Missing the #65 ranked team in basketball and a possible $250K payout is nothing compared to not selecting the #5 ranked team and a possible $15M payout. That is why it will expand, never go away, or go down ... like taxes.
It may not be comparable but it is an excellent example of why a 4-team playoff won't solve anything, nor will an 8-team or 16-team playoff. Bandit is correct about the complaining that is going to accompany this process. Basketball had 64 teams and that wasn't enough. So then they expanded to 65 and that wasn't enough either. Now we're at 68 teams and there are still teams griping because they won't get in.
Take the griping over being the No. 69 team and not getting in and magnify it appropriately for the team that is No. 5 and realizes they're missing out on $15 million and a chance to play for the national championship. It will expand to eight teams, and then it will expand to 16 teams. And we'll really be no better off then than we are now...at the expense of making the regular season mean much less than it does now.
I'm not opposed to a 4-team playoff, but I also know it won't end there. And that's too bad. Currently we have 13 rounds of playoffs. And the formula used at the end is pretty darned accurate, despite all the griping and complaining. In 14 years there has been one, maybe two, seasons where someone had a legitimate gripe of being passed over for the national championship.
If we're going to try something different, let's go with Clay Travis' outline from last year. Four superconferences, 16 teams each. Force Notre Dame to join a conference. Everyone plays everyone within their division, then the conference championship games are the quarterfinals.
