There were 40 bowl games played, plus the National Championship game to make 41 Total post season games.
If the college football postseason were changed into a 48 team playoff, there would be a total of 47 games played. So that would add slightly to the # of postseason games played & it would actually determine a champion & give the rest of the bowl game/play off games meaning as well, since every team could still win. Use something like the current system to determine the best 48 Division 1 football teams regardless of conference, higher seeded team awarded home field advantage.
Personally I think 48 teams is too much, but I think this actually makes more sense than the current bowl system
I know this is getting into the weeds of the discussion, but I always have a problem with how "seeding" is determined, especially when it yields distinctive advantages such as home field, byes, etc. Like has been discussed in other threads, there is too small of a sample size considering the quantity of teams to make a hardline decision (and yes, I realize this is a decades'-old predicament).
Out of 130 teams, you're really splitting hairs when comparing teams within a few spots of each other. Once you qualify for the playoff, all advantages should be mitigated except where there is a fundamental requirement for an advantage to be given (ie, location of the game).
Here's an idea, whether this means breaking off the P5 or not, so be it...
- Have a field large-enough to capture all of the conference champions, plus a few at-large spots for the balance of the field (to get to 8, or 16).
- Put the conference champion automatic qualifiers in one pool "A" and at large teams in the another pool "B".
- Random draw one team from each pool for first-round matchups, with the caveat that there can be no first-round rematches of previous games or of two teams from the same conference (like the NCAA basketball tournament does).
- The teams from Pool "A" host the teams from Pool "B".
- Inevitably, the number of conference champions will not be exactly half of the field. If just the P5 are automatic qualifiers, then in an 8-team playoff, one team will have to play on the road in the first round. In this case, draw a team from Pool "A" prior to any teams being paired for first-round matchups and designate that team as a Pool "A" road team to be selected as a Pool "B" team for first-round purposes. Likewise in a 16-team playoff, if just P5 champions are automatic qualifiers, then randomly draw three non-champions to host first-round games.
Maybe in the draw, treat it like the NBA Draft lottery using some type of analytics metric (FPI or whatever) to weight teams such that a dominant team from Pool "A" has less of chance of being selected as the designated Pool "A" road team for the first round in an 8-team playoff or more dominant Pool "B" teams have a better chance of being selected as designated Pool "B" home teams for the first round in a 16-team playoff.
This is a very simplified version of what tennis does when they seed and draw.
