Thread by @MattZemek

I will keep saying it until my last breath on this Earth:

One doesn't have to choose between the current setup and 4 quarterfinals this Saturday.

One doesn't have to choose between a 4-team playoff and 8.

Flex.
The.
Conference.
Title.
Games. #Big12

https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1202340459038662656

The 8-team playoff with the Power 5 conference champs, the Group of 5 champ, and 2 at-larges, is not a terrible idea. It's a good idea.

However: If a conference champ has 3 losses, that doesn't honor the season.
We know as CFB observers that nearly every season has a plot twist.

College football was never designed to have a firm and inflexible postseason system. The sport eludes tidy, easy categorization.

Anyone who follows the sport for any appreciable length of time knows this.

I talked about this with college football's finest mind, @BlatantHomerism, the other day:

If college football, in 1998, had kept the poll-and-bowl system but added a provisional plus-one game after the bowls, the sport would have been so much better off.

Keeping the poll-and-bowl model would have meant that making the Sugar Bowl would have remained special and cherished for SEC teams; the Orange for Nebraska/Oklahoma; the Cotton for Texas/A&M/Baylor.

A plus-one would have resolved many of the debates the BCS never did resolve.

Poll-&-bowl w/ a plus-1 would have provided the best of both worlds:

Retaining the traditional culture of CFB in which EVERY top-tier bowl remained special

AND

Having the big game if a debate lingered after the bowls, which CFB lacked in 1983 (MIA-AUB), 1990, 1991, other years

Many will rightly ask me, "But Matt, what if there isn't a need for a plus-one game?"

This is where TV (ESPN) needs to evolve with the times. It surprises me TV (ESPN) hasn't been able to figure this out yet...

The principle of the flexed conference title game (such that Utah and Oklahoma could agree to play each other this coming Saturday, with Baylor playing Oregon in Santa Clara) is that no TV property is left unattended.

Baylor-Oregon is *also* a great game TV would be happy with.

Flexing one conference title game here doesn't mean the other conference title game(s) needs to have an unappealing TV matchup.

Conference commissioners need to see this as an opportunity for revenue and growth. If they play their cards right, it CAN be.

So, with a post-bowl plus-1 game -- provisional, not automatic -- TV (ESPN) would have a contingency plan if there wasn't a need for a championship-deciding plus-one.

Let's be clear: This would be a TV game, as opposed to an "optics" game.

We already see this with the current bowl lineup: Lots of bowl games have small crowds, but the TV inventory, ratings in wintertime, and advertising space make this a good investment for ESPN.

No reason the plus-1 alternative can't be the same thing.

If there isn't a need for a plus-1, ESPN could surely find 2 schools which did *not* play a 13th game (a conf title game) & give them a pile of money to play in the TV time slot reserved for the plus-1.

Schools would have choice of participation, but ESPN could dangle incentives

The natural location for a plus-1 game would be Arlington, in the middle of the country.
Schools available this season (which did not play a 13th game) would include, among others:

* Penn St
* Florida
* Michigan
* Auburn
* Alabama
* Minnesota

You could make a good TV game, oui?

Would the ad rates be the same as an actual plus-one? Of course not. In years when a plus-1 isn't needed, some money would be lost... but the upside of having a plus-1 in place would make the structure worth it over a larger period of time.

College football and flexed late-season/postseason scheduling were always meant to coexist... but the sport has never had this level of imagination.

Imagine a plus-1 between Oklahoma & Miami in 2000... or Miami-Oregon in 2001... or USC & LSU in 2003, or...

*voice trails off*

*weeps softly*

Fin.