FTFY: The Eight-Team Playoff

You would watch the shit out of this.

The Playoff Committee has done a good job of selecting the top four teams so far. (Admittedly, events transpired so that the Committee hasn't had to make tough decisions for the final rankings. 2014: Baylor or TCU? Oh look, Ohio State destroyed Wisconsin in the Big Ten Championship. 2015: What happens if North Carolina beats Clemson or Florida beats Alabama? No worries because they didn't.) And the team that comes out of the playoff unscathed unquestionably looks like the best team in the country.

But both years have seen:

• A pair of teams in the same conference where Team A has won the head-to-head but Team B looks like the better all-around team, (Baylor/TCU in 2014, Michigan State/Ohio State in 2015);
• One of the Power Five conferences necessarily excluded because numbers (Big XII in 2014, Pac-12 in 2015); and
• A Group of Five team that demonstrated they can compete against Power Five teams but that will never, ever be invited to the four-team playoff (Boise State in 2014, Houston in 2015).

Can you look at those teams and honestly say that they didn't have a chance of winning the Championship or that they didn't deserve to compete for one?

So why don't we expand to a six- or eight-team playoff? Here are the reasons proffered, and here are why they're wrong:

• "More playoff games would take a physical/academic toll on the players." Guess what? The FCS has an 11-game regular season and a 24-team playoff. That means that a team that doesn't have a first-round bye in the playoff could play 16 games, just as many as an FBS team that plays 12 regular-season games, a conference championship, and three games in an eight-team playoff. I see no reason why Sam Houston State can do it, and Alabama cannot.
• "Adding postseason games would diminish the importance of the regular season." I don't know how you can say that when you would have to have a 10-2 record or better to get into an eight-team playoff and even that wouldn't necessarily be enough to get in. And if you think that two 11-0 teams are going to rest their starters during rivalry week because they're already guaranteed a spot in the playoff, you are outside your damn mind.
• "Adding playoff games would diminish the importance of the bowl tradition." I would argue that letting 5-7 teams go bowling and having three dozen versions of the Your Brand Here Bowl diminishes the bowl tradition, but hey, that's me. We already have seven games that are more important than the rest (the New Year's Six + the Championship). You know how many games you need for an eight-team playoff? Seven.

So here's my proposal. Keep rotating the semifinals among the New Year's Six, and make the other four games quarterfinals (except play those on a Saturday at least a week before New Year's). Higher seeds get their historical bowl tie-ins. (e.g., the Big Ten and the Pac-12 get the Rose Bowl, etc.) The best Group of Five team gets an autobid. You could have a rule that says each Power Five conference champion gets an autobid or a rule that says no conference gets more than three teams in the playoff. I would rather give the Committee some flexibility on this front; they would include conference champions anyway unless they were truly unworthy. (Imagine if USC beat Stanford in this season's Pac-12 Championship; would the 9-4 Trojans really merit a spot?)

So there you go: An eight-team playoff that includes the Group of Five, doesn't automatically exclude a Power Five conference, lets Baylor-TCU/MSU-OSU type questions get settled definitively on the field, and respects the bowl tradition at least as much as the current system. What's not to like?