What A Hypothetical 8-Team College Football Playoff Would Look Like After Week 8
Below, we take a look at what an 8-team playoff might look like this season if things continue the way they are going now. With so much parity at the top of the college football universe, what the sport really needs is an 8-team playoff, and not the 4-team playoff we will see starting in 2014.
To determine the field for an 8-team playoff, we projected the champions of the five major BCS conferences and then selected three at-large teams.
Here are the eight teams and how they would be seeded (record in parentheses):
Clemson, LSU, and Louisville were knocked out with losses. Missouri, Stanford, and Miami jumped up to take their spots. In addition, Baylor jumped past Texas Tech as the projected winner of the Big 12 conference.
Florida State and Missouri had the biggest jumps in week eight. Florida State's big win over Clemson jumped them up to no. 2 and Missouri went from out of the playoff to the no. 5 spot.
Fortunately, no teams would have a real complaint this week as the top eight teams according to the BCS are all included in this scenario thanks to the projected Big 12 champion (Baylor) moving up into the top-8. The best teams that would be left on the outside looking in would be Clemson (no. 9 in the BCS rankings) whose only loss is to second-ranked FSU and possibly Auburn, who has an average ranking of seventh in the BCS computer rankings.
Here is what the bracket might look like. Just imagine a Saturday with four football games featuring match-ups of top-10 teams playing for more than just a random bowl's trophy. It would potentially be even bigger than the championship game a month later...
