I like an 8 team championship tournament. Going off of last season, it would have looked like this.
Teams
P5 SEC champ Alabama 12-1
P5 Big Ten champ Michigan 12-1
P5 Big 12 champ Baylor 11-2
P5 ACC champ Pittsburgh 11-2
P5 Pac 12 champ Utah 10-3
G5 at large - ACC champ Cincinnati 13-0
2 at large bids -
at large - Independent Notre Dame 11-1
at large - SEC runner up Georgia 12-1
New Playoff Ranking/Seeding & tournament
1. Alabama vs 8. Georgia (winner vs Pitt/Utah winner)
2. Michigan vs 7. Notre Dame (winner vs Baylor/Cincy winner)
3. Baylor vs 6. Cincinnati
4. Pittsburgh vs 5. Utah
5. Utah
6. Cincinnati
7. Notre Dame
8. Georgia
- Georgia is the only team that did not win conference, thus 8th place
- Notre Dame is the only team with no conf title game, thus 7th place
- Cincinnati is the only G5 team, but did win conference, thus 6th place
- Utah won the pac, P5 conference, record indicates 5th place
- Pitt won the ACC, P5 conference, record/schedule indicates 4th place
- Baylor won the Big 12, P5 confr, record/schedule indicates 3rd
- Michigan won the Big Ten, P5 conf, record/schedule indicates 2nd place
- Alabama won the SEC, P5 conf, record/schedule indicates 1st place
This literally took me just 15 minutes to compose as a concept. It would be great and pretty much wide open. Possibly flipping Baylor & Pitt, but still. All 5 P5 conferences representing in the tournament. I don't care if one team had 3 losses or not. A G5 team gets in. 2 at large bids. If Notre Dame had lost 2 games, maybe tOSU gets in instead? But in this case, that did not happen.
May the best team win