Here Is Why The College Football Playoff Is Perfect The Way It Is.

After years of college football fans begging for a playoff format to replace the National Championship game being selected by the sportswriters, 2014 delivered the inaugural four-team College Football playoffs.

After ten years of this process, it was clear that the playoffs were the future of the sport, but it needed to be expanded to more than four teams.

Thus, four became twelve, which seems like the ideal amount for ensuring all national championship contenders would make the selection, while also not excluding teams like UCF in their perfect season, thus making the games themselves matter more.

While this was universally beloved as opposed to some of the ridicule the original playoff format received from replacing Bowl games, it was likely to come with some hiccups in the first season.

However, the “hiccup” of the first round of the College Football playoff was not a mistake made in the teams selected, it was a miscalculation in the order of the teams.

With the lopsided sleight of games including Indiana, SMU, and Clemson all losing by multiple scores before the highly-anticipated Ohio State-Tennessee matchup to end the first round.

Ahead of the matchup, proponents of teams like Alabama, Miami or Ole Miss used this as their opportunity to stand on their soapbox and claim how they would have put up a better fight, including Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin.

Those claims went by the wayside when Ohio State made a dominant statement against a two-loss product of the SEC, Tennessee.

So, when the decision on what twelve teams would make up the first-ever College Football Playoff became more difficult, courtesy of an unexpected Clemson ACC Championship, the selection committee gave the benefit of the doubt to the teams that won more games and took care of their schedule, as opposed to power programs that slipped up one too many times.

And while it may be true that Alabama, Miami, Ole Miss, and even South Carolina could have hypothetically put up a better fight than Indiana and SMU did in the first round, what that decision would have signaled is far worse than a weekend of non-competitive football.

The argument for the most talented rosters to get the nod over teams that took care of their schedule and won more games is the threat of powerhouse programs no longer scheduling difficult, non-conference contests, thus making the regular season less appealing.

While this may cause some teams to do this, the selection committee has clearly shown respect for teams who challenge themselves before they play for their conference.

Georgia is a prime example of this. By scheduling a gauntlet of a schedule, they were able to enter the SEC Championship without any fear that a third loss would eliminate them from playoff contention, which is exactly what happened to their SEC counterparts.

Instead, the wins against Clemson and Georgia Tech, alongside the second-best record in a difficult SEC sleight, let them be in a position to receive a bye, and now have a favorable path back to the National Championship.

The other issue with this argument is that Alabama and Ole Miss’ worse losses came in conference play, so the creation of an easier regular season schedule would only hurt their abilities to either win conference games or defend their case by having additional quality wins to combat multiple losses.

In other words, the arguments in favor of the premiere programs over smaller schools with a better season had validity in the four-team playoff picture. With twelve teams, however, the argument swings back in favor of challenging yourself in the regular season, since two or three losses do not necessarily eliminate you outright.

Instead, with a strong enough resume, teams that view the National Championship as a possibility every season can give themselves more avenues to reach the postseason, even if they are caught sleeping against an inferior opponent.

While this may not always lead to the best matchups when teams with more top-end recruits miss the playoffs altogether, it still makes the regular season matter potentially more than it ever has in college football history.

But, since football as a sport is different than basketball, due to the fact that “Cinderella Stories” are far less likely due to the physicality of the sport, it is unlikely that these first-round games will ever see a large upset.

While this may not sound like a great selling point, the main objective for setting up the next round will still be accomplished, allowing eight teams that are closer to each other’s level to square off on a national stage.

That is exactly what we have in front of us this New Year’s Eve and Day. The eight best teams in the Nation, giving us unusual matchups like Texas and Arizona State, while also running back one of the best games from the regular season in Oregon and Ohio State.

While the seeding itself and the path to the National Championship could use some tweaking, that is a topic for another article. But for today, it is important to realize that Clemson, SMU, Indiana, and Tennessee all deserved to have their logos in the bracket.