Let me start by saying one thing: right now, nobody really knows how the 2020 college football season is going to be impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s still too early to attempt to forecast what will happen in the coming weeks and months. I’m not trying to predict what the sports landscape will look like four months from now.

But…

Decision-makers of the sports have been forced to brainstorm ideas to play the 2020 college football season if the pandemic does impede on the original kickoff dates. One of the potential options being kicked around is a delayed start time and the elimination of non-conference games.

If truncating the season down to eight league games (so all teams finished with the same number of contests) did become the resolution to this scenario, wouldn’t it provide the ideal opportunity to experiment with an eight-team field for the College Football Playoff?

A traditional college football season provides at least some sort of barometer of how competitive each conference is across the landscape. Those Power 5 vs. Power 5 matchups  — especially games featuring teams residing in the upper echelon of their respective leagues — allow the selection committee to gauge conference strength when it’s time to produce the College Football Playoff rankings.

It’s inconsistent, inexact and imperfect, but it’s something.

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Since this is a B1G website, let’s take a look at some of the most influential non-conference games the league would lose in a truncated season. It would negatively affect each of the (presumed) top three teams in each division in 2020:

  • Michigan vs. Washington
  • Ohio State vs. Oregon
  • Iowa State vs. Iowa
  • Penn State vs. Virginia Tech
  • BYU vs. Minnesota
  • Notre Dame vs. Wisconsin

There are a handful of other schedule games featuring B1G teams and Power 5 opponents, but the ones featured above would have the biggest impact. Without seeing those matchups, it would be virtually impossible for a committee to evaluate which four teams are the best in the sport.

Creating an experimental eight-team playoff seems like a sensible move in this situation, and it could be done with relative ease.

Credit: Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports

Using four of the New Year’s Six bowl games this postseason — the Peach, Cotton, Fiesta and Orange bowls — a quarterfinal round featuring a field of eight teams could be constructed. This expanded “bracket” would include each of the Power 5 conference champions, the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion and two at-large bids.

Those four quarterfinal games could be played on Saturday, Dec. 19, an ideal date for this hypothetical scenario. Not only does that provide teams with a two-week cushion after conference championship games (Dec. 5), it’s also two weeks before the Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl on January 1. Those were the predetermined host sites of the semifinal round of the College Football Playoff.

The national championship could remain set for Jan. 11 at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami. Not much rearranging to the postseason schedule would need to be done.

With a limited regular season schedule, an elongated season isn’t really a concern in terms of player safety. Plus, there would 10 days between each round of the postseason, at minimum.

Expanding the College Football Playoff field to eight teams would have one primary consequence, eliminating bowl spots for four teams this postseason. By keeping the Sugar and Rose bowls open and having those two games host the four winners of the quarterfinal rounds, the number of bowl-eligible teams would be slightly restricted.

But if we’re getting an eight-team tournament for a national championship, who cares about seeing a handful of .500 teams staying home and watching the postseason on television? It’s a small price to pay for the experiment.

In this hypothetical world, we’d get a first-hand look at how an eight-team playoff would operate. It would give fans, coaches, athletic directors and commissioners an idea of whether it would be something worth pursuing or if the four-team model is still the best option.

A decision on an experimental eight-team playoff doesn’t have to made right now, or in the next week, or even in the next month. But, at the very least, it’s something that should be considered.

There would be no better time to give it a test run.