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It's fair because at least all power conferences are represented.  If they lose, hey, at least they had the chance to compete for the natty.  Sort of like "well my candidate didn't win, but at least I voted"
And 6 is a much less awkward number than 5 for a playoff.  I guess they can put Notre Dame in the playoff every year and the whole country can watch them get soundly beaten year-in, year-out until they man up and join a conference.

I have said for a long time that an expansion to eight teams is essentially inevitable.  Futhermore, I think that when it happens it will be:

• The five P5 Champs (ACC, SEC, B1G, B12, PAC)
• The highest ranked G5 Champ
• Two at-large teams

This year that would have been:

• #1 ACC Champion Clemson
• #2 B12 Champion Oklahoma
• #3 SEC Champion Georgia
• #4 At-large Bama
• #5 B1G Champion Ohio State
• #6 At-large Wisconsin
• #8 PAC Champion USC
• #12 G5/AAC Champion UCF

So your match-ups would have been:

• #1 Clemson vs #12 UCF:  winner plays Bama/tOSU
• #2 Oklahoma vs #8 USC:  winner plays UGA/UW
• #3 Georgia vs #6 Wisconsin:  winner plays OU/USC
• #4 Bama vs #5 Ohio State:  winner plays Clemson/UCF

Second round:

• Clemson/UCF vs Bama/tOSU
• OU/USC vs UGA/UW

Championship:

• Clemson/UCF/Bama/tOSU vs OU/USC/UGA/UW

Those complaining about Alabama/Ohio State need to do their research.  In the early Nov committee poll, Bama was #1 and OSU was #9.  You're telling me from that point on the difference between their outcomes was enough for OSU to overtake Bama?  

It's silly.  And hey, at least I didn't use 'deplorable', right?

Yes.  OSU won their conference and Bama won a lot of nothing.  It's not really about Bama - they are obviously a very good team.  It's about making sure the season matters.  Alabama simply didn't do anything on the field to earn a shot in the playoff, and they got there by virtue of being Alabama.  That's great if your Alabama, but sets up a situation where it's unclear what games matter.  Games that don't matter make for terrible experiences as fans.  This year, the playoff is not legitimate, because the committee screwed it up.

To be fair, it was screwed up last year too because Penn State should have been in over Ohio State. But that was a B1G-on-B1G screw job. 

This year the B1G champ was passed over for a second place division finisher from another conference. Much different.

What made it worse was the committee chair's comments from one week to the next.

"Very little separation" between # 5 through 8 one week, followed by "Alabama was the clear #4" despite Ohio State beating the previous #4 on a neutral field and the team that beat Bama getting throttled on a neutral field.

Umm... OK.

As I said, the issue is certain teams/conferences have more excuses given to them than others.   This is still the beauty contest that was the BCS.  

either way, some will watch, some will not.   I think the ratings will be low personally.

Or BCS + 1 format, if you will.

I created a new thread to discuss the playoff and "fairness". 

My own position is that the two sides, those being the one that wants the "best" teams in the playoffs, and the one that wants the "most deserving" teams in the playoffs, are talking past each other. They're not always the same teams.

Talent-wise and coaching-wise, Bama might be the "best" team in the nation every year. But we wouldn't say that they "deserve" to be in the playoff if they lose 3 close games and don't win their conference. Because they wouldn't deserve it.

So we're arguing over whether a 1-loss team that didn't even play for its conference championship is more deserving than a 2-loss team who won its conference championship. And we're arguing it by trying to claim which team is "better", which is a subjective eye-test metric. 

As long as it's a beauty pageant, we shouldn't even discuss fairness, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Whether that's the AP, the collection of polls/computers that made up the BCS, or the committee. 

It's not resume or most talented, it's a combination of both.  

The real issue here is how conferences crown their champions.  16 or 14 or 12 teams - every team doesn't play all the other teams.  In-conference scheduling is wildly uneven, which is the big issue.  

2 conferences play 8 games. One of them is where Bama plays and the other one is where Clemson plays. They either need to change that up to play 9, or the others need to go back to 8. That would be a start at least.

2 conferences play 8 games. One of them is where Bama plays and the other one is where Clemson plays. They either need to change that up to play 9, or the others need to go back to 8. That would be a start at least.

Moot point if they automatically bid every P5 conference champion, is it not? Then we don't have to ask whether a team that plays 8 conference games has a weaker schedule than one that plays 9 conference games.