As of right now the college football playoffs only allow for four teams to compete in this post-season showdown, which means there are about two to four teams that find themselves left out in the competition for the National Championship.

So far this year the top eight teams in the country are LSU, Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Penn State, Florida, Oregon and Georgia. If the season ended today this would be the biggest talk in all of sports because Penn State, a team that hasn’t lost yet, would be snubbed out of a spot to compete in the playoffs. Whereas Clemson, a team that struggled against a bad North Carolina team, would get the fourth and final spot.

The NCAA needs to make the change from the four team format and allow for the eight best teams to compete to show who is the best team in all of college football.

In 2014 the playoff format was inserted into the post-season mix and right off the bat we were already able to see some of the wins with the change, as well as many of the flaws that it had to offer.

I remember the 2017 season like it was yesterday. During the 2017 season, Ohio State was ranked fifth when the season was over, after they had just won the Big Ten Championship, while ahead of them was the Alabama Crimson Tide. Alabama was ranked in the fourth spot, despite not participating in a conference championship game. 

Don’t get me wrong, Alabama deserved to be in the playoffs, but the system makes it seem like winning a conference championship doesn’t matter at all when a team who didn’t play for one is put in the mix.

Just recently in the 2018-2019 season we saw more teams, specifically UCF, get robbed out of a spot in the playoffs when they had a decent resume to get themselves in. UCF had spent the past two seasons with undefeated records, but were ultimately left outside the top four. Now I’m not saying UCF played a hard schedule at all, but if you make it eight teams instead of four you could see them maybe pull off a few upsets and perhaps they can prove their worth to the college football playoff committee.

The committee has a hard job, having to choose the four best teams in college football to put into the playoffs, but by making it eight teams maybe there wouldn’t be as much controversy from fans and critics complaining about which teams did or didn’t deserve to be included. 

It might take a couple more years to finally see this format change, but with plenty of people talking it might happen soon.