When will college football go to the playoff system? When can we expect this four team playoff to begin? When will the playoff expand? How many will the playoff expand to? These are the questions college football fans have been asking for years up till now. The questions will continue as fans will always be wanting more. However, as this season of college football winds down one question has been beating at college football’s door. When will we see eight teams in the playoff?

This season we have seen the top ten teams all prove that they are worthy of the playoffs. However, with just four spots, conference champs could be left in the dark. The Big XII champion without a title game will miss the playoffs this season weather it is Oklahoma, or Oklahoma State. The Big Ten championship presents two two-loss teams, who without help could also be left out. What would be the perfect answer to these problems? Answer, an eight team playoff.

When the Playoff was first released, I was all for the idea. The idea to form the playoff was to originally get rid of some the controversy by allowing the third and forth ranked teams a chance to prove themselves to be better than the top two. However, in any situation the teams left outside the new format will complain. You see it in any situation with the postseason being decided by a committee. College basketball allows 68 postseason teams, however the teams on the wrong side of the bubble will always be upset when they discover they are out.

In my eyes an eight team playoff will improve college football and make the whole regular season mean even more. Dane Vatter, a senior a Elder, said he wants to see eight teams because it will eliminate some of the controversy as it will allow each major conference champ to be in. Other fans of the eight team playoff are Tim Tieman, Zach Fries, Ross Hambleton, Mr. Gergen and many more students.

Few people ask for a sixteen team playoff, and some ask to make it like the FCS by going to 32. Mike Leach coach of Washington State has even requested a 64 team playoffs by shortening the regular season to ten games and playing six postseason weeks. That may be a bit of a stretch.

One down side to any addition to the playoff would be that the controversy for the teams just outside the bracket will never be happy with the outcome.

My perfect bracket would contain the winners of the power conferences: ACC, Big XII, Big Ten, Pac 12, and SEC. This would leave two spots up for wildcards, and one spot offered to the highest ranked non power team. For example with the current season the bracket would look something like this: Alabama, Clemson, Washington, Oklahoma/Oklahoma State, Wisconsin/Penn State as the winners of the power conferences. With Michigan, Ohio State, and Western Michigan making the wildcards. This would also force Notre Dame to join a conference if they want to get an automatic bid for the playoffs.

While there is no timetable for when the Playoff will be expanded to eight teams, I’m sure it will eventually be introduced. As for now we will just have to live with the decisions between the committee for who will make the top four. Just be grateful we have the Playoff and not the former BCS Championship game.