On the heels of the first CFB Playoff rankings being revealed for the 2019 season, here’s a look at how an 8-team playoff would benefit Clemson football.
The first 2019 CFB Playoff rankings were revealed Tuesday evening with the Clemson football team coming in at No. 5.
The Tigers are looking to get back to their fifth-straight CFB Playoff and compete for a third National Championship in the past four seasons. Should they advance to the National Championship game, they would be playing in the game for the fourth time in the last five years.
The four-team playoff system has seemed to work fine for Clemson football.
The Tigers haven’t had much trouble getting in and they’ve competed at a high level once they’ve gotten there. Clemson has beaten the likes Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame in the playoff and the Tigers have risen to become a national powerhouse.
Despite the success that Clemson football has had, most Tiger fans would agree that the CFB Playoff is going to expand at some point in the future. Whether or not you want it to expand is another story.
Keep in mind, there are plenty of reasons for both formats and there would certainly have to be changes made- most likely to the regular season schedule or to conference championship weekend- to accommodate adding another game to the College Football season.
That being said, we’re going to take a look at five reasons Clemson may actually benefit from an eight-team playoff format.
5. Death Valley: CFB Playoff mode
This isn’t necessarily a direct benefit, but can you imagine a CFB Playoff game being played in Death Valley?
Have you been to a big game in Clemson? Perhaps Georgia a few years ago? One of the FSU or Auburn games from the somewhat-recent past? This would be even bigger than that. The atmosphere would be absolutely electric and would be something that the Athletic Department could benefit greatly from.
You’d be hosting a big-time opponent, like a Notre Dame, Ohio State, Georgia, Florida or LSU, and this would be beneficial for recruiting, as well.
Even though you’re adding a game to get to the National Championship, this ‘quarterfinal’ of the playoff with teams playing at home would be the epitome of College Football. Fans from around the nation would mark out an entire day to watch some of these premiere matchups, even if the results would already seem predetermined.
4. It leaves room for error
This may be the biggest benefit for Clemson football moving forward.
The world of College Football is a strange place and upsets happen. The Tigers were upset by Syracuse and Pittsburgh in the past and it almost cost them a CFB Playoff berth. Had there not been other upsets around the same time, they certainly could’ve been left out of the field of four altogether.
With an 8-team playoff, you’d have a little room for error.
This would likely push teams to schedule better matchups in the non-conference. They’d want resume-building wins instead of unmerciful blowouts.
If the Tigers lost a game, they wouldn’t be out of contention. There would be a margin of error for Dabo Swinney’s program while still knowing how much the regular season matters in terms of getting to the playoff.
3. Create some diversity
We all know what would happen this year- for the most part- if we went to an 8-team playoff. You’d have the same four or five teams in the semifinals.
Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State and possibly LSU are on a different level from the rest of College Football.
However, giving some of these other teams a chance at least allows them an opportunity to compete. When you’re having Clemson vs. Alabama Part V, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X, people are going to lose interest if they’re not from Clemson or Alabama.
They won’t care if that’s the result after their team gets eliminated, but right now you only have four spots with five Power conferences. The math simply doesn’t work.
Can anyone in the Pac-12 truly compete with Clemson? Probably not. But if you allow the West Coast a game to watch Oregon or Utah get destroyed by the Tigers, the result at least happened on the field, not in a CFB Playoff committee meeting room.
As far as Clemson fans are concerned, this would create a little bit of diversity. You might see a few different opponents every year. Maybe you’d get to play a Pac-12 team? Maybe a secondary team from the SEC or Big Ten make it as a wildcard? Maybe a Group of Five team?
2. Control your own destiny
Building off of point No. 4, every single team controls their own destiny.
If you go to an 8-team playoff, we no longer have to rely on a room full of committee members to get the field right.
As long as Clemson wins the ACC, the Tigers are in the playoff. This creates an even-playing field for ever team in the Power-5. You come into the season knowing that you’ll have a shot at the National Championship if you win your conference.
If you can’t win your conference? Well, then you’re at the mercy of the committee and you’ll have to hope you somehow come away with a wildcard spot. If you get left out, you have no one but yourself to blame.
The Tigers are never the team come out and blowout everyone. Instead, they work on building depth. Under this system, they’d be able to do that without rankings playing a factor in their destiny. The committee might control the seeding, but they don’t control everyone who gets in with automatic qualifiers.
1. No more narratives
Well, this is probably not true.
Media members will find other narratives. The story may change from ‘Clemson doesn’t deserve to be in the playoff’ to ‘Clemson doesn’t deserve to be a hosting seed.’
Even so, though, it all gets settled on the field.
Having media members continuously push the idea that Clemson should be left out of the playoff gets old.
In this new format, they would have no reason to push the narrative because it would be already determined under the rules.
Even with all this being said, there are plenty of reasons why College Football shouldn’t go to an 8-team playoff.
In the short-term, it likely would make things more difficult for Clemson football because the Tigers would have to win an extra game to get to the National Championship, but in the long-run it may be beneficial in maintaining their spot as the nation’s elite.