Why do we love sports so much? We love sports because of the thrill of knowing anyone can win no matter what the odds. Everyone’s favorite sports stories are about the underdog. This is why the CFP needs to be expanded to eight teams. Excluding this year, every single CFP has had at least one to two teams that had a legitimate claim to join the top four and compete for the college football crown. Currently the system has a committee of so-called experts voting on the top four teams in college football and the teams are ranked one through four. This is flawed because the committee’s bias towards historic programs and putting together matchups that will catch the most eyes, rather than the best teams. Not to mention on top of that there always seems to be a few teams people think got robbed of their chance. Here is my proposed solution. The five conference champions receive an automatic bid to the CFP and then three at large teams will be voted in by the same committee we have today, with a reserved spot for a non power 5 conference team. Why this system? Let me tell you why. Over the past few years the champion of the PAC-12 conference has been overshadowed by the second best teams in the SEC and BIG10. This is leading the most prodigious schools in the struggling conferences considering leaving their conferences all together. With designated spots for all the conference champions all the conferences remain relevant and regular season conference games hold much more weight. Still being able to vote in three teams for an at large bid allows teams to still play for spots even if they get kicked out of conference contention. The most controversial part of this theory is definitely the reserved spot for a non-power 5 team. Some would argue that a non-power 5 team is never the eighth best team in the country. This is almost always true, however having a spot for a team like that rewards the number one seed for being the best in the country and the school that makes the playoff would get nation wide exposure on the grandest scale. With a playoff bid on the line more people will tune into these non power 5 games and with more exposure these programs can recruit better players, which would lead to a more competitive college football scene. Introducing an eight team college football playoff would add more significance to conference games, allow more flexibility to the lay out, and strengthen the competition of College Football as a whole.

There are downsides to this expansion though. One major thing about College football which makes it so loved is that every game matters. Losing one game at the beginning of the season will tank a team’s whole season. One loss to an out of conference underdog and the best team in the whole country can lose their championship hopes in one night. Like in 2007 when the Appalachian State Mountaineers took down the number one ranked, Michigan Wolverines in the Big House. Introducing an eight team playoff with automatic bids for conference champions would lower the stakes of early games in the season and would make upsets less important. It would make the games less meaningful, but it would also make the non title contenders lose relevance. The ability to ruin a team’s season no matter how good they are or how well respected they are in the college football world is the best part of lots of team’s seasons. Expanding the CFP to eight teams would take away the most appealing part of College Football. All games played no matter who and when have playoff implications in the current system we have and that is why every College Football game is so entertaining no matter if it is September or January.