Expanded CFP appears to have solved absolutely nothing

Perhaps it was inevitable that the expansion of the College Football Playoff to 12 teams was never going to make anyone happy.

After all, the equivalent men's basketball tournament has 68 spots and every year there's controversy over teams left out and seedings granted.

But, still: one year into the 12-team era, the new CFP appears to have solved exactly nothing. There are still arguments about whether certain conferences are favoured at the expense of others, still fights about whether a team with fewer losses but a softer schedule deserves a spot over a team with more losses and a tough schedule, and still questions about whether the format will inadvertently create an easier path to the championship game for a lower-ranked team.

Wouldn't it be nice if all this could have been avoided, you know, once?

After the latest rankings were announced Tuesday, and with one regular-season weekend left, the biggest unanswerable question is this: what to do about the SEC? The conference that includes 16 of the past 19 national champions, which has become better and deeper amid college football's wild realignment era, and occasionally had three of four spots in the four-team playoff, is likely to have just three spots in the 12-team field and possibly a wee two.

Is this because the SEC is having a down year? Maybe a little. There's no clear standout like the Georgia or Alabama teams of recent seasons. But it's also because SEC teams have been bashing each other's heads in all season long.

Alabama, amid a disastrous first year without former coach Nick Saban, has three losses, but also beat Georgia (9-2), who already clinched a spot in the SEC title game. The Crimson Tide also beat South Carolina, who easily beat Oklahoma, who thumped the Tide last weekend. Got it?

Texas, meanwhile, is 10-1 with the inside track to meet Georgia in the SEC championship, but still needs to beat Texas A&M (8-3) on the road Saturday to lock that down. Lose and they could fall out of the 12-team bracket entirely. In that scenario, a multi-loss SEC team would be dropped in favour of one of the many one-loss teams - currently Notre Dame, Miami, Penn State, Indiana, and SMU - that don't play in the weekly rock fight that is the Southeastern Conference.

The argument in favour of keeping all those one-loss teams in - assuming they don't become two-loss teams Saturday - is a simple one: you can only win the games you play. It's also the same argument that was made, and ignored, for literal decades as college football went through a series of postseason formats and often left an outsider team with an unblemished record out of title-game consideration.

Is, say, plucky Indiana (10-1), without a win over a ranked team and beaten handily by Ohio State on Saturday, more deserving of a playoff spot than a three-loss SEC team that might have also beaten a few ranked teams? I have no idea. That SEC team would probably beat Indiana in a head-to-head matchup, but they also would have avoided this controversy by not losing three times. There's no obviously correct answer. Do you like cookies or potato chips? Yes.

Then there's the curious case of Boise State. The Broncos are 10-1 and heavy favourites at home Friday with a berth in the MWC title game already clinched. Win both those games and they could possibly secure the playoff's fourth seed and a first-round bye as one of the four highest-ranked conference champions. Their only loss, by a field goal, came to Oregon, the only undefeated team in the nation. They also have running back Ashton Jeanty, a Heisman candidate averaging a laughable 187 rushing yards per game.

The Broncos are a fun team! But does it make sense to give them a bye into the final eight over, say, Ohio State, whose only loss also came against Oregon and who have beaten two (at the time) top-five-ranked opponents? Again, I have no idea. Conveniently, those two teams would meet in the second round as it stands, so at least that debate would be settled quickly.

Which brings us to the other quirk: the team that doesn't win the Big Ten, most likely Ohio State or Oregon, could end up with an easier playoff path by playing lower-ranked opponents in the first and second rounds, while the conference champion gets a first-round bye but a matchup against an SEC power in the second round. Would you rather face Arizona State and Boise State in the first two rounds or have a bye but then face Georgia? It probably depends on how much value you place on the bye, but it underscores that there's no easy way to do this. Whatever the committee decides, it's going to end up with questions about the fairness of the whole endeavour.

And, really, it's ever been thus. For more than 30 years, after college football finally became tired of selecting its champions through a pair of distinct votes that didn't necessarily pick the same team, it's been struggling to figure out how to crown a single winner. There was the Bowl Coalition, then the Bowl Alliance, then the Bowl Championship Series, which gave way to the four-team playoff that's now 12.

This one is only under contract for another full season, and talk of likely playoff expansion in 2026 is already happening. And that'll create a new postseason format for everyone to be unhappy about. Round and round we go.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore