Okay, but do you feel the same about the 8-4 champions of the Sun Belt Conference? Because Mike's proposal wasn't just to put undefeated mid-majors in the playoff, it was to put all mid-major conference champions in the playoff
And that's the thing, isn't it. While I do agree with Mike to the extent that putting all conference champions in is "fair" (Not that he's used those terms) it's not what people are actually interested in watching. As I said, games like North Texas v. Clemson or Ohio State v. Toledo are laughers. Playing these games in December isn't going to add any intrigue. Life ain't fair, though. I am, thus, in favor of power 5 teams splitting off (say 64 teams, as @LordJeffBuck has proposed before) and playing for the title while the rest compete for some other title. As for the "what else could UCF have done" ... they could have joined a power 5 conference.. like Utah did. You see how many times Utah's ended up number 2 in the country since then, right? UCF still can, by the way... and if they do, good for them.
I would argue that it would not be particularly "fair" to give an auto-bid to the post-season tournament to a G-5 conference champion, having an 8-4 record including losses to the only two P-5 opponents they played (one of them being Wake Forest), while denying a spot in the tournament to a team that finished second in a P-5 conference, having a 10-2 or 11-1 record and beating multiple P-5 opponents along the way. It seems to me that the only basis on which that would be fair is the arbitrary definition of "FBS" as including both P-5 and G-5 conferences, a view that ignores the substantial discrepancy between P-5 and G-5 conferences.
That's a fair observation, and I admit it's not as easy as simply wanting to join a P5 conference. Still, they should be knocking on some doors or making some phone calls too, don't you agree?
Your second paragraph posits a team from G-5 that is clearly the best team in the country. I have to believe this would be evident to the committee and they'd be invited to the 4 team playoff. In making this hypo you're subtly obfuscating the issue though, as UCF was not such a team last season.
UCF had a very successful season. Their competition was what it was - I don't think their schedule has been discounted by "they're not as good as we though, they lost to UCF after all" They played an otherwise normal G5 schedule. The problem, though, is that an otherwise normal G5 schedule is not all the tough. Which is to say, if Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia... Probably USC and a few others.. if they had to run the same schedule UCF (or any G5 team plays) they'd be undefeated too. Which gets me to your last paragraph... not all undefeated seasons are equal. I don't remember a single person getting their panties in a bunch when Tulane went undefeated in 1998. And why? Because their name is Tulane? No. Because they played a schedule that Tennessee, Ohio State, Kansas State and Florida State would have all easily beat as well.
This is a point I've argued with a friend of mine who's a staunch CFB fan(as I'm more of an NFL fan), CFB will never have a TRUE NC, unless they truly expand the playoffs to 8-12 teams. The same teams will constantly be in the CFP(I believe that between Clemson, OSU, Bama and Oklahoma that's 70+% on representatives of the CFP). I can bet that almost every poster on this board can predict 2-3 of the 4 teams that will be in the CFP without a game being played. That is hardly parity and just allows the same teams to milk the system(especially since OSU set the precedent along with Bama that you don't need to win your conference to get in). Schools like UCF have little to no chance of ever getting in the CFP, unless they schedule their OOC games against the best of the best, but those teams won't schedule them for fear of losing and utter embarrassment. There won't be an SEC team or name brand ACC team(mainly Clemson) that will sniff putting UCF on their schedule, so they're stuck with beating a bigger team in a NY6 bowl and using it for relevance.
So long as there are unbalanced schedules, there will not be a true champion... Although, in the ether, I'm not sure what constitutes a "true champion" Even in the NFL, (And I'm no NE fan) the year the Giants beat the Patriots... Let's be honest here, New England was the best team in the NFL by pretty much every measure... except they lost to a team they had already beaten .. their only loss in 20 games that year.. That loss was only meaningful because it came in February and not September. Which, just goes to my point about playoffs generally.. They're a fine way to crown a champion.. but, there's nothing inherently better about a playoff, and it is not some sort of magical quality a playoff possess that other ways of finding a champion do not.. that is to say, playoffs have their faults...
True, but if NE had lost in the 2nd round of the playoffs, no one would have said that they were the best team. Playoffs have their faults, but their sure better than just picking 2 teams and having them play, the more teams, it gives at least more of a balance to finding a "true" champion. But in CFB, you'll never see a New Mexico, UCF, Tulane, Colorado St., etc win in this current climate, at the end of the day, there's just too much money to be made. If an undefeated example of one of those teams and a one(or even 2) loss 2nd place finisher of the B1G, SEC or ACC were decided upon by the committee, $$$ would speak louder than that undefeated record(not to mention, beating up on UCONN, So. Miss, Tulane and Memphis doesn't impress voters)
