Were we to go with regular season conference champs plus 3 at-large, with the top 4 hosting, instead of this coming week’s play-out game for us, play-in for UGA, and maybe a play-in or maybe not for the Big 12 and/or Pac 12, those would be the four games upcoming (preferably 2nd weekend in December instead of 1st)…
(Mix of recent AP / last CFP)
•Utah over Oregon as auto Pac 12 rep; 8-1 league records, no head-to-head, identical common opponent record, so last tiebreaker is CFP ranking.
Winners on to semis, losers into NY6 mix with ‘last 4 out’ from the CFP poll. Teams would have 2 weeks after rivalry game weekend to prepare (as well as host school / venue / fans), plus another 2–3+ weeks following before the semis.
Better regular seasons. No extra games. Big incentive to finish in top 4 still plus winning your conference. It just replaces 5 hodge podgy games leaving a lot up to judgment with 4 clear and distinct games instead that all matter greatly.
I'm not in favor of expanding, the last 5 years have shown once you get beyond 2-3 teams the field is weak. Those games you show would be 3 blowouts and an excruciating defensive tussle between UGA & UTAH. I've already seen what LSU/OSU have done to top 7-10 teams this year, it's basically non-competitive