end of the 12-year CFP contract, halfway through or maybe sometime even sooner?

Lost in that conversation, however, is such an obvious truth that emerged definitively last winter. The conference commissioners got it right the first time when they settled on four, and there's no reason to change anytime soon. Take it from someone who railed on the old BCS and used to be certain that eight was the right number: The current playoff setup is as close to perfect as college football is ever going to get.

It's easy to see why eight is alluring.

There are, after all five power conferences and currently just four spots in the semifinals, meaning each year one of the big boys is going to get left out. Heaven forbid independent Notre Dame gets in or one league happens to have two of the four best teams in the country and you could occasionally end up with two or even three power conferences outside the national championship picture.

Plus, last year showed the imperfection of a four-team playoff when the committee chose Ohio State for the fourth spot over Baylor and TCU. With very little separating those three teams, two of them felt as though they didn't get the fate they deserved. The fact Ohio State went onto win the title lends credence to the idea that TCU or Baylor might have been capable of doing so as well.

TCU would have been in an expanded playoff last season.

But here's where I have trouble with the practical application of an eight-team playoff. Last year, there's no question Baylor and TCU would have been No. 5 and No. 6, which would have been great. But for the final two spots, the selection committee would have been choosing between Mississippi State, Michigan State, Ole Miss and Arizona.

Did anyone really need to see a playoff that included Michigan State and Ole Miss? Never mind that three of those four teams lost their bowl games. Even in the first week of December, you would have been hard-pressed to find anyone arguing anyone from that group legitimately deserved a shot at the national title. And understanding that very basic point hammers home the biggest difference between college football and the NFL: A year when eight teams could actually win a playoff would be exceedingly rare.

Last year, the cut-off point was six. That's probably about right. Some years, it may be five.

The question then becomes whether it's better for college football to have a more exclusive playoff that leaves out one or two "deserving" teams on occasion or a bigger playoff including two or three teams that have no shot.

In the end, the sport is better served by the way it played out in 2014: Two semifinal matchups featuring legitimate heavyweights who had the benefit of three weeks to prepare and recuperate from the grind of the regular season.

It doesn't mean eight would be disastrous. There's money to be made in an extra round of playoffs, and it wouldn't necessarily diminish the regular season. Conference championships would still matter, ensuring a lot of relevant games played in November. And the idea of quarterfinal games being played on college campuses means getting home-field advantage would be paramount.

But is the upside so much better than what we got last year to justify the physical cost of requiring players to win one more tough game on the way to a championship?

Forget the academic calendar or the impact on the bowl system, which are constantly cited by opponents of playoff expansion: Requiring a team to play 16 games is simply a bad idea when you consider the amount of wear-and-tear on these supposed amateur athletes already.

"You can't," Ohio State coach Urban Meyer said on the "Dan Patrick Show" a few days before the national title game. "You better give us 110 scholarships then, because you're down. I can't speak for Oregon, I can speak for Ohio State. When (the NCAA capped rosters at) 85 scholarships, there were 12 games. Now there's 15. And the last three they added aren't against smaller — they're heavyweight prizefights. You just can't do it."

Meyer's point is well-taken. To win a national title in this system, most teams will have to play a rivalry game in the final week of the regular season, a conference championship game (except for the Big 12) against a quality opponent, then beat two of the four best teams in the country. In an era when administrators are trying to make rules that reduce time demands on athletes and enhance player safety, adding another tough, physical game doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

Which isn't to say it can't or won't happen. But the trigger for change won't be a controversy over someone getting left out or even necessarily the money (if that was the paramount issue, they'd already be at eight).

As we speak, a shift is taking place in the power structure of college sports. SEC commissioner Mike Slive recently retired. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany is 67 and the ACC's John Swofford is 66. Even the Big 12's Bob Bowlsby, one of the newer commissioners, will be 64 in a few months. As they cycle out, their positions will be filled by younger people who are less tied to tradition and the bowl industry and might have an entirely different paradigm on what the playoff should look like.

The evolution will happen naturally, not suddenly. After seeing the success of the first College Football Playoff, however, it doesn't need to happen at all.

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