College Football Playoff: 5 biggest flaws of the current playoff system
This season, a fifth College Football Playoff National Champion will be crowned, but this new system is far from infallible.
The College Football Playoff undoubtedly altered the landscape of the sport. Instead of simply setting up a National Championship with a matchup between the No. 1 and No. 2 ranked teams, the committee now selects the teams in the four-team playoff.
Although it has been a welcomed addition to college football, everything has its drawbacks. In honor of the fifth installment of the College Football Playoff, here is a glance at five flaws in the system that have the potential to be addressed in the future.
5. The numbers don’t add up
One strikingly apparent flaw in the system is that there are four playoff spots, yet there are five elite conferences in college football. Essentially, this means every year one, or in some cases, two Power 5 conferences will be left out of contention for the National Championship.
In its four-year run, the playoff has featured a team from each of the Power 5 conferences at one point or another. Below is a breakdown of playoff appearances by conference:
Big Ten: Ohio State (2), Michigan State
Big 12: Oklahoma (2)
ACC: Clemson (3), Florida State
SEC: Alabama (4), Georgia
PAC 12: Oregon, Washington
The SEC currently leads all teams with two champions (Alabama in 2015 and 2017). Additionally, the Big Ten and ACC both have one champion (Ohio State, Clemson). Last season, history was made as two teams from the same conference, Alabama and Georgia, participated in the same playoff.
There have been talks about expanding the playoff to at least include all five Power 5 conferences. After all, the FCS, the little brother of the FBS, has an annual 32-team playoff bracket to determine a champion, so an expansion is at least reasonable. Marcus Hartman of the Dayton Daily News reported:
"Mark Emmert fired up college football social media Wednesday morning by telling the crowd at the Sports Business Journal Intercollegiate Athletics Forum he would prefer an eight-team playoff to the current four-team setup."
While Emmert shared his thoughts on the topic, it doesn’t seem likely that the committee will be swayed towards an agreement to expand the field. So for now, the College Football Playoff will continue to remain at four teams.