I think the logistics honestly ruins any chance of a 16 team field playoff. I don’t really think there’s anyway they can add more potential total games than what they have now with 14-15 games the four playoff teams will have typically played by the end. The NCAA just can’t swing it anymore with making things that add to their already benefit with the player pay issue. They’re slowly caving in if anything at this point. So they’d probably have to decrease regular season games on top of the conference championship games to work the numbers. The 16 team playoff essentially kills any intriguing bowl games that we still do get today under the current format as well. So from a business model it honestly might not even be really that worth it for them.
I think from an entertainment standpoint it not only waters down the whole thing with 16 teams but you can lose three/four games in the regular season & still possibly make it. It makes regular season matchups mean less than it does now too. I mean like Penn State plays Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, & Wisconsin this year. If they go .500 there & don’t have any slips up elsewhere it still very likely isn’t going to be good enough. But under 16 teams it certainly would be. We’ve seen some blowouts already even with the four team playoff so do you really need a field out 16 to establish who the best is? 8 teams I can see maybe to leave no doubt if a situation like you referenced comes up but I’m still fine with what we got personally but I think 8 would be the absolute limit I could expand to.
Regardless if they expand or not I think the P5 conferences really need to start getting on the same page with scheduling. It’s never going to be perfect as the strength of conferences can change from year to year but a uniformed policy on 8-9 conference games, FCS games or not?, & how many P5 OOC games do we schedule would at least make comparing résumés a little easier than it currently is.
