So it seems to be a given at this point that a 4-team playoff will decide the national champion starting in a couple years. With the announcement of the SEC-Big 12 bowl game and Notre Dame becoming suddenly interested in joining a conference, it also appears that behind the scenes, the powers that be are working on making the playoff a conference champs-only affair. The Rose Bowl could be one semifinal while this new SEC-Big 12 game would be the other I suppose.
That's all well and good, but there is a critical consequence from this scenario that I think a lot of people are overlooking, or at least it hasn't been discussed very much from what I've seen. What happens to OOC games when the road to the NC only goes through conference play?
Does it not effectively reduce the OOC schedule to a glorified preseason? In some ways it already is I guess, but with a conference champs only playoff, the OOC would be completely meaningless. This would be extremely disappointing, as the importance of non-conference games are currently a huge part of what makes college football so great, at least for me.
Imagine a scenario where Clemson is playing UGA (or any high profile team) the week before a conference game and Dabo plays the starters for a quarter then sits them for the remainder of the game to prevent injury and preserve them for the more important conference games that follow.
From what I've read, the Big Ten and Pac-12 are pushing for a champs only model while the SEC (and presumably the Big 12) are in favor of the four best teams. In fact, I've read in some places that this was one of the reasons for the SEC-Big 12 alliance - to act as a counterbalance to the Big 10-Pac 12 union.
You raise an interesting point, though, and one that makes me support the four best teams instead of the conference champs model.