As you say, it has to be about the hottest team at tournament time. The best team at week 1 may not be the best team at tournament time.
Zero defense that such a playoff format does not diminish the importance of the regular season. When you can lose four or five games… Nearly half of your games… And still make it, the regular season means nothing.
I don't think the fans would stand for a season with only 4 or 5 home games if you didn't make the playoff.
Yeah, it will be much better to watch those 6 to 8 teams bludgeon 10-16 other above average teams for a couple weeks before the real games begin among those 6 to 8 teams to determine who is the national champion.The four-team echo chamber so you get to watch the same 6-to-8 teams until the end of time?
Success begets success.
Year after year, the best recruits naturally gravitate to the best teams.
With the NIL now in full gear, these teams are also be the ones with the most money to spend on recruits. (big attention/big marketing $$$ pull)
It's no coincidence that they started expanding the playoffs once the NIL hit.
The powers-that-be knew how blantantly lopsided the system had become.
Every team got 12 or 13 games to prove its mettle - same as now. The fourth spot was disputed some years but nobody who CLEARLY should have been in there got neglected. All we are in the process of doing is making deserving teams risk injury and expend energy by playing woefully bereft pretenders and diminishing the importance of the regular season in the process. This is profitability ahead of actual progress.The four-team echo chamber so you get to watch the same 6-to-8 teams until the end of time?
Success begets success.
Year after year, the best recruits naturally gravitate to the best teams.
With the NIL now in full gear, these teams are also be the ones with the most money to spend on recruits. (big attention/big marketing $$$ pull)
It's no coincidence that they started expanding the playoffs once the NIL hit.
The powers-that-be knew how blantantly lopsided the system had become.
Why haven't teams like TCU, Cincinnati, Michigan State, Boise State, Arizona State, Indiana, SMU and Washington see huge gains in recruiting after their CFP appearances? Being in the playoff doesn't create recruiting excellence, it is the result of recruiting excellence. Teams like Bama, UGA, Clemson, Ohio State and Oregon recruit well because they work hard at it and know how to attract top players, not because they have been in the playoff. The top teams also have long traditions of winning and being selective in which players they pursue and that attracts top talent as well.
Those champions were derived over a 15-game process. There was no miscarriage of justice. And going forward, the legacy programs are going to be the legacy programs. They'll just have to wade through a little more crap to get to where they're going and the crap gets to feel better about itself.
I understand what you are saying but I don't agree with your premise. You are making an argument for "systemic bias" where none exists.
What's happening with the CFP is the same was what happened with bowl games, just at an accelerated rate. The 1960 bowl schedule featured 8 games for D1 teams. That means you had top 25 teams not going bowling. You could have a really good year and not make a bowl. Over time it eroded to include teams who had good years, pretty good years, ok years, and now just flat-out bad years. There have actually been teams with losing records to make bowls. What started out as a reward for a very good season has been degraded to a required bare minimum accomplishment. Making a bowl used to mean you had an excellent season. Now it only means you don't completely suck (and, frankly, that's even completely true any longer).
I understand exactly what you are talking about. There have been and always will be advantages some teams have that others don't, 4 team playoff and NIL not withstanding. The only way there will ever be a truly level playing field would be if college football went full socialist and pooled all revenue from all teams and then divided it evenly among all P4 programs and instituted a draft of HS players with the worst performing P4 teams getting the earliest picks (notice any resemblance to any other football league here?).
Saban retired because of the portal, not NIL. Bama has recruited just fine in the NIL era. Saban didn't pitch any fit, he was very classy about retiring.
Clemson dominates the ACC and the ACC champ is an automatic qualifier. It wouldn't matter if the playoff was 4 teams, Clemson is getting in.
Saban didn't want NIL, no coach wanted it, but the portal was the catalyst for him retiring. He didn't want the playoff expanded, neither did I, but he didn't retire because of playoff expansion. If anything, playoff expansion would have ensured that Bama made the playoff every year under Saban. They never finished outside the top ten when he was the coach and the media Bama love would have made sure they were in the playoff every year.
