@It Takes Eleven According to the AP, there will be no distinction between the 10 FBS conferences.
The new format will take out some of the subjectivity over how the field is selected. The selection committee that currently chooses the so-called four best teams isnāt going away. But six spots in the 12-team field will be reserved for the best (as chosen by the selection committee) conference champions. There will be no distinction between the 10 FBS conferences. At least not officially.
And this is by all means very encouraging.
āI donāt know how this plays into the whole landscape of college athletics,ā said Keenum, who heads the group of university leaders that oversees the playoff.
While enthusiastically announcing plans to expand the College Football Playoff, those in charge of the postseason system downplayed the revenue windfall that will come with tripling the number of participants and declined to speculate about whether a new format will tap the breaks on conference...
apnews.com
The Game of the Century, that in-season matchup of highly ranked teams with seemingly everything on the line, has gone from being a staple of college football to an endangered species. The 12-team playoff will now make it extinct and redefine what it means to play an important regular-season game.
Letās use last yearās Ohio State-Michigan game as an example. The Wolverines not only broke a long losing streak in the rivalry, but they eliminated the Buckeyes from both Big Ten and playoff contention.
Under a 12-team playoff, that game is for seeding and a first-round bye.
The flip side is that under the new format, any team that enters the final month of the season with a chance to win its conference is a playoff contender.
Think back to last Thanksgiving Day weekend, with Ohio State-Michigan and Oklahoma-Oklahoma State basically playing elimination games and Alabama facing Auburn with playoff hopes in peril.
That was pretty great.
Now what if Wisconsin-Minnesota, Michigan State-Penn State, Oregon-Oregon State and three different Atlantic Coast Conference games involving Clemson, Wake Forest and North Carolina State also had playoff implications?
For some fans, that sounds even better. For others, those teams are just watering down the field.
āWhat motivated the presidents and me as well was that we need to have an opportunity for more participation of teams in our nationās national championship tournament,ā Keenum said. āAnd having only four teams, we felt like thatās not fair to our student-athletes from a participation standpoint.ā
That's what the point has been all along. It's not about an improved product, it's about placating teams that aren't good enough; they participated.