Should have had this out a week ago, but been a little busy.
There is really no rush especially postseason. Anyway, thanks for doing this, I've always found it interesting. That said, I don't know that we'll have much reason to care about these lists starting next season since being undefeated or having only one loss will be much less meaningful when there are 12 rather than four (2014-2023) or two (1998-2013) spots in the playoff.
8 was always fine. 3 rounds, nobody gets a bye, plenty of slots for inclusion. What was 5+1+2 would have become 4+1+3 with the implosion of the Pac-12, so the SEC can get their three teams in and two from the B1G. And the tallest midget gets their sacrificial lamb slot. Everyone's happy.
I'd have made it the "five highest ranked League Champions" plus three at-large and stipulated that the first round is hosted by the four highest ranked League Champions to make winning your league important. Looking at this year with that structure:
- 13-0 Michigan, B1G Champion
- 13-0 Washington, P12 Champion
- 12-1 Texas, B12 Champion
- 12-1 Alabama, SEC Champion
- 13-0 Florida State, ACC Champion
- 12-1 Georgia, at-large
- 11-1 Ohio State, at-large
- 13-0 Liberty, CUSA Champion
First round match-ups:
- Liberty at Michigan, winner plays FSU/Bama
- Florida State at Alabama, winner plays Lib/M
- Ohio State at Washington, winner plays UGA/Tx
- Georgia at Texas, winner plays tOSU/UW
- Winning your league matters. Georgia and Ohio State have to travel to Austin and Seattle because they didn't. M, UW, TX, and Bama get to host a CFP game because they did.
- Being top-4 matters. FSU travels because they aren't.
- G5 (or whatever) gets a sacrificial lamb into the mix. Ok Liberty, you think your 13-0 = a P5, lets see it. Go win in Ann Arbor then take out Bama/FSU, then show us what you've got tOSU/UW/UGA/TX.
- Individual games still have a high degree of importance because one loss can deprive you of hosting (see UGA/tOSU) and two losses knocks you out (Oregon, Mizzou, Penn State, Ole Miss, and Oklahoma are ALL on the outside looking in with two losses).
With the 12 team model four of the five 2-loss teams are in along with ALL 1-loss teams and undefeateds.
For the entire time I've been interested in CFB losses have been near-fatal to an NC drive. EVERY game has mattered EVERY year because a single loss to a mediocre MSU (1998) or Purdue (2018) could keep your team out of the NC picture. Starting this year, as an Ohio State fan, I'm fairly confident that my team has not one but two mulligans. It is a completely different view of the sport. All those talks every year that we've had about "Trap Games" are now more-or-less irrelevant.
Look at Michigan this year. They very nearly lost a trap game at Maryland. It was sandwiched between visiting Penn State and hosting Ohio State so you can understand if maybe the Terps didn't have the full attention of the Wolverines but if Michigan had lost that game I don't think they'd have made the CFP. The Committee could have blamed it on Michigan's woefully weak SoS and taken undefeated Champions FSU and Washington along with 1-loss Champions Bama and Texas and left Michigan out.
If you think through the implications of the previous paragraph, what it means is that the NC was effectively on the line in EVERY one of Michgan's 15 games because a loss in any of the first 13 would have kept them out of the CFP and obviously a loss in either of the last two would have knocked them out of the CFP. It goes beyond that though because nobody actually KNEW that Michigan was going to end up on top so the same stakes potentially applied to EVERY single game played by EVERY single NC Contender. They applied to EVERY Ohio State game. They applied to EVERY Texas game. They applied to EVERY Washington game. They applied to EVERY Alabama game. They applied to EVERY Georgia game.
Next year, for the first time in CFB History, that goes away. If a relative gets married on a CFB Saturday and I have to miss the Ohio State game, no big deal because it isn't like the whole season is on the line, it is only one game. So long as the Buckeyes don't lose three they'll have a chance at the end of the year.