Ryan Day addresses controversy around conference champions getting College Football Playoff bye

There has been some controversy surrounding the format of the 12-team College Football Playoff. In particular, there is some debate about whether conference champions should get a bye. Now, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day has broken down his thoughts on the issue.

While Day chose not to get into his own personal feelings about the system, he shared that he expects some kind of changes to come to the system.

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“I don’t know if I need to jump into all of that right now,” Ryan Day said. “I’ve just got so much on our plate. It’s such a giant question. I know that there are reasons why and I know that this is the first time around. I do think they’re going to refine it as time goes on and come up with a better solution for all. I do. Now, maybe they’ll just keep it the same way for the next 10 years. I don’t think that’ll happen. I think there’ll be adjustments.”

In the current system, the top-five ranked conference champions get automatic bids into the Playoff. Then, the top-four ranked of those conference champions get a first round bye. That’s allowed lower-ranked teams to get a bye week over teams generally considered to be better than them, which has sparked an amount of controversy.

“I know why they did what they did. They want to honor the conference champs, which I think is the right thing to do,” Day said. “But I know that as they continue to do this they’ll start to flush out more and more of the issues it’ll be a more refined process as we head forward. So, that doesn’t really answer your question all that much other than I know these guys are gonna work hard on that and I think it’s a great conversation for down the road, how the conference championships play into it — the conference championship games play into it. Right now, I’m going to focus on Tennessee.”

This year, the system hasn’t had a major impact on Ryan Day and Ohio State. The Buckeyes didn’t even make the Big Ten Championship, so a first round bye was always off the table. Still, they’re hosting in the first round against the Tennessee Volunteers. In a different system, it’s possible their seed would have been different but at 10-2 for the season, it’s unlikely the result of hosting in the first round would have been different.

Paul Finebaum: College Football Playoff format has to be tweaked for next year

One person who has been adamant that change is needed in the College Football Playoff format is ESPN’s Paul Finebaum.

“I think they have to try to tweak it for next year. It’s a glaring weakness, especially if you look at what Penn State‘s root to the semifinals is. It’s ridiculous. Somebody was gonna get that path. I don’t know how you get that path after losing a game, but that’s okay,” Finebaum said on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning.

“Ultimately, they can do whatever they want. This is not law. It is just a formula. If [Greg] Sankey and [Tony] Petitti go in there and say, ‘We’re changing it, or if we don’t change it we’re getting x-number of guaranteed automatic bids,’ then what are these other conferences going to do? Because I know a lot of threats are being made today from changing schedules to pulling out. That’s not gonna happen. But the rest of the conferences are going to do whatever the SEC and the Big Ten want.”