Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Actually, it's because people complain about the laziness of voters that the CFP committee does this stuff.  They like to "prove" they are better than the polls by doing things they think "show" they are better than the polls, regardless of how nonsensical is it.  They've gotten themselves into trouble doing that, in one case, putting and undefeated team #4 in the prior to last poll (to show how they don't look at just record) and then were forced to drop a winning team 2 positions in order to save face.

Well isn't a failed attempt better than no attempt at all?  I'll take anything over the laziness of lining all the teams up by number of losses and sending one to the the end of the line for each loss, rewarding Sept losses in a nonsensical way.

Having mediocre teams become champions is the entertainment end of the sliding scale.  The other end is the competition end - wanting the best team to be the champ.  

Neither end is perfect in isolation - but genuine competition, to me, is entertaining.  Seeing the best be identified as such.  Yes, they still need to play the games, but being "fair" and giving everyone a chance doesn't necessarily belong in this.

An underdog story is great....but not to crown a champion...unless that underdog truly earned its way.  UCF would be an obvious underdog story, except it's toughest game was vs. Memphis.  That's not earning your way.  

For all the moaning and bitching about LSU's 2007 2-loss NC, I'm stunned at the support for an expanded playoff.  2-loss champs would happen more and more often, with certainty.  

Auburn was moved up to a top-ranked team, even after two losses, because it beat Georgia and Alabama. If UCF consecutively beat the Big Ten Champion, the Big XII Champion, then the SEC Champion (for example), are you saying they wouldn't have earned it? Seems to me like they would have, even if their previous best was against Memphis.
The way it would have looked this year (in my scenario) is Clemson and Oklahoma as the 1 and 2-seeds, the Georgia, Ohio State, USC, UCF, in that order. So UCF plays and beats the SEC champion, then plays and beats the ACC champion, then plays and beats the winner of the B1G/Pac-12 and Oklahoma game, so the champion of one of those three conferences. That seems like a pretty legit "earning it." More so than the eye test that excluded UCF.

To be clear, I don't think UCF would have become the national champion this season, but a six-team playoff in the 120-team CFB field looks nothing like the 12-team playoff in a 32-team field in the NFL. The sixth team in (and, for that matter the fifth) won't exhibit anything close to the kind of mediocrity that the wild cards in the NFL do.

But what about the 8-5 power-5 conference champion, you say? So sometimes that team gets in. And they promptly lose. The chances that team runs the table are very slim. Again, this isn't the NFL. And the conference championship means something. Right now the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world know they still have a chance even without the conference championship. I don't think that's a good thing, and you can bet that's reserved for the college football blue bloods (or true helmets, if you prefer). Wisconsin doesn't get that chance. Neither does LSU, or Washington (for example). Win your conference. That should be the starting point.

This also accounts for the, "but our conference is tougher!" argument. Let's say Tennessee returns to its glory, Georgia stays where it is, Saban sticks around, and LSU and Auburn are having great runs. Let's say non-Alabama SEC champion LSU has beaten Alabama, Georgia, a strong Auburn, a good Florida, but lost to a quality power-5 team in September and a stumble against say Mississippi State on its way to an 11-2 SEC championship season. Alabama misses the SEC championship on an 10-2 record, with losses to LSU and that pesky Auburn. 11-1 Tennessee loses to LSU in the championship game, and edged out 10-2 Georgia for the spot in the championship game. Doesn't LSU deserve to be in, even if 12-1 Penn State, 12-1 USC, 13-0 Clemson, and 13-0 Oklahoma State (or whomever) haven't lost in forever, and won their conference championships (and which one of those teams doesn't deserve to be there?)? Seems to me it does--and this system makes sure that it does.

And PS: I don't ever remember Wisconsin being Big Red--Let's go Red, yes, but Big Red, no. I dated a girl at Cornell. That school has always been Big Red. I think Wisconsin just started jawing about Big Red when Nebraska showed up. Call yourselves what you want--but accept the ribbing that comes with your choices. That's what I say. :-)

SF and Fearless are correct. It just makes us bristle when we hear "Go Big Red", given the recent history of the two teams.

"Let's Go RED" is the most common chant you'll hear at Camp Randall and in the UW away sections.

But on this board, UW is Big Red until otherwise proven. 

A conference championship isn't objective at all, when the conference has 14 teams or 12 or 16 or whatever.  The conference schedules are extremely uneven, with or without a crossover rival.  I can play the 2-3 bottom-dwellers in the other division and still afford to lose a couple to my division foes and still win it.  What?!?  Meanwhile my division rival beats all of us in our division, but has to take on the top 2 on the other side in back-to-back weeks.  They lose out on the division title.

College football needs some socialism, bad.  Both in the format of conferences and scheduling.