Are you exhausted by all the politicking and bubble talk surrounding the College Football Playoff? Joel Klatt, FOX Sports’ lead college football analyst, certainly is, and he thinks he might have the solution to help put bubble talk to rest once and for all.
In the most recent episode of “The Joel Klatt Show,” he admitted that he “hates” this time of year because of bubble talk and believes that a 14-team CFP model can solve the issue. Klatt’s proposal includes four automatic bids for the Big Ten and the SEC, two automatic bids for the ACC and the Big 12, an automatic bid for the highest-ranked non-power conference school and an at-large bid, which could go to Notre Dame.Â
But Klatt’s proposed CFP model comes with a twist. Instead of conferences having a singular title game this upcoming weekend, each of the power conferences would have play-in games, while the Big Ten and the SEC keep their respective championship games in place.Â
“What you have right now is a totally subjective selection criteria,” Klatt said of his proposed model. “That’s all we have. It’s just a committee room and our sport lives in it. I would make the argument that we just have to define the path for teams so that they can earn it on the field. We’ve got this politicking exercise going on.Â
“I think it would be better if we were preparing for this weekend as a play-in weekend where all these teams that we’re talking about that are bubble teams are actually playing football games for the right to go to the College Football Playoff.”
Should CFB change to Joel Klatt’s proposed 14-team model? 🤔
With that in mind, here’s how conference championship weekend — or playoff play-in weekend — would look like under Klatt’s proposal.
Big Ten
No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Indiana (conference championship game, both teams go to CFP)
No. 6 Iowa at No. 3 Oregon (winner goes to CFP)
No. 5 Michigan at No. 4 USC (winner goes to CFP)
SEC
No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 2 Georgia (conference championship game, both teams go to CFP)
No. 6 Oklahoma at No. 3 Ole Miss (winner goes to CFP)
No. 5 Texas at No. 4 Texas A&M (winner goes to CFP)
ACC
No. 4 Georgia Tech at No. 1 Virginia (winner goes to CFP)
No. 3 Miami (Fla.) at No. 2 Duke (winner goes to CFP)
Big 12
No. 4 Houston at No. 1 Texas Tech (winner goes to CFP)
No. 3 Utah at No. 2 BYU (winner goes to CFP)
With those 10 games, 12 of the 14 participants in Klatt’s CFP model would already be determined by the end of the conference play-in weekend. That means the CFP committee would only pick two teams: the highest-ranked non-power conference winner and the at-large team. Klatt proposed an idea of Notre Dame, ranked ninth in the most recent CFP poll, and Vanderbilt, ranked 14th in the most recent CFP poll, going head-to-head to determine the final at-large spot.Â
Regardless of how the at-large spot is determined, Klatt’s proposal makes it quite clear that the committee’s main influence would be seeding the teams in the CFP field, rather than picking which teams get to play. That’s what the goal should be in the next round of CFP expansion ahead of the Jan. 23 deadline, according to Klatt.
“Miami fans, rather than having to sit around on Saturday night and having your fate determined by a bunch of people in a committee room, wouldn’t you rather play Duke and just do it on the field?” Klatt asked. “Yeah, of course. At least everybody is playing for it on the field. You’re rewarding the top end of college football by having two byes and the top two seeds by the best games we could have this weekend.”
“Could you poke holes in this model?” Klatt continued. “Absolutely. I’m just telling you right now that defining the path towards the playoff is the way to go. Expansion isn’t the way to go. You can’t just expand the selection-based model or we’ll continue to argue about the teams we’re arguing between. Then, everyone’s going to continue to politick and it’s going to continue to get worse and worse in terms of the arguments that they make because the teams will be worse and worse.Â
“I don’t think that’s the direction we should go in with college football.”Â
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