What If Wednesday: The College Football Playoff in FCS Playoffs Format

Surest indicators we have reached early summer: the NBA Playoffs are at a fever pitch, schools are letting out for the coming months, college football preview magazines are on store shelves (order a copy of the Athlon Sports SEC Preview for my exclusive Q&A with Georgia quarterback JT Daniels, and the Lindy’s Sports Annual, with my preview of the Pac-12 and feature on ground breaking Brown University quarterbacks coach Heather Marini)…and anonymously sourced rumors of College Football Playoff expansion rattle around the internet once more.

Even before the first Playoff kicked off six years, a vocal contingent already began pushing expansion of the field from four. Inconsistent standards by which resumes are evaluated, growing apathy due to redundancy and the ESPN-led devaluing of anything in the sport not directly impacting the Playoff have only increased the discontent for the current setup.

While the specifics of an expanded Playoff remain unclear, I have often wondered how the FBS postseason would look if it had adopted an FCS-style tournament. The Div. I-AA/FCS Playoffs invited 16 teams from inception through 2009, expanded to 20 teams in 2010, then ultimately landed on the 24 participants in 2013. The spring 2021 Playoffs included 16 teams, but only due to the COVID-19-shortened campaign.

The FCS system grants automatic bids to all conferences that choose to participate — that is, all but the Ivy League, MEAC and SWAC. The remainder of the field is made up of at-large bids.

The top eight teams receive 1st Round byes, with the other 16 playing on opening weekend.

Back to the topic of the COVID season, our exercise applying the FCS format to FBS begins with 2020, the most frustrating year to formulate. Creating a bracket is hard enough in normal times with everyone playing 12 or 13 games but of varying difficulties; with the fluctuations in schedule length and protocol shutdowns, the process becomes especially maddening.

Creating some level of uniformity in an expanded field wherein all 10 conferences receive an automatic bid would be ideal. That means everyone playing the same amount of conference and non-conference games. The elimination of conference championships is a must to avoid making the season unnecessary long.

With that in mind, each of these scenarios is based on Playoff committee rankings from the final week of the regular season, prior to the conference title games. That means in a few instances, the league champs in reality like Ball State in 2020, Northern Illinois and Fresno State in 2018, and a few others are excluded.

2020

Last season being the most peculiar makes this exercise challenging, and somewhat pointless. The College Football Playoff already had a bear of a time paring down to four due to the incongruity in schedules, postponements, and assorted other issues arising from COVID-19.

It’s almost as if staging a playoff in a season with more than 130 games impacted by a pandemic isn’t the most advisable endeavor. Playoff talk can be grueling enough on its own without devolving into some of the nasty, politically adjacent sniping that came with the COVID territory.

To pretend as if 2020 went off without a hitch, and thus a 24-team playoff would have happened without incident, would be burying ones head in the sand. All the harder to slap yourself if you’re face is buried, I guess.

Because of the pandemic, the most logical course of action would have been the most taxing: staging a bubble.

The NCAA Tournament went off about as well as one could have hoped under the circumstances, using a somewhat controlled environment and limited travel with all 68 teams in Indianapolis.

Housing 24 college football teams, with 85 scholarship players, coaching and support staffs, in addition to media partners, requires a ton of accommodations kept spaced out from one another as much as possible.

A metropolitan area that also has enough venues to play eight 1st Round and eight 2nd Round games is required. The Dallas metroplex may have been the most practical solution, with games played at AT&T Stadium; the Cotton Bowl; Toyota Stadium; Amon G. Carter Stadium; Gerald J. Ford Stadium; Globe Life Park; Apogee Stadium; and Farrington Field.

The necessary downtime between football games also means teams playing in the championship game are in the bubble for a full month; that’s a big ask of college athletes. Working out those logistics are well above my pay grade here, so we’ll just operate under the assumption all universities are on board, and COVID spread is avoided.

Automatic Bids:

• American: Cincinnati

• ACC: Notre Dame

• Big 12: Iowa State

• Big Ten: Ohio State

• C-USA: Marshall

• MAC: Buffalo

• Mountain West: San Jose State

• Pac-12: USC

• SEC: Alabama

• Sun Belt: Coastal Carolina

1. Alabama
   Plays winner of Iowa vs. BYU
   

2. Notre Dame
   North Carolina vs. Miami
   

3. Clemson
   Plays winner of Northwestern vs. Louisiana
   

4. Ohio State
   Plays winner of USC vs. Texas
   

5. Texas A&M
   Plays winner of Coastal Carolina vs. Oklahoma State
   

6. Iowa State
   Plays winner of Indiana vs. San Jose State
   

7. Florida
   Plays winner of Oklahoma vs. Buffalo
   

8. Georgia
   Plays winner of Cincinnati vs. Marshall

2019

Building out this bracket was quite illuminating of just how little respect the committee has for the Group of Five. Memphis, which received the G5 pittance in reality, went into the American Athletic Conference Championship Game ranked No. 17, one spot behind three-loss Iowa (who the Tigers are matched up with in our theoretical 1st Round) and behind a bevy of SEC teams.

If this field is any indication, an expanded playoff would not democratize the championship for those programs — not a field crafted by the same folks in charge of the current Playoff, anyway.

Automatic Bids:

• American: Memphis

• ACC: Clemson

• Big 12: Oklahoma

• Big Ten: Ohio State

• C-USA: FAU

• MAC: Central Michigan

• Mountain West: Boise State

• Pac-12: Utah

• SEC: LSU

• Sun Belt: Appalachian State

1. Ohio State
   Plays winner of Iowa vs. Memphis
   

2. LSU
   Plays winner of Penn State vs. FAU
   

3. Clemson
   Plays winner of Michigan vs. Boise State
   

4. Georgia
   Plays winner of Oregon vs. Cincinnati
   

5. Utah
   Plays winner of Alabama vs. Appalachian State
   

6. Oklahoma
   Plays winner of Auburn vs. USC
   

7. Baylor
   Plays winner of Penn State vs. FAU
   

8. Wisconsin
   Plays winner of Florida vs. Central Michigan

2018

One-quarter of the 24-team field is made up of SEC teams in this version, almost assuredly not enough to placate Paul Finebaum. Of the Southeastern Conference programs here, however — and this happened completely organically — is Texas A&M in a matchup with Texas.

And the winner in this scenario draws Notre Dame in the 2nd Round. It’s a narrative bonanza!

Also of note, UCF drawing the last bye would likely see Florida for a 2nd Round showdown without any qualifiers or conditions attached.

Automatic Bids:

• American: UCF

• ACC: Clemson

• Big 12: Oklahoma

• Big Ten: Ohio State

• C-USA: UAB

• MAC: Buffalo

• Mountain West: Boise State

• Pac-12: Washington

• SEC: Alabama

• Sun Belt: Appalachian State

1. Alabama
   Plays winner of West Virginia vs. Utah
   

2. Clemson
   Plays winner of Kentucky vs. Mississippi State
   

3. Notre Dame
   Plays winner of Texas vs. Texas A&M
   

4. Georgia
   Plays winner of Washington State vs. Syracuse
   

5. Oklahoma
   Plays winner of Penn State vs. Boise State
   

6. Ohio State
   Plays winner of Washington vs. Appalachian State
   

7. Michigan
   Plays winner of LSU vs. UAB
   

8. UCF
   Plays winner of Florida vs. Buffalo

2017

My attitude mutated during the 2017 season from ambivalent, if not mildly annoyed by the Playoff in its first three years, to the frothy-mouthed Playoff hater who writes you today. This was the year in which conditions to send a Group of Five program to the Playoff were perfect, with UCF standing as the nation’s sole unbeaten; conference champions Ohio State and USC both carrying two losses; and one-loss SEC West runner-up Alabama sporting a strength-of-schedule around 60 at the conclusion of the regular season.

Whether or not UCF would have won the Playoff, which Alabama accomplished, is irrelevant to me. This was an instance in which results did not justify process, and served as the prime indicator that the Group of Five will never, ever get an opportunity in the current format.

It’s a shame that in this context, I’m writing so negatively about 2017. Really, this was my favorite and arguably the most all-around madcap season since 2007.

Automatic Bids:

• American: UCF

• ACC: Clemson

• Big 12: Oklahoma

• Big Ten: Wisconsin

• C-USA: FAU

• MAC: Toledo

• Mountain West: Fresno State

• Pac-12: USC

• SEC: Auburn

• Sun Belt: Troy

1. Clemson
   Plays winner of Michigan State vs. LSU
   

2. Auburn
   Plays winner of Notre Dame vs. Washington State
   

3. Oklahoma
   Plays winner of UCF vs. Oklahoma State
   

4. Wisconsin
   Plays winner of Washington vs. Memphis
   

5. Alabama
   Plays winner of Stanford vs. Fresno State
   

6. Georgia
   Plays winner of TCU vs. LSU
   

7. Miami
   Plays winner of USC vs. Toledo
   

8. Ohio State
   Plays winner of Penn State vs. Troy

2016

Oh, what a different time it was in 2016. Three Pac-12 teams in the top three? Four Big Ten programs in the top seven? An absolutely wild development in these rankings, as is the placement of Navy.

The Mids lost the 2016 American Championship Game to Houston, but sticking to the laid out criteria, the Cougars would not have had that opportunity. But then, what becomes of the Army-Navy Game in a scenario that sends the Midshipmen to the Playoff? It happened five years ago in a system that exists only in my mind, yet I’m still obsessing about it.

Automatic Bids:

• American: Navy

• ACC: Clemson

• Big 12: Oklahoma

• Big Ten: Ohio State

• C-USA: Western Kentucky

• MAC: Western Michigan

• Mountain West: Wyoming

• Pac-12: Washington

• SEC: Alabama

• Sun Belt: Appalachian State

1. Alabama
   Plays winner of West Virginia vs. Western Michigan
   

2. Ohio State
   Plays winner of Florida vs. Stanford
   

3. Clemson
   Plays winner of Auburn vs. Navy
   

4. Washington
   Plays winner of Louisville vs. Utah
   

5. Michigan
   Plays winner of Florida State vs. LSU
   

6. Wisconsin
   Plays winner of USC vs. Wyoming
   

7. Penn State
   Plays winner of Oklahoma State vs. Appalachian State
   

8. Colorado
   Plays winner of Oklahoma vs. Western Kentucky

2015

The end result of an Alabama-Clemson national championship game would have likely still come to pass in this 24-team field, and been just as awesome. Oh, how I long for the naivety of the early Playoff days, when at least the title game was competitive.

Amid the certainty of a Crimson Tide-Tigers showdown, however, I’m eyeing Houston — which would have been a preposterously low No. 19 seed — being a prime candidate to make a run to the Elite Eight.

Also of note: San Diego State slotted in as the Mountain West Conference representative makes five teams from the league in the Playoff from 2015 through 2020, with Boise State’s 2019 and 2018 the only repeat entries.

Automatic Bids:

• American: Houston

• ACC: Clemson

• Big 12: Oklahoma

• Big Ten: Iowa

• C-USA: Western Kentucky

• MAC: Bowling Green

• Mountain West: San Diego State

• Pac-12: Stanford

• SEC: Alabama

• Sun Belt: Arkansas State

1. Clemson
   Plays winner of Oregon vs. Oklahoma State
   

2. Alabama
   Plays winner of Michigan vs. Florida
   

3. Oklahoma
   Plays winner of Northwestern vs. Houston
   

4. Iowa
   Plays winner of Ole Miss vs. USC
   

5. Michigan State
   Plays winner of Baylor vs. San Diego State
   

6. Ohio State
   Plays winner of TCU vs. Western Kentucky
   

7. Stanford
   Plays winner of North Carolina vs. Bowling Green
   

8. Notre Dame
   Plays winner of Florida State vs. Arkansas State

2014

Remember how pumped so many of us were for the first season of the College Football Playoff? Despite becoming bitter and jaded toward the system, and the way ESPN markets it at the detriment of the vast majority of the sport, I have to admit that 2014 lived up to the hype.

After years of insisting upon its superiority, the SEC failed to send a team to the national championship game out of the gate. The Ohio State-Alabama Sugar Bowl was outstanding, and the last great semifinal until Georgia-Oklahoma three years later.

The Buckeyes’ march to the national title also turned this tweet from a goon into the stuff of college football legend.

Automatic Bids:

• American: Memphis

• ACC: Florida State

• Big 12: TCU

• Big Ten: Ohio State

• C-USA: Marshall

• MAC: Northern Illinois

• Mountain West: Boise State

• Pac-12: Oregon

• SEC: Alabama

• Sun Belt: Louisiana

1. Alabama
   Plays winner of Missouri vs. Arizona State
   

2. Oregon
   Plays winner of UCLA vs. Clemson
   

3. TCU
   Plays winner of Georgia vs. Auburn
   

4. Florida State
   Plays winner of Wisconsin vs. Boise State
   

5. Ohio State
   Plays winner of Ole Miss vs. Marshall
   

6. Baylor
   Plays winner of Georgia Tech vs. Northern Illinois
   

7. Arizona
   Plays winner of Mississippi State vs. Memphis
   

8. Michigan State
   Plays winner of Kansas State vs. Louisiana