Last year I presented my idea for a better playoff. I’ve tweaked it a little this year to add a 14 team option instead of 16 team. Basically it’s 4 rounds, conferences champions all get automatic bids, with a couple of at-large teams.
Conference Champions
First things first, let’s look at who is getting the automatic bids into our tournament.
| AAC | Houston |
| ACC | Clemson |
| Big XII | Oklahoma |
| Big Ten | Michigan State |
| Conference USA | Western Kentucky |
| MAC | Bowling Green |
| Mountain West | San Diego State |
| Pac 12 | Stanford |
| SEC | Alabama |
| Sun Belt | Arkansas State |
At Large Spots
So we’ve got 10 conference champions that leaves us 2 or 4 at large spots, depending on the playoff format.
I’m not even going to bother trying to make my own rankings here. The playoff committee goes deep enough to use their rankings to determine who makes the playoff. Adding a couple of extra teams here so you can see who just misses out on making the playoff.
- Iowa
- Ohio State
- Notre Dame
- Florida State
- North Carolina
- TCU
Ranking the Field
So that gives us our field of 12 to 14 teams. Mostly based on CFP rankings, and doing it myself for some of the lower seeded teams.
| 14 Team | 12 Team |
|---|---|
| 1. Clemson | 1. Clemson |
| 2. Alabama | 2. Alabama |
| 3. Michigan State | 3. Michigan State |
| 4. Oklahoma | 4. Oklahoma |
| 5. Iowa | 5. Iowa |
| 6. Stanford | 6. Stanford |
| 7. Ohio State | 7. Ohio State |
| 8. Notre Dame | 8. Houston |
| 9. Florida State | 9. Bowling Green |
| 10. Houston | 10. San Diego State |
| 11. Bowling Green | 11. Western Kentucky |
| 12. San Diego State | 12. Arkansas State |
| 13. Western Kentucky | |
| 14. Arkansas State |
The Brackets
