The thread about a playoff ended up being one of the largest threads I've seen at BON that doesn't involve Gameday or a crying child, so I'm going to quickly recap the big arguments and try to make a little sense of this.
Brooklynhorn is completely against a playoff, saying that it doesn't always produce the BEST champion and that even an attempt to go to a 4-team playoff would result in an 8 or 16 team playoff, because the NCAA would want more money.
Billyzane is for a flexible playoff, which would only happen if there are more than two or only one undefeated team, I assume there would also be some sort of playoff with no undefeateds. He says it could be made so that it wouldn't be arbitrary by setting down rules like:
if there are only 2 undefeated teams, no playoff
if there is only 1 undefeated team, best team plays the winner of 2nd and 3rd teams
if there are 3 or more undefeateds, 4 team playoff
There was also a question brought up about scheduling. What kind of scheduling would an 8/16 team playoff promote, would teams play tougher schedules because they don't have to be undefeated to get a chance at the National title, or would they play weaker schedules, because they know that going undefeated will put them in the playoff.
As to this last part, I say we're trying to fix the problem from the wrong side. What we need to do is just make the BCS less cupcake-friendly. Adding strength of schedule either back into the standings themselves, factor them into the computer rankings better (don't say the BCS can't tell the computer polls what to do, they made them take out margin of victory).
A flexible playoff is too unpredictable for the major media outlets' liking, and if the media outlets don't like it, it's not going to happen. The flexible playoff is however the most ideal solution.
Before going in I was strongly on the side of a 4 team playoff, but after reading this thread I don't know what to think. Thank you all for confusing the hell out of me.
--AR--