Personally, I think 8 is more than enough. Top 7 plus the highest G5 member. When you get to 12 or 16 teams, you're talking about 4+ weeks of games to decide a champion. With injuries and other factors (travel for fans, shorter times to book flights) it just becomes messy. It's not like basketball where teams can turn around and play in two days. Leave it at 8 and you can decide a champion in 3 weeks or less depending on the time format.


Another idea is to have a G5 playoff that competes with NCAA College Playoff. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure the stability of this but we would have to create an atmosphere that is way cooler than the current playoff format but somehow affordable. I'm not sure how to do that but I would love to see it. The G5 committee could scrap bowl games and form our own playoff. If the G5 playoff occurred this year, do you think we make the top 8 in G5 playoff? I know UCF and Memphis would probably be #1 and #2.

And the fact that Akron finished ahead of us in the MAC. No way there would be 3 MAC teams in an 8 team playoff.

A G5 playoff ain't gonna to happen, and it's a ridiculous idea, IMHO.

However, an eight team playoff structured this way is a possibility, I think, and would satisfy nearly everyone:

1. All P-5 championship teams get an automatic berth
2. Committee selects two at-large P5 teams.
3. Committee selects best G-5 team, unless no G5 team in top 25.

If seems to me that this is fair to everyone: More P5 teams get in that currently. A G5 representative is virtually assured every year. All FBS teams can say they are potentially playing for a national championship as each season begins. Some, of course, have a more realistic chance than others -- just like in D1 basketball.

Your concept relegates G5 to "second fiddle." Of course, with huge budgets, the P5 will claim they are more realistic contenders. But it's a chicken-and-egg argument: If the playing field were perfectly leveled (ala EVERY conference champ gets a seed), then the power will be spread more evenly across all teams. If the P5 ALWAYS has a better opportunity for the championship, then better recruits, better fanbases, etc will ALWAYS flow to those teams first. The G5 will ALWAYS be a long shot.

I don't like that scenario. Having said that, I like 8 better than 4, but to me that's a small consolation.

There is so much more to the dominance of the P5 than just access to the playoffs. It starts with large stadiums and attendance revenue, media deals, in the case of the B10 schools and some others, large nationally spread out alumni bases, history, most often a position as a state flagship or respected private university. To think that by somehow allowing an 8-3 Troy team to fly off to Tuscaloosa or Columbus and get disemboweled in a first round playoff game will suddenly erase everything else and make G5 schools masters of the foosball is wishful thinking.

OCF has a realistic plan that would give the G5 a shot every year. If they start winning on a regular basis, then I think you can talk about expanding it. That, however, is still not going to create the mythical level field that you think it will. It'll probably just amp up the spending by schools that can't afford what they're already spending.

Again, chicken-and-egg. Better access to championships begets better everything, better recruits, better fanbase, better income, and on and on and on.

If you say to a set of teams, you're second-fiddle and don't get those perks. Guess what happens?

I love that UCF is declaring themselves the national champions. They are giving themselves a trophy, holding a parade at Disney World and paying the coaches a bonus for going undefeated.