I like watching them too. I just think determining national championship contenders and watching a game for enjoyment are not the same thing. If the goal is to crown the best team as the national champion then I don't think the path to doing that is to create as many games as possible. If the goal is strictly entertainment, then heck yeah, let's play a 64 team tournament running all the way through February.
What is "the best" team? Is one team "the best" team every week of the season, every quarter of each game? No way.
Was Clemson "the best" team when they lost to Syracuse?
Oklahoma when they lost to Iowa State?
Was Iowa State "the best" team during a 4 week stretch when they backed up their Oklahoma road win by routing Kansas, then Texas Tech, and then giving #4 TCU their 1st loss of the season?
Penn State when they routed Michigan to get to 7-0?
How about Miami (Fla.) when they smoked #3 Notre Dame 41-8 to get to 9-0?
Leach's Washington State Cougars after they beat #5 USC, then won at Oregon the next week to go to 6-0 (6-0 also included a win against a good Boise State team in their season opener.)?
Was Alabama "the best" when they squeaked by a pretty average Mississippi State team in the final seconds?
Maybe a 2 loss Auburn team was "the best" when they smoked #1 and undefeated Georgia and then backed that up by handling #1 and undefeated Alabama 2 weeks later?
You could argue that all of those teams mentioned were "the best" team at that moment. Yeah, Iowa State sounds preposterous. I mean, it's IOWA STATE. But, that was one heck of an impressive stretch! The point is,
there is no "the best" team from Day 1 of the season to the final poll. No team is "the best" team every week. Some teams look like "the best" team a lot of weeks. I would say Auburn looked like "the best" team, or potentially the team playing the best, before they lost to Georgia in the SEC Championship by 21 points. After that loss most people wouldn't consider them to be playing the best or looking like "the best" team. Go figure. It constantly changes.
Let's take the Clemson loss at Syracuse and add some hypothetical stuff to give another angle. Their QB was hurt if I remember correctly when they lost to Syracuse. What if Clemson had all sorts of injuries to start the year and lost to Auburn and at Louisville as well? However, following the Syracuse loss, they got everyone back and won out including crushing Miami (Fla.), like they did, in the ACC Championship game. They would be playing as well as they are in reality but would have 3 losses on their resume. The team that is #1 in the College Playoff this year wouldn't be playing in the playoff because of 3 losses due to injuries earlier in the year. People could argue that they are playing the best right now and could compete with "the best", but, sorry, they lost 3 games when the team was decimated with injuries. They're out. Even though the won the Atlantic Division and crushed Miami (Fla.) in the ACC Championship game.
What if Baker Mayfield wins the Heisman and decides to sit out the playoff so he doesn't risk injury and his draft position? Nothing indicates that he is going to do that but if he did Oklahoma probably would not be looking like what some would argue is "the best" team going into the playoff.
Infinite scenarios throughout the year influence our perception of who is "the best" even though in many cases it will never be definitively known.
We will know WHO wins the 4 team playoff after the games are played. That's about it. We'll know who won it. Maybe a month from now Auburn will beat UCF by 75 points and a lot of people will think they are "the best" again. They arguably would be...for that day.
So, instead of SUBJECTIVELY (It is
100% subjective the way these teams are picked.) picking teams that "are the best" to play in a 4 team tournament, lets give the champions of all the conferences a chance to play in one tournament to see who wins. That is all it will do. Entertain us and and let us watch and see who wins. Just like the 4 team playoff is going to do in a smaller, less inclusive, totally subjective way. The very important difference is that 15 of the 16 teams in my proposal, will be chosen using HARD OBJECTIVE criteria. Win your Division if you are from a Power 5 conference. Win your Conference Championship if you are Group of 5.
Only one of the teams will be a subjective at large choice of the committee. It gives them one instance to handle a situation like Alabama or Notre Dame ($$). The tournament would likely include a great majority of very good teams from the 'Power 5 conferences', and would CERTAINLY include the 'Group of 5' teams that won their respective conferences.
"Upsets" may happen. Syracuse-like, Iowa State-like, and Washington State-like results may happen. Or, put another way, teams that everyone didn't think were "the best" would be "the best" for a game, or two, or three, or four (!!) and it would be a ton of fun to watch. Of course, maybe all of the top seeds would "hold serve" all throughout the tournament. That would be fun to watch as well because it is likely that at least some of them would be severely tested along the way. Sometimes by teams no one would have ever dreamed would test them. In the end, no matter what happened along the way, someone would eventually win it. Making them "the best" against their opponents for 4 straight games. Just like Iowa State was this year...
