College Football Playoff: Should we expand the tournament?

Improve Your Strength of Schedule or Win Your Big Games .

Teams could help their case by scheduling stronger opponents or winning games against ranked opponents early.

Exhibit A. The Western Michigan Broncos. The Broncos finished the regular season undefeated at 13-0 and as Mid-American Conference Champions. But they had zero wins over a ranked team entering bowl season.

Despite the 12th ranking in the AP Poll, their strength of schedule was 107 out of 128 teams this season. Even though they finished the regular season undefeated, their level of competition wasn’t worthy of any notice. Granted they played Big Ten opponents Northwestern and Illinois this season. But both teams finished 2016 with a combined record of 9-15.

The Broncos will need to reach a bit higher in scheduling in 2017. They face the USC Trojans and Michigan State Spartans on next year’s slate so they certainly got the memo.

Exhibit B. The Penn State Nittany Lions. The Nittany Lions finished the regular season 11-2 despite winning the Big Ten Championship. They won nine straight games entering bowl season but started the year 2-2. They lost 42-39 to Pittsburgh and 49-10 to Michigan, otherwise sleepwalking early through the season. Ironically, they finished how the season how they started.

Penn State lost to the USC Trojans 52-49 surrendering 17 points in the fourth quarter. They led 49-35 entering the fourth quarter. They made the Playoff Committee look smart for leaving them out of the mix with their epic collapse. The Nittany Lions went 2-2 against ranked opponents in 2016.

Going forward, teams will have to answer the challenge early. As one-loss puts teams on ice while two-losses possibly leaves them on the outside looking in every time.