The major flaw I see with "a mid-tier P5 team can join the MAC" (and the guy's point earlier about TAMU can join the Sunbelt) is the assumption that a team's status remains static with a jump to a lesser conference, and I don't see any reason to think that is justified.
Back in the days of ftbobs, he had a ton of historical data supporting that the conference you play in matters. Even disregarding data, it's simply intuitive. If A&M did such a thing, they wouldn't be "A&M" for very long. They'd lose a metric ton of $$ brought in by being in the SEC. Recruits would not be so eager to sign up for playing Ga. Southern and Ark. St. as they might be to play Auburn and LSU. Now they no longer have "A&M quality" players. They're transitioning to the generally accepted category of teams who shouldn't be in the playoffs for all the known reasons, and they'd be doing it to themselves--while losing money. It's just a matter of time before there's little distinction between Texas A&M and the scrubs they tried to pave their easier road with, thereby negating the very reason they wanted to join in the first place. It's both self-defeating and impoverishing.
As far as the "playoff doing its job," that depends entirely on what one thinks the job of the playoff is.
Myself, I don't really need the playoff to give me the "best teams." If I wanted that I'd be an NFL fan, which is much more geared towards "who's the best by the end of the season" rather than "who had the best resume this season," and is one reason I consider it a completely different sport than cfb.
Or at least it used to be. Getting less and less by the minute.
This is also when I hear those who are protecting the current glass ceiling arguing that these G5 teams "should just be good enough, for long enough, to get an invite to a P5 conference!"
Yeah, that doesn't happen.
We used to be P6. When the Big East collapsed as a football conference, that didn't mean that we kept 6 power conferences. The
few salvageable properties within the conference got pulled into the P5, and the worthless properties fell off.
Then you have the B12. They got raided, losing Mizzou, A&M, Colorado, and Nebraska to better conferences. They snagged TCU and WVU, so at the very least you can say that ONE mid-major in TCU got pulled up--but it was largely a desperation move to get to 10. They then looked a few years later at whether there were ANY G5 teams worth expanding back to 12... And there weren't.
Now they're dropping from 10 to 8 with the loss of Texas and OU. A lot of people are predicting that they'll pick up a few teams and remain a power conference, but I think that's utter crap. They can either snag some extra teams and remain a conference, at which time we got to P4/G6, or they're going to get further raided for the few salvageable properties and the rest will get discarded to current G5 conferences.
There's just no modern precedent for teams elevating from that level to the P5, except in desperation adds due to conference realignment.
Cincy could spend the next decade never losing more than one game per season, and it's not going to result in an invite from the B1G, ACC, or SEC.
And if the B12 picks up Cincy, it's further evidence that the B12 is a G league, not a P league, going forward.
