I could easily see the opening round as trap game city.
You get a team like Wisconsin or Michigan going up against a UCF or Coastal Carolina, and then the winner gets Bama.
I think a lot of that depends on how they set things up.
The CCG's are the first Saturday in December so somewhere between 12/1 (2018) and 12/7 (2019).
My assumption is that the Quarterfinals would be bowl games on or around NYD. That leaves somewhere between 24-30 days between the CCG's and the Quarterfinals. You have to stick the campus site first round games in there somewhere.
If you made them two weeks after the CCG's that would be anywhere between December 15 (if December 1 is a Saturday and December 21 (if December 1 is a Sunday). I think that works because it avoids Christmas and still leaves between 10-16 days between the first round games and the Quarterfinals.
I'm not sure that situation leads to a "trap game" scenario because there is enough time both before and after the first round game to reorient yourself from CCG mode to first round game mode and then to quarterfinal mode.
The other thing is that the Quarterfinal game for these teams isn't generally going to be "Bama" if you mean that in the sense of last year's #1 ranked 13-0 Bama. Instead, I think that we are talking here about #5 playing #12 with the assumption that the winner will then play #4 (12-1 Oklahoma in 2019).
Looking at the 2019 final CFP rankings:
- 13-0 SEC Champ LSU
- 13-0 B1G Champ tOSU
- 13-0 ACC Champ Clemson
- 12-1 B12 Champ Oklahoma
- 11-2 Georgia (lost SECCG to #1 LSU)
- 11-2 PAC Champ Oregon
- 11-2 Baylor (lost B12CG to #4 OU)
- 10-3 Wisconsin (#2 lost B1GCG to tOSU)
- 10-2 Florida
- 10-2 Penn State
- 11-2 Utah (lost PACCG to #6 Oregon
Then the highest ranked G5 Champion was 12-1 #17 Memphis. So I'm assuming that under what they are proposing the first round games would have been:
- #17 Memphis at #5 Georgia, winner plays Oklahoma
- #11 Utah at #6 Oregon, winner plays Clemson
- #10 Penn State at #7 Baylor, winner plays tOSU
- #9 Florida at #8 Wisconsin, winner plays LSU
The Utah/Oregon game is really silly since they JUST played in the PACCG with Oregon winning 37-15 so then Oregon would have to win AGAIN to get a shot at Clemson.
The game we are focused on here is the Memphis at Georgia game.