Howdy Ags,
Here's a playoff structure I've been thinking about one that respects strength of schedule, doesn't penalize teams for playing in elite conferences, and still opens the door for everyone with a legitimate claim.


The Core Format:

• Top 24 teams get into the playoff
• Rankings based on a composite average of the AP and Coaches Polls (50/50 weighting)
• The Top 8 seeds are made up of the winners and runners-up from the Power 4 conference championship games (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC) but only if they played at least 10 Power 4 opponents out of their 12 regular season games
• These 8 teams earn first-round byes
• Seeds 9 - 24 play a wildcard round at campus sites
• The 8 winners from the wildcard round then face the 8 bye teams in a seeded Sweet 16

Game Count Fairness:

• Regular season = 12 games
• Wildcard teams play Game 13 in Round 1
• Power 4 finalists play Game 13 in their Conference Championship
• When the Sweet 16 begins, everyone has played 13 games clean and fair.

Draft Playoff Timeline
Here's how it could line up with the current college football calendar:

Week Event
Week 14 (early Dec) Power 4 Conference Championship Games + Wildcard Round (Seeds 924)
Week 15 (mid-Dec) Sweet 16 Bye teams join bracket
Week 16 (late Dec) Elite 8 / Quarterfinals
Week 17 (early Jan) Semifinals (neutral site)
Week 18 (mid-Jan) National Championship

Key Points:

• First-round and Sweet 16 games are on-campus.
• Neutral sites kick in for quarter finals, semis and finals (Rose, Sugar, Orange, etc.)

Merits of This Format:

• Respects tough schedules: Power 4 Teams playing 10+ Power opponents and reaching their title game earn a rest and are not pushed for playing in their Conference Championship game
• Wildcards fight their way in: G5 teams, independents, and strong third-place teams still have a path
• Conference title games matter again: Win or even reach the final and it means something
• Keeps regular season meaningful: Still only 12 games before playoffs
• No fake parity: Doesn't treat 13 - 0 Liberty the same as 10 - 2 Alabama

Curious to hear what others think. Feels like something close to this is inevitable may as well make it make sense.

What do you have against it?

You have to give all the conferences an auto bid.

It's not good for college football for all the good teams to be in the same conference. Incentivize talent to spread out. Make the cupcake games pre season. Play 8 conference games for seeding and then start the playoffs.

Too many teams.

Who?mikejones! said:

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12 should be the absolute max but I prefer 8

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I think 12 is enough but thats not counting throw away teams, like G5 or best of top 5 conferences and the ridiculous SOS formula. I don't see that ever going away so I prefer 16 to account for thr throw away spots

I'm ok with the 24 team field, however, it's time
For some consistency in scheduling for the P4. The easiest solution is that they only play 12 conference games. No more nonconference games. This would almost guarantee some degree of schedule balance. I like the concept of the early December championship games and the 8 wild card
Games occurring at the same time but logistically it would
Be messy since the hosts would find out on a Sunday that they were hosting a game 6 days later. Same with the visiting teams. ND and other independents would have to join a conference or be stuck without a bye opportunity which is fair. A committee could still rank the teams but under fixed rules for 9-24, but it will be hard to get everyone to agree to the new approach.

Built on strength: a team that lost 4 times gets a shot at the natty

12 team playoff, 6 best from SEC and 6 best from BIG.

Really all you need.

When we had 4 teams, there was one or two "left out.". Now we're at 12 and there's 2-4 teams with a car that they're being left out. At 24 there's going to be another 4-6 that can make the case their being left out.

Well the #15 team in the country can in theory take down the #1 . Any given Saturday, that's why we play the game. I get that. But the #15 team is NEVER going to make it through a 4 game bracket. They might get a win here or there, but they won't win.

Go look at the seedings in the MBB brackets. The bottom seeds do not win! 12-16 have never won.

We've already increased the season by 25%. So create 2 12 team brackets and let's say you manage to get a Cinderella AP #24 that wins their side, they're not going to pull that off AGAIN. Look at the current rankings. Put evens in one basket, odds in the other. So you REALLY think #24UNT is going to beat any two of the top 5-6 two weeks in a row???

Farmer_J said:

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You have to give all the conferences an auto bid.

It's not good for college football for all the good teams to be in the same conference. Incentivize talent to spread out. Make the cupcake games pre season. Play 8 conference games for seeding and then start the playoffs.

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No, you actually don't have to hand out auto-bids like Halloween candy.

The Power 4 are the ones driving the revenue, the TV deals, and the schedules that actually matter. They're making the rules whether we like it or not.

In my model, the Power 4 champs and runners-up get the eight byes because they survived a full 13-game grind against Power-4 competition. They earned it.

The other 16 spots go to the remaining ranked teams. If a non Power 4 team is legit, they'll rank in the Top 24 and get their shot in the wild card round. Nothing stops them. But nobody (beside the Power 4 Conferences) get a free golden tickets just because their conference exists.

Oh, and if Notre Dame wants a first-round bye, they can join a Power 4 conference like everyone else.
Otherwise, they can play in the wild card round and they will have their shot. If they rank high enough, they can even host one. Seems fair to me.

If you want in, earn it on the field same standard for everybody.

Who?mikejones! said:

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12 should be the absolute max but I prefer 8

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I get the appeal of 8 or 12 anything is better than the old 2- or 4-team setup. But the problem with capping it there is that the Power 4 championship games get devalued, and those games are massive revenue drivers. They should mean something.

Right now, teams that make their conference title game are effectively punished: they play an extra heavyweight game while teams sitting at home get to rest and sometimes even leap them in playoff positioning. That makes no sense.

My proposal fixes that. The teams that reach a Power 4 championship game champ and runner-up earn automatic byes into the Sweet Sixteen. They're rewarded, not penalized, for actually winning their league or playing their way into the top two.

It keeps the conference championships relevant, keeps the money games meaningful, and creates a playoff structure that actually aligns incentives with performance.

This is the cleanest way to protect what matters and expand access without watering down the product.

Relying on any polls doesn't fix anything. It's still just a popularity contest. All you've done is add more teams.

No more than16. Anything more seems like a lot.

G5 team shouldn't be allowed on the playoff. They aren't gonna win it. Wasted spot

Playoff proposal threads. Autoban. Right to jail

clominac said:

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Howdy Ags,
Here's a playoff structure I've been thinking about one that respects strength of schedule, doesn't penalize teams for playing in elite conferences

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Stopped reading here. Literally no other conference has any incentive to change the current structure. You really think the Big 10/12 or ACC is going to say "you know what, we should give the SEC more credit because that conference is way harder than ours"?

TexAg2019 said:

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clominac said:

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Howdy Ags,
Here's a playoff structure I've been thinking about one that respects strength of schedule, doesn't penalize teams for playing in elite conferences

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Stopped reading here. Literally no other conference has any incentive to change the current structure. You really think the Big 10/12 or ACC is going to say "you know what, we should give the SEC more credit because that conference is way harder than ours"?

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If you'd read the full post, you'd see this proposal doesn't ask other conferences to give the SEC "more credit" it gives every Power 4 conference equal incentive.

Why? Because the top 8 seeds and the only teams getting byes are made up of the winners and runners-up of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC championship games. So that's two teams from each Power 4 (assuming they've played at least 10 Power 4 opponents). That means the Big Ten and ACC benefit just as much as the SEC under this format.

Everyone else including strong third-place SEC/B1G teams, G5 champs, and independents goes into the wildcard round. Those 16 teams are seeded based on rankings whether you use a committee or a simple average of the AP and Coaches Polls (my suggestion to keep it clean and transparent, like March Madness seeding).

This format:

• Protects the value of conference championship games
• Keeps strength of schedule meaningful
• And gives the Big Ten, ACC, and Big 12 just as many first-round byes as the SEC

It's not about boosting one conference it's about rewarding the toughest playoff paths, no matter which conference you're in.

Hell, why stop at 24? Make it 130!

TexasAggiesWin said:

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Hell, why stop at 24? Make it 130!

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Is that really fair to the other 6 teams? We'll never know what they could've done if the committee hadn't kept them out.

No. Too stupid to even entertain. Must be some thirteen year old proposing this.

Johnny Boyziel 2 said:

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I think we won't stop seeing posts like this until there is a 134 team playoff.

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134 team playoff:

Round 1: everyone plays 12 games of unequal difficulty
Round 2: top 12 teams from Round 1 (top 4 get bye)
Typical bracket to get champions

Nailed it.

And of course the question needs to be asked; is the ACC really a "P" conference?

Johnny Boyziel 2 said:

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I think we won't stop seeing posts like this until there is a 134 team playoff.

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Come on. Make the regular season mean something. Limit the playoffs to the top 133 teams.

infinity ag said:

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No more than16. Anything more seems like a lot.

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I don't think so. In my format it only takes five postseason games to crown a national champion and that's the same for everyone.

Here's the structure:

• Game 13: Power 4 Championship Games + 16-Team Wild Card Round
• Game 14: Sweet 16 (8 Power 4 title-game teams + 8 Wild Card winners)
• Game 15: Elite Eight
• Game 16: Semifinals
• Game 17: National Championship

Now ask yourself: how many postseason games do teams already play today if they reach a Power 4 championship game and then make a deep playoff run?

Worst-case scenario today looks like this:

• Game 13: Conference Championship (runner-up, not a top-4 seed but still selected for the playoff)
• Game 14: Playoff Round 1
• Game 15: Elite Eight (top 4 seeds + 4 Round-1 winners)
• Game 16: Playoff Semifinal
• Game 17: National Championship

Here's the bigger issue: under the current format, a team that avoids a Power 4 championship game can win a national title in 16 total games. Meanwhile, a team that plays in the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, or Big 12 title game loses, but still makes the playoff will have to play 17 games to win it all.

So a 17-game season is already possible under the current system.

In other words, losing your conference championship game and still making the playoff means an extra elite game, extra injury exposure, and extra wear and tear while other contenders sit at home, rest up, and join the same bracket.

My model fixes that by rewarding the Power 4 conference championship participants with automatic byes into the Sweet 16, instead of punishing them for playing in their title games. It keeps those games meaningful and ensures everyone reaches the Sweet 16 with the same 13 total games played.

It's not an overload it's simply a more logical and fair way to structure the postseason.

aggiehawg said:

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No. Too stupid to even entertain. Must be some thirteen year old proposing this.

Why not a 134 Team Playoff?

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My proposal results in a national champion playing 17 games which is exactly one more than what's typical under the current 12-team playoff. Also, a 17-game season is already on the table today for any team that plays in a conference title game and enters the playoff outside the top four -- see the post above.

So let's not act like this is some unprecedented assault on college football. It's literally adding one postseason game to fix a structure that already has built-in inequities.


Calling that "stupid" doesn't make it so. It's actually the opposite it increases revenue, levels the competitive playing field, and finally rewards Power 4 championship teams instead of penalizing them for showing up.

If your threshold for "too much football" is one additional game when the current system already allows it then I'm honestly not sure what logic you're using. Please explain.

Now, about the "134-team playoff" joke and the "must be thirteen years old" line:

Cute, but neither has anything to do with the proposal. I'm Class of '91 I've been watching this sport evolve for longer than some posters here have been alive and the model is a straightforward, structured bracket. You don't have to like it, but at least take five seconds to understand it before firing off drive-by sarcasm -- that is 13 year old behavior.

If someone has a real argument against the mechanics seeding, scheduling, incentives, fairness let's talk.
But dismissing it without reading it isn't analysis. It's just avoiding the conversation.

No AP and No coaches poll. AP plays favorites, don't watch, are too stubborn to make dramatic changes, consider "name brand" into SOS, consider viewers into SOR, and most weigh under 190lbs.

clominac said:

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Farmer_J said:

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You have to give all the conferences an auto bid.

It's not good for college football for all the good teams to be in the same conference. Incentivize talent to spread out. Make the cupcake games pre season. Play 8 conference games for seeding and then start the playoffs.

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No, you actually don't have to hand out auto-bids like Halloween candy.

The Power 4 are the ones driving the revenue, the TV deals, and the schedules that actually matter. They're making the rules whether we like it or not.

In my model, the Power 4 champs and runners-up get the eight byes because they survived a full 13-game grind against Power-4 competition. They earned it.

The other 16 spots go to the remaining ranked teams. If a nonPower 4 team is legit, they'll rank in the Top 24 and get their shot in the wild card round. Nothing stops them. But nobody gets a free golden ticket just because their conference exists.

Ohand if Notre Dame wants a first-round bye, they can join a Power 4 conference like everyone else.
Otherwise, they can play in the wild card round. If they rank high enough, they can even host one. Seems fair to me.

If you want in, earn it on the field same standard for everybody.

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SEC and B1G are the ones with extra power granted by the other Div I FBS teams. Big 12 and ACC have about 1/rd the power of either of the Big 2.

Also: Suggesting major changes or conference realignment doesn't entitle one to a serious response since it vid not a serious proposal. HTH.

4 was plenty

Diluting the pool is for money

Stop falling for it

LatinAggie1997 said:

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No AP and No coaches poll. AP plays favorites, don't watch, are too stubborn to make dramatic changes, consider "name brand" into SOS, consider viewers into SOR, and most weigh under 190lbs.

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Thanks for actually reading the idea seriously. If you don't like AP or Coaches Poll inputs, that's fair. They have well-known flaws: bias, inertia, name-brand weighting, and voters who don't watch enough football. No argument there.

But one way or another, all 24 teams still have to be seeded.

In my format, Seeds 1 - 8 come from the Power 4 championship results (winners get Seeds 1 - 4, runners-up get Seeds 5 - 8). But even then, someone has to determine the exact order of those eight and that same "someone" must also seed the Wild Card teams (Seeds 9 - 24).

So whatever method is used a committee, a transparent formula, or a hybrid like the NCAA basketball tournament it simply has to be consistent across all 24 seeds.

Once the bracket is set, it's straightforward:

• Seed 1 gets the winner of 23/24
• Seed 2 gets the winner of 21/22
• And so on

Clean, predictable, and decided on the field.

The goal here is simple:

• Reward the Power 4 appropriately (they set the structure and play the toughest schedules).
• Keep the Power 4 conference championships meaningful.
• Give deserving nonPower 4 programs a real path.
• Give Power 4 teams that miss their conference title game a real path as well.
• Create a postseason that's competitive, fair, logical and actually worth playing for. (Right now bowl games are a joke with half the roster opting out.)

If you have a preferred seeding mechanism, I'd genuinely like to hear it because that's the one part of the model where multiple approaches could work.

12 - 16 teams according to an updated transparent BCS ranking and its fixed.

jamey said:

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Who?mikejones! said:

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12 should be the absolute max but I prefer 8

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I think 12 is enough but thats not counting throw away teams, like G5 or best of top 5 conferences and the ridiculous SOS formula. I don't see that ever going away so I prefer 16 to account for thr throw away spots

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12 is already too much. You have freaking two loss non power five teams getting in and a 3 loss Bama team.