Dave Reardon: 8 is a good way to start for football playoff

First of all, let’s get this out of the way, because it always comes up:

It doesn’t matter how many teams you have in a college football playoff, the first team left out will be outraged.

But it’s good to remember that the more teams you allow in, the less solid ground the first locked out has to complain from. But where is the most reasonable point?

If the NCAA does go ahead with the 12-team model being talked about now, No. 13 and its fan base will be up in arms — that’s just the way it is, just like it is with the bubble teams in March Madness. But if the main purpose of the playoff is to determine a national champion? Hey, No. 13 … shuddup.

Same to No. 9 if it’s an eight-team playoff. But when we get down to the four that we have had since 2014? Well, perhaps it’s still a tough sell to convince anyone that a No. 5 like Texas A&M last year would have a prayer of beating the Alabamas, Ohio States and Clemsons of the world. But there is a much stronger case to be made in that situation than for anybody left home in a tournament including eight or more teams.

Last season was so weird with all the pandemic-caused disruption, including canceled games. But let’s look at the case of Coastal Carolina anyway.

The Chanticleers of the unheralded Sun Belt were one of the feel-good stories of 2020. They won all 11 regular-season games, including an upset of No, 13 BYU, and an early-season road game at No. 21 Louisiana (not State, just Louisiana, but still a sweet win).

After that College Gameday win over BYU, Coastal climbed five spots to No. 12 in the CFP rankings at the end of the regular season. (The Sun Belt championship game was canceled.)

If the 12-team playoff model being talked about now was in place in 2020, Coastal Carolina would have made it in.

The proposal would include the six highest-ranked conference champions, and the next six highest-ranked teams according to the CFP selection committee. And there are the Chanticleers in the final rankings of 2020 before the playoff … one spot behind No. 11 Indiana and one spot ahead of No. 13 North Carolina — and five ahead of the Pac-12’s highest-ranked team, USC.

They’d have been one of two teams from the Group of Five (the stepchild conferences to the Power Five for those who need a reminder) to make it, along with No. 8 Cincinnati from the American Athletic Conference.

Back to four-team-playoff reality for a minute: You may remember that Alabama took care of business against No. 4 Notre Dame and then No. 3 Ohio State to cruise to an undefeated national championship. Meanwhile, Cincinnati lost 24-21 to a two-loss Georgia team in the Peach Bowl. And what of our darling Chanticleers? They lost to Liberty 37-34 in a wild overtime game in the Cure Bowl (a game I’d certainly want to be at if the Cure was playing).

There’s rarely consensus in this kind of thing, but maybe we can all agree that a team that loses to Liberty (even a one-loss Liberty) would not have stood much of a chance against Alabama — or, considering byes for the top four in a 12-team playoff, even first-round opponent Texas A&M.

Tbe 12-team playoff proposal as is lets the college football power brokers look like inclusive good guys while also allowing the rich to get richer — because there’s no limit to how many teams can get in from any one conference; theoretically, seven teams from one conference can make it. That won’t happen, but don’t be surprised if four or even five SEC teams make it some year.

Maybe you like the idea of that, and consider yourself a purist because if they are indeed better than everybody else in all the other conferences they deserve it. The problem with that is no matter how good our eyeballs are at testing, we have to assume too much about who is better than whom because everyone plays just one-tenth of the teams they’re compared with.

Maybe you see that as another good reason to jump to 12 teams. But then, why stop there?

I still think eight is the right number, as many of us have all along. For one thing, byes are way too valuable, too much of an advantage at the end of the season when everyone is licking their wounds.

So, I hope 12 is being thrown out there as a way to negotiate to eight. Make it the five Power Five conference champions and three at-large teams. No byes. No muss, no fuss. Just one more week of games, and an opportunity for Group of Five programs like Cincinnati, Coastal Carolina, Central Florida, and, yes, of course, Hawaii, to get in if they’re good enough.

Make it so Warriors coach Todd Graham and all the others can honestly tell prospects the goal is the national championship, not just bowl games, where some of the best players sit out for fear of injury, instead of going at it one last time with their teammates they say they love so much.

One other thing: If the Pac-12 is really as bad as everyone east of the Rockies seems to think it is, maybe it’s time to demote it and make it a Group of Six instead of Five — or have it trade places with the ascending American.

Yeah, that flies in the face of tradition and sounds crazy.

But since everything and anything is on the table now, why not?