Apparently the 12 team CFP will start soon. Assuming that it does, maybe we should keep divisions after all.
What got me thinking about this was the current situation with 8-4/6-3 Purdue playing 12-0/9-0 Michigan in the CG while 11-1/8-1 Ohio State sits at home.
A lot of people feel that our best teams should be in the CG and scrapping divisions facilities that. However, it might be bad strategy in the 12-team playoff era.
As is, if we had the 12-team playoff now:
Ohio State would be safely in as would Michigan (even if they lose to Purdue) and Penn State would be basically a "bubble team".
Penn State is currently the #4 at-large behind tOSU, Bama, and TN. The risk for them is is that three CG upsets out of four (UGA, M, TCU, USC) would knock them back to the #7 at-large or "first team out".
With divisions there is very little risk for yhe league as a whole. A Michigan loss costs them a bye but might get Purdue into the playoff along with M, tOSU, and possibly PSU. A Michigan win gets them a bye and actually helps both tOSU and PSU because their loss to M is to a 13-0 P5 Champion.
Without divisions tOSU would get a second crack at Michigan and while that might be nice for tOSU, I'm thinking it is bad for the league as a whole. Obviously there are two possibilities:
- Michigan wins again: In this case Ohio State's playoff situation becomes precarious at best. Giving a team a second chance may make some sense (see UGA last year) but if you already lost to a playoff participant twice, do we really need to see that again?
- Ohio State wins the rematch: In this case it is possible that neither gets a bye (they would this year).
I'm thinking that divisions are a better strategy going forward.