My argument isn't really about seeding at all--it's about equity. I don't think the CFP is a good process for selecting the field, nor do I think it does anything more than the polls or BCS to create a "real" champion. It's just a larger beauty pageant than what came before it.
I think there is a middle ground between
@OrangeAfroMan and others insisting that we include only the "best" teams and
@betarhoalphadelta and others insisting that we provide a clear path and thus give every team a chance.
On a theoretical level, I agree with OAM. In theory, I think that the playoff should consist only of the best "x" teams where "x" is the number of teams included.
That said, the problem is that interleague play is so limited that we really have only a limited idea as to the relative strength of the SEC and B1G in a given season.
We saw this happen this year in CBB. Pre-tournament the ratings all said that the B1G was far-and-away the best league and that the Pac wasn't very good. The tournament showed us that the B1G and ACC were overrated while the Pac was underrated.
The same thing can and does happen in football.
In BB we handle this by going to the extreme of reserving a spot for every league champion no matter how ridiculous their inclusion is. 36 tournaments have amply demonstrated that those bottom 10+ league champions don't actually contribute anything to the NC race.
In football we go to the opposite extreme and don't technically reserve spots for any league Champions.
I think that both sports would be better served by reserving spots for league champions but making that conditional on the strength of the league in question. In BB I'd like to see the auto bids limited to something like:
- The top-20 highest ranked league Champions, or
- The champions of each league that has at least one team in the top-100 or 128 of the final rankings.
That way there would be auto bids for all decent league champions but we wouldn't need to include champions from the worst leagues.
In football I think that the 5+1+2 proposal handles it. Entry would be within each program's (if not each team's) control. If you are a G5 that doesn't make it because another G5 Champ is ranked higher, schedule some decent OOC games! If the P12 is underrated their Champions will have an opportunity to prove that because they'll still get a bid, etc.