The champions of the SEC, Pac-12, ACC and Big Ten have been selected for the inaugural College Football Playoff. The co-champions of the Big 12 were the first teams left out of the mix, and calls for an expanded playoff format have ramped up as a result.
No matter the playoff format, there will always be deserving teams on the outside looking in. But an eight-team playoff could accommodate automatic bids for each of the Power 5 conference champions and would likely include every major conference team with one loss or fewer. This year may have been ideally suited for an eight-team playoff since exactly eight Power 5 teams ended the year with two or fewer losses.
How might a hypothetical eight-team playoff play out this postseason? We ran playoff projections on the assumption that the eight playoff seeds would match the College Football Playoff committee's final top-eight ranking and that the quarterfinal round would feature home games for the top seeds. In other words, No. 1 Alabama would host No. 8 Michigan State in the quarterfinals, and the winner would advance to the neutral-site semifinals. Individual game projections for each of the possible playoff matchups were calculated based on ESPN's opponent-adjusted drive efficiency ratings.
No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide
Likelihood to win four-team playoff: 35 percent
Likelihood to win eight-team playoff: 28 percent
Alabama is not the favorite to win the inaugural College Football Playoff, according to our data, but it would be the overall favorite to win in an eight-team format because our rating gives the Tide an 87 percent chance to beat their hypothetical quarterfinal opponent, Michigan State, in Tuscaloosa.