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It would hold the impression of fairness that way ... but not in the way a restructured FBS division would be; implying each conference is reconstructed, then reorganized basing conference divisions on region, number of schools, number of university wealthy schools, number of T.V. money schools, and eliminating the incessant need to base interest on ranking teams.

In the current landscape, a playoff of conference champions could have a 7-5 conference winner, over a team who finishes 11-1, who was a conference runner up -- and to say, well, it is fair because they won their conference; is to say, the season at large doesn't matter.

"Well boys, we're slated to win our conference next year; so we're scheduling 4 FCS opponents this off season to scrimmage through our OoC. And heck, don't worry if we lose one of those games -- well, for that matter, don't mind if we lose `em all ... `cause all we gotta do is win our division, then beat whoever we face for the conference championship"

And that is why there will never be a fair system. Because, unless the conferences unify completely, fairness will not be invited to the dinner table.

A playoff of champions in today's structure, is neither parity nor fairness.

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1) Pains me to say it, but 'Cane makes perfect sense. Can't say you're just gonna take champions, cuz the champion could suck - relatively speaking.

2) I will add that I don't think you should necessarily weight the backend of the schedule, either. OK, so won 7 straight. You could just as easily lose the next 2. It's all back to conjecture.

3) So the fact is Ohio State lost 1 game, Penn State lost 2 - got smeared in 1 - lost the other to a 4th-place team in its division. You gotta take the body of work.

4) Don't like it people refer to an 'eye test'. Way too subjective.

But I circle back to #1 above. Well put.

..fanatic wrote:1) Pains me to say it, but 'Cane makes perfect sense. Can't say you're just gonna take champions, cuz the champion could suck - relatively speaking.

2) I will add that I don't think you should necessarily weight the backend of the schedule, either. OK, so won 7 straight. You could just as easily lose the next 2. It's all back to conjecture.

3) So the fact is Ohio State lost 1 game, Penn State lost 2 - got smeared in 1 - lost the other to a 4th-place team in its division. You gotta take the body of work.

4) Don't like it people refer to an 'eye test'. Way too subjective.

But I circle back to #1 above. Well put.

I understand the logic of that, but my point is that you can't have a playoff and have it be entirely fair. Tournaments are mostly about who is playing the best in the tournament. I understand that Ohio State may have a better resume than Penn State, but an argument can be made that Penn State was playing as well as any one in the country at the end. Their second loss was probably the deciding factor that kept them out. Ohio State really limped to the finish line and not because of injuries.

My point is whether or not you get the best teams, taking the conference champs at least is a objective criteria. With the committee we get who they believe are the best teams, but we don't really know. USC or Penn State could be the best team in the country right now even though neither was for the whole season. Florida State is healthy now so maybe they are best. Maybe Alabama isn't the best team, even though most of us believe they are. Who have the played to prove that? Only USC looked good at the end, but maybe that is because the PAC12 is down. We don't know because their isn't enough play between the conferences. Oklahoma looked good at the end of the year. Did they get better or was the teams they played in conference just really bad? I don't believe Oklahoma got better. I don't believe Ohio State is a championship team this year. If we just put conference champs in the playoff, then we don't have to have any other criteria. That won't happen because of TV and TV wants the teams that draw in the playoffs and TV is paying the bills in CFB.