I will die on the hill that says you don’t get in the playoff if you don’t win your conference, period. I don’t care if the SEC says a 1-loss Bama that didn’t make the conference championship game deserves a shot … they didn’t even win their division. How can you say a team not good enough to win their division should get a spot in a national championship playoff?
Conference championships should be a de facto first round playoff qualifier. You gotta win that to advance. Anybody who can’t do that, well, too bad, try again next year. You finished behind somebody in your conference, that means you weren’t as “good” as that team, what gives you the right to go to the playoff?
(I get that single-elimination conference play and playoff games don’t always end up with the “best” team winning. That‘s the nature of the design - you’re not finding the “best team in the country,” you’re crowning the “survivor of your playoff pool.” So if that’s how it works, instead of giving a conference loser a second shot at beating somebody, why not simply make it a tournament of conference champions? That makes $o much $en$e to me I can’t under$tand why everyone i$n’t on board …)