Paul Finebaum claims automatic bye weeks are 'ultimate flaw' in CFP, disparages Arizona State, Boise State

During the Quarterfinals of the College Football Playoff, Paul Finebaum watched on as each of the top four seeds, who achieved bye weeks through winning their respective conference titles, lost and saw their season come to an end in an unceremonious fashion.

Boise State, Arizona State, Oregon and Georgia were all unable to get to the Semifinals, as the lower seed was victorious in each game over the past couple of days. Finebaum believes it underscored a flaw with the expanded 12-team CFP, and he even went as far as to call out the Broncos and the Sun Devils, convinced that the two conference champions didn’t deserve a bye week to begin with.

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“I think you have to remember that two of those bye teams really had no business getting byes, and that was the ultimate flaw in the system. Arizona State and Boise State should not have — should have been playing on the road the very first weekend, and we wouldn’t even have this conversation,” Finebaum said, regarding the flaw with bye weeks in the CFP, via Get Up on ESPN. “But Oregon is an outlier. It has been a problem for that program. It’s been such a great program, but in the big games — last year, of course, twice against Washington and this year, the second game against Ohio State, they really just could not get it done.

“But ultimately, the team that I think that hasn’t been mentioned yet, that deserves the most credit, is Michigan. That win against Ohio State did something to Ryan Day and his program that I can’t explain, but it may be the story of the CFP this year if Ohio State can win it all.”

All told, the seeding of the expanded CFP has been a controversial topic that many pundits have clamored to change over the past couple of months. While Arizona State might was ranked No. 12 in the official, final CFP Rankings, they ended up as the No. 4 seed with a bye week. While they weren’t the problem in the quarterfinals — in fact, it was the most competitive team that had a bye week — they are the example many use when speaking on the issue.

The 12-team, expanded College Football Playoff may be an improvement, but it’s far from perfect, and perfect is what Paul Finebaum and the rest of the college football world are trying to achieve. Perhaps adjusting which teams receive a bye week could go a long way into getting it to that level in the future, but regardless, it’s still far from guaranteed.