Did last night strenghten the case for an 8-team playoff?

the only question is how long will it take.

UCF is a weak example because they don't play a P5 schedule and the thought of two or more SEC teams every year makes me throw up in my mouth.  If one of the rules was you had to win your confence and all P5 conferences went to a 9 conference game schedule with NO FCS I might consider the idea.

So 5 conference winners, three at large, one of them being a group of 5 standout and eliminating the FCS crap the SEC does, it might be doable.

The major stakeholders (10 FBS conferences, ESPN, 6 Bowl Games, NCAA) agreed on a 12-year contract to run from January 2015 through January 2026.  This was year 4 of the 12-year contract.

I don't see any way in the world you are getting an agreement to re-negotiate the contract before then, and I don't even think it's too likely that they make it 8 teams in 2027.  I think you are confusing 2 things:  what the fan wants (a clear national champion) and what the stakeholders want (money, sure, but not just that--they want to advance their interests). 

The NCAA won't just sign off on a 3-game postseason.  They don't want schools playing a 16-game schedule, which would be bad "optics" for them.  The P5 conferences won't sign off on autobids for the G5 conferences.  The 6 major bowls won't sign off on anything that dilutes fan interest in their product, and 2 of those 6 will never again sign off on anything that moves their game off of January 1 (January 2 if January 1 is a Sunday).

The #1 seed has never won the playoff, the #4 seed has won 50% of the playoffs. Expansion is absolutely necessary for a fair playoff, expansion isn't necessary for the CFP and the TV networks to make money so it won't happen anytime soon. Conference championships should earn you an automatic bid, and 3 at-larges should be admitted when the best teams manage to not win their conference/give group of 5 schools an opportunity. It's simple, straightforward, and won't happen because the people in charge don't care. 

Join a conference, play someone.  

But yeah, I think this game stregnthened the case for an expanded playoff.  Then once it gets expanded some team will make the case for an expansion of that.  College football is all about making cases.  Either way, I think all P5 teams duking it out in a playoff would be good.  Let championships be won on the field, not in a selection committee.  

If UCF wanted to be considered they should have scheduled some more P5 schools. I know it wasn't their fault Georgia Tech was canceled, but they had 4 OOC games to schedule.

Georgia Tech and Maryland is not a real P5 schedule.

I still think 4 is perfect. It took a little luck for Alabama to get in the playoffs, but they proved they were the best team on the field when they did get in. If Ohio State or USC don't get blown out, Alabama doesn't get in. It's perfectly OK for a team to not win their division and get left out of the playoffs.

100% it needs to be 6 or 8 sooner than later

Nick Saban said he isn't in favor of playoff expansion because it takes emphasis away from "other bowl games, which could lead to then having zero other bowl games because of the playoff". I was like, what is he talking about? Kids play for what they play for, if they don't make the playoff and then choose to "mail it in" for the non-playoff bowl game, so be it. Let them take the L if that's what they are going to do. IMO, expanding the playoff to 8 teams in no way diminishes bowl season in college football. I don't know how likely it is that the playoff gets to 8 teams, I just think Saban's opinion is trash and makes no sense.

If the goal is to crown the team with the most champion-like regular and post season, rather than a team with a "good enough" regular season and the best postseason, then the best method will always involve the fewest participants. And, perhaps, we've already had the best method, as it preceded the BCS when we had zero dedicated "national championship game" participants and simply put it to a AP/Coach vote after all the games were over.

This is a tradeoff that the Men's basketball tournament has conceded to the extreme. The winner of that NCAA tourney is rarely the best team in the nation as judged by the best regular + postseason resume. It's just the team that got hot at the right time.

Picking between these options is mostly a matter of personal taste and somewhat a matter of semantics, but my personal taste is this:

Coaches/AP decide >>> BCS > 4-team CFP > 6-team CFP > 8-team CFP >>>>> any 60+ team tournament in existence

Boy that MSU - Saban take... I bet I could count on a finger-less man's fingers how many Sparties "miss" Saban.

No, it did not strengthen the case for an 8 team CFP, because the team everyone thought was the best got in and won.  As for UCF, if a non P5 team wants to be taken seriously, then they have to schedule top P5 programs and beat them.  If UCF had beaten Auburn during the regular season, along with, say, Wisconsin and Oklahoma State, they would have been in the playoff.

I hate to rain on your parade but if I had to guess, I'd say most Sparty fans got over the Saban thing a long time ago.  Their anger was funny when it happened but that feels like ages ago. 

Saban's MSU teams were a riot.  They were always undisciplined and let their emotions get the best of them when the slightest thing didn't go their way.  They lost to awful teams.  They had so many Sparty nooooooo moments, it was comic gold.  Sometimes they didn't even focus on the opponent they were playing - as Gary Barnett  said in 97 when he could tell, even during the warmups, they weren't concentrating on Northwestern at all but on the next week's game against us.  Those things fall on the coach.

While those were happy memories, I'm still anti-Saban because I got burned out on Alabama long ago.  On top of the whole BCS championship thing where arguments made against Michigan in 2006 did not apply to Alabama in 2011, it's been the same old script year after year.  The rich get richer.  5 national titles the last 9 years?  F*ck those guys.  I didn't even bother watching the second half of last night's game because I knew who was going to win it. 

And in answer to your original question, it doens't matter.  Whether it's a 4 team playoff, 8 team, 16 team...whatever.  It's just going to be f*cking Alabama winning the whole thing. 

5 power conference champs (Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12, PAC 12) + 3 at-large bids (highest ranked).

Wouldn't that have weakened the argument for an 8 team playoff? There would have been no real dispute about the top 4 teams.

Truth is that people who want bigger playoffs will always find reasons for them. Also true is that the ideal number will change year to year. Just look at 1999, 2 undefeated teams that everyone wanted to see meet. 2 was the perfect number that year.

Possibly, but I also don't think that expanding the field would've changed the final outcome. Bama was once again the best team in the country. They just needed the time to get healthy. Even if the field was expanded and OSU got in (probably the only team that is as talented as Bama man for man), you never know which OSU you're going to get. OSU could've beaten Bama but also lost to them by 30. 

That being said, I'm all for expanding the field to 8, with 5 spots reserved as auto-bids for P5 conference champions as long as those conference champions are in the top-10. If not, then it's up to the discretion of the committee as far as whether or not they get in or give the spot to another at-large. This way you never have any fluke situations like a 2012 Wisconsin conference champion who went 7-5 who start demanding that they should be in. Two spots go to at-large teams, or possibly more if you have some really shitty P5 conference champions, and one spot for the highest ranked G5 team as long as that team is ranked in, say, the top-15 by the time the postseason starts. 

the last 3 years. A special semifinal this year. And we want to fuck that up for what? A potential 3-loss national champion? Why?

And worse is going to be those who want 8 clamoring for 12 or 16 in 5 years. It never fucking ends.

If you want a sport where nothing matters until the final tournament, you have it. It's called college basketball.

Keep the regular season meaningful.

Yes...and Saban is the biggest crybaby in college football (Scott Frost is coming on strong though) and he gets a free pass from the media only because he is winning.

If anything, it weakened it.

Bama getting curbstomped in the semi would've strengthened it since the initial argument this year was that OSU should've been in. Bama beating georgia after Georgia/OK was one of the greatest CFB games of all time removes any doubt that bama should've been there.

UCF would've gotten stomped by bama/georgia/Oklahoma.