College Football Playoff: 5 biggest flaws of the current playoff system

3. The “one-loss precedent”

Speaking of a depreciating value of a conference championship, enter Penn State. In 2016, the Nittany Lions won the Big Ten Championship Game, making them the overall Big Ten Champions. That should have resulted in an automatic bid into the playoff, right?

Wrong.

In this watershed decision, the committee passed on a precedent to affect the future of the College Football Playoff. Effectively, this indicated the refusal on the committee’s part to grant a team a spot in the playoff despite winning one of the most competitive conferences in all of college football.

The dilemma, in this case, was bound by the number of losses Penn State had that season. Even though the Nittany Lions defeated Ohio State, the committee acted and denied Penn State a playoff spot. A quick recap of that year: Ohio State got into the playoff as a one-loss team. The only seemingly applicable explanation for this decision– Penn State was a two-loss team in the regular season.

Not only are conference teams in jeopardy because of this but so are certain independent squads. One such team is Notre Dame. Last season, the Fighting Irish were primed for a playoff push with a promising 8-1 record. Despite an early loss to an eventual playoff team in Georgia, Notre Dame would have most likely been a playoff team. Then it got thoroughly dismantled by Miami in a blowout loss, which ultimately eliminated them from competing in the playoff.

College football teams are now on a short leash. The committee has established a standard that taking two losses results in a team losing control of its playoff destiny, making the magic number one.