Is College Football Going to Adopt Mike Gundy’s Playoff Plan?

The College Football Playoff plan you’ll see below caught my eye on Wednesday, and it reminded me that Mike Gundy has been proposing almost the exact same thing for several years. Who knew Gundy — in so many ways — would be ahead of the CFB postseason curve.

As the joke goes, Alabama misses one playoff and you have to blow the whole thing up. So this is what is apparently making the rounds this postseason with the four-teamer a smash hit as it approaches a decade in existence.

A Power 5 AD in New York this week said a specific 8-team playoff model is circulating around the CFB world that would incorporate bowls, including a bowl-sponsored national championship game.

The model:
– 5 auto bids for P5 champs
– 2 at-large
– 1 Group of 5 https://t.co/tTo387Udah

— Ross Dellenger (@RossDellenger) December 11, 2019

Where have I heard that before? Oh, I know.

In 2015, 2016, 2017 and then again in 2018, he touted this exact thing.

“I know they have a 12-year contract,” Gundy said told the Oklahoman four years ago. “But they’re gonna change it and they’re gonna go to eight teams. The solution is let the conferences battle it out. If you win your conference, you’re in. That’s five teams. Then you have one wild card from the Memphis, the Houston this year, the non-Power Five … If Houston is the highest-ranked team from the non-Power Five conference, they’re in. So that’s six. Then, let them argue over two wild cards. It could be whoever.”

Here he is running it back in 2017.

“I think they’re going to have to go to eight teams,” said Gundy. “I understand the academic requirements and amateur athletes vs. professional. You’re going to run into an issue where the human element with the committee is going to cause some concerns across the country. Whether we like it or not there’s way too much money involved in this. There’s five Power 5 conferences. Somebody’s going to win a conference championship and not get in.

“In my opinion, they should have eight. If you win your conference, you’re in. That means it’s important to win your conference. When you go to the smaller schools — Western Michigan as an example last year — Western Michigan should be in. Otherwise you won’t ever, ever have a smaller school that has a chance to win a championship. They’re not ever going to get in.”

This is true. I’ve been hollering about this from the rooftops for years. SMU — even if had not lost a single game — had no chance of winning it all this season. Why play the same sport as Auburn and Texas?

Here’s what an eight-teamer could look like this year.

LSU vs. Memphis — Death Valley
Ohio State vs. Baylor — The Shoe
Clemson vs. Oregon — Other Death Valley
OU vs. Georgia — Norman

Send help! I’d watch them all! And I get that it sort of neuters the conference championship games, but 1. Conference championships still matter outside of the playoff and 2. If Baylor gets smoked by 40 by OU, then Utah is now ranked ahead of them, right? So it doesn’t render those games meaningless.

I do kind of enjoy the four-teamer. There’s always hollering and yelping. It engenders drama. It’s fun to chat about. But for the good of the sport, I think you have to have a real path for a team to win it all. Otherwise, it becomes a glorified recruiting rankings redux. In this system, you could at least tell Texas Tech or Kansas State, “You don’t have to prove anything, you just have to win your league.” Less figure skating, more meritocratic.

And for Gundy, it’s not exactly solving climate change or world hunger, but after (inadvertently) fixing the BCS by missing out on the title game in 2011, he has now pushed the evolution of the College Football Playoff forward as well. You know, if it actually happens.