Oh one more thing about an 8 team tournament. There would need to be rules setup BEFORE the season on who plays who in the tournament.
For example. If you’re one of the 3 selected teams They play the best record teams from the conference finalist. Worst record plays best record. NO strength of schedule bullcrap. Just worst plays best. If tied then use a formula like the NFL does to determine the better team. Like points over same team wins. Or how long it’s been since they lost. But make it math based and not some money making committee selecting who plays who.
The appropriate teams are playing and there was no way to go wrong with the 4th pick. O.U., OSt, Ga. even Central Florida would have been reasonable choices.
They already rank the teams beyond the top 4 so I think you just play 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5. The bracket layout is such that if the higher seeded teams win you end up with a 1-2 championship game.
I'd have to be convinced that Washington (9-3) PAC-12 champion should get an automatic bid ahead of UCF 12-0 (for 2 years straight).