I picked #1 and I'd put in a provision that no team movement can exceed 1 seed difference (4 to 5, but not 4 to 6). If it cannot be done, then you don't move them.
I think this is a really good idea and brings me to something that I thought of last night, see below:
I went with #3. I could be swayed to #1.
I think that if you are forced into creating a bracket where you have to put teams on opposite sides of the bracket, though, it creates too much potential upheaval to your bracket.
This isn't like basketball where you have 64 seeds and have 4 teams at each seed line and it's roughly immaterial to move team from the 2nd-toughest 6 seed draw to the 4th-toughest 6 seed draw. It's just too small.
If you put too many rules on it, then the purpose of seeding gets destroyed because you're forced to put teams in certain places not based on their strength, but based on who they can and cannot face.
I'm generally not a fan of rematches, hence my vote for the most limiting option, #6, which prevents both rematches and games between teams from the same conference in the first two rounds.
My initial view was that, as a fan, I'd much rather see CFP match-ups between teams that rarely play. However, prohibiting rematches could be a major detriment to a team that earned an easy first round matchup. Example:
In 2019 Ohio State played and beat Cincinnati early in the season. Ohio State ended up #2 and Cincinnati ended up not winning the AAC. Consider this hypothetical:
- Cincinnati beats Memphis, wins the AAC, and is the highest ranked G5 Champion.
- LSU and Clemson each lose one game such that Ohio State, as the only 13-0 P5 Champion is a clear and obvious #1.
In that case Ohio State earned an easy first-round match-up against the ~#20 ranked AAC Champions, Cincinnati. However, with rematches prohibited the Buckeyes can't play #8 seed Cincinnati so instead they have to play #7 seed Baylor. In either case it is a home game that the Buckeyes will be favored to win but it is still a humongous difference. The Buckeyes would be favored over Cincinnati by 20+ and would be expected to be able to rest their starters for most or all of the second half. Against Baylor the Buckeyes would be something like a 10 point favorite.
On top of that, the #2 seed (in this case probably LSU) gets an unearned advantage. They didn't earn the #1 seed and the easy first-round match-up but they'd get it simply by the luck of tOSU and UC playing in September (something that LSU had absolutely nothing to do with).