Alberta’s Child wrote: “In 2012, Wisconsin finished the regular season with a 7-5 record, yet they won the Big Ten championship. Any playoff system that lets a team like that contend for the national championship is ludicrous.”
We need to drop the idea that we’re trying to find the best team in college football. That cannot be done. We are trying to fairly and efficiently place four teams into a playoff to determine a champion. In that case, even that Wisconsin team would not be ludicrous.
If you're going to let a 7-5 team compete for the national championship then how is this an improvement on the old way of determining a national champion? At least the college bowl games actually meant something under the old system.
Top four teams doesn’t mean that the teams winning their conference are automatically in. Winning your conference should be the trump card when considering two semi-equal teams for a playoff spot. First trump card should be head to head, if they had played during the season. Second trump card is did they win their conference or not? Wisconsin having five losses would not be in the mix because there would be many teams with a much better won-loss record.