The NCAA manages college football playoffs.

The folks at ESPN are all about managing and broadcasting big-time bowl games, while making sure folks behind closed doors, using metrics hidden behind closed doors, when the stats support preconceived ideas, teasing college football fanatics five times before the final reveal.

That this season's final reveal will happen on a Day of Infamy, December 7th, is perhaps prophetic as well as ironic. I believe this could be the last, or the penultimate 😁time, college football's poohbahs allow this subjective sideshow to continue.

Thank goodness, 3-loss Texas and 2-loss Vanderbilt will not be in the playoff field.

With the committee 'snubbing' two SEC teams, and the SEC going to nine conference games next season, I think the SEC, including Commissioner Sankey, the SEC ADs, the SEC coaches, and the kids' hydrating players on the sidelines, once upon a time known as Waterboys, may be ready to support (in Sankey's case again support) Big Ten Commissioner's Tony Petitti's automatic qualifier (AQ) Playoff (PO) Plan.

ESPN was asked and agreed to extend the new PO format date from December 1, 2025, to January 23, 2026, for a reason.

Using the PO committee's final rankings tease, below is today's 16-team Petitti field. 4 B1G and SEC AQs, 2 ACC and B12 AQs, 1 G6 AQ, and 3 At Large (AL) selections.

A committee would determine the 3 AL teams, the G6 representative, and the PO seeding. The conferences would be responsible for submitting their AQ teams, and the committee would seed them in the order submitted.

On selection and seeding day, there would still be many P-Offed fans. However, the teams in the field would be more objectively chosen, and conference championship and play-in games would be contested in the final week of the regular season.

For those of you still awake 😴here's the field.

1. Ohio State - B1G 1

2. Indiana - B1G 2

3. Georgia - SEC 1

4. Texas Tech - B12 1

5. Oregon - B1G 3

6. Ole Miss - SEC 2

7. Texas A&M - SEC 3

8. Oklahoma - SEC 4

9. Alabama - SEC AL - no risk of a 3-loss Bama being left out

10. Notre Dame - AL

11. BYU - B12 2

12. Miami - ACC 1 - both Miami and Notre Dame are in, as it should be

13. Texas - SEC AL - the Horns are not hosed for battling the Buckeyes

14. USC - B1G 4 - No. 16 SC knocks out No. 15 Utah - SC's resume is better

15. UVA - ACC 2 - No. 17 UVA knocks out No. 14 Vanderbilt

16. Group of 6

6 SEC, 4 B1G, 2 ACC and B12, 1 Notre Dame, 1 G6

He wouldn't be happy about Vandy not being in, but with 6 teams in the field, and two AL bringing in millions of dollars, why wouldn't Sankey support this format?

And looking at where the ACC and B12 teams are ranked, same for these two conferences and Notre Dame.

Stay at 5 and defeat Tulane, North Texas, or JMU in Autzen! Go UGA and Texas Tech!

The more you get out of the committee's hands the better off college football will be. Of course they will deny this, but the conspiracy theorist in me says they decide who they want in the CFP then work backwards to justify it. Is ND really better than Miami? They have identical records and nearly indentical SOS, but ND gets the nod despite losing the head to head matchup. This defies logic. The "eye" test is really just a beauty contest based on who the powers that be think would draw more eyeballs.

Personally I love the play-in concept for championship weekend. The top 2 conference finishers play each other for the 1-2 seeds, #3 plays #6 for the third seed and #4 plays #5 for the fourth seed.

This year's B1G play-in games would be (caveat not sure how the tie-breakers would work):

tOSU/Indiana 1-2 seeds.

OBD/Iowa #3 seed.

USC/Michigan #4 seed.

SEC would be:

Georgia/Bama 1-2 seeds.

Ole Miss/Okiehoma #3 seed.

TA&M/Texas #4 seed.

Losers could still receive an at-large bid.

It's ridiculous that Miami would be left out in favor of JMU and Tulane, but that could very well happen. Not shedding any tears for Mario, but seriously in what world does this make any sense?

Maybe not a perfect system and should always be considered a work in progress, but if Bama loses and gets dropped out in favor or Tulane and JMU, the SEC will just blow the whole thing up.

20 minutes ago, noDucknewby said:

The more you get out of the committee's hands the better off college football will be. Of course they will deny this, but the conspiracy theorist in me says they decide who they want in the CFP then work backwards to justify it. Is ND really better than Miami? They have identical records and nearly indentical SOS, but ND gets the nod despite losing the head to head matchup. This defies logic. The "eye" test is really just a beauty contest based on who the powers that be think would draw more eyeballs.

Personally I love the play-in concept for championship weekend. The top 2 conference finishers play each other for the 1-2 seeds, #3 plays #6 for the third seed and #4 plays #5 for the fourth seed.

This year's B1G play-in games would be (caveat not sure how the tie-breakers would work):

tOSU/Indiana 1-2 seeds.

OBD/Iowa #3 seed.

USC/Michigan #4 seed.

SEC would be:

Georgia/Bama 1-2 seeds.

Ole Miss/Okiehoma #3 seed.

TA&M/Texas #4 seed.

Losers could still receive an at-large bid.

It's ridiculous that Miami would be left out in favor of JMU and Tulane, but that could very well happen. Not shedding any tears for Mario, but seriously in what world does this make any sense?

Maybe not a perfect system and should always be considered a work in progress, but if Bama loses and gets dropped out in favor or Tulane and JMU, the SEC will just blow the whole thing up.

The non B1G and SEC teams don't have to worry about losing a play-in and having to rely on getting one of 3 at large berths. This is why 24 is the better answer than 16 once you move to play-in games.