Clemson Football: How CFB Playoff could be conducted in a bubble

The Clemson football team has a chance to compete in the CFB Playoff for a sixth-straight year

The Clemson football team is just three games from finishing its 2020 regular season, but it seems like a further uphill climb now more than ever.

While the entire CFB season looked in jeopardy before it ever began, we’ve been fortunate to see the 2020 Clemson football season go off without too much of a hitch at this point, with the Tigers playing eight games.

The ACC, SEC and Big 12 had the right idea by playing their season earlier and allowing for potential makeup dates, but that hasn’t stopped the media onslaught of columns and posts predicting the impending doom of College Football following a rash of outbreaks across the country that have seen many games canceled or postponed as a result.

In total, six Power-5 games were taken off the schedule for this week because of outbreaks within certain programs.

• Alabama at LSU
• Ohio State at Maryland
• Texas A&M at Tennessee
• Georgia at Missouri
• Auburn at Mississippi State
• Georgia Tech at Pittsburgh

Even though we’re just about a month out from the regular season coming to a close and postseason play ramping up, it seems the climb up the mountain to finishing the season is becoming a steeper and steeper walk.

So, it begs the question: Is there anyway Clemson football fans could see the Tigers still compete in the postseason?

Make no mistake about it, the plan from CFB leaders at this point is to still complete the dates as previously scheduled. The plan is to have conference titles games completed by December 19 and then for the CFB Playoff committee to select its four teams and play ball- it should be noted that bowl season is still up in the air.

But, do we really want to run into a situation where you get a week- or potentially even a couple of days out- from a semifinal matchup just to find out that one team can’t compete?

While no one is talking about a bubble in College Football, it certainly should be considered and it wouldn’t even be all that difficult to pull off.

What if you simply took the MLB approach to the postseason? You have your four teams (or maybe even we expand the playoff to six to be more inclusive and have a play-in game) enter the bubble perhaps a week before they enter the bubble. This would require the CFB Playoff likely moving back the semifinals a week, though that could be discussed.

After teams tested players every day for a week, they entered the bubble a week before the semifinal game. You play both semifinal games and the National Championship at the same venue and- boom- you’ve set up some sort of a bubble.

It’s not perfect. It’s not full-proof, but it could get the job done.

We don’t pretend to have the answers by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s certainly time for the CFB Playoff committee- and conference commissioners and leaders- to get creative and begin thinking and planning with foresight if they want this season to be completed.