It will undoubtedly happen; probably within 5 years. Be patient. 
I agree, well done, JSC! It does indeed seem logical, especially since you have 5 conferences vying for 4 spots.
But I can only imagine how hard that would be on the fans. Let’s say you’re a Michigan State fan. The first round will be in the Rose Bowl. So you have to pony up for air, hotel, car, food, and game tickets to Pasadena.
Then next week, you have to again pay for air, hotel, car, food, and game tickets to Dallas. All during the holidays!
Now give that Spartan fan another game during an 8-team playoff.
I totally agree with you. I think the most logical solution is to give the top 4 home field advantage for the first round. That would ensure (a) a crowd and (b) typical college football passion and excitement. That would also motivate teams to try not to just limp into the 8 team field.
Basketball fans seem to manage to do it, for March Madness.
(No idea how, but it happens.)
jsc1953, you also forgot Alabama’s win against #23 West Virginia.
- forgot the Auburn/K-State game
- forgot the Bama/WVU
No wonder the SEC critics don’t give the SEC any credit for playing non-conference games. They just conveniently forget them when they are doing an analysis. I guess it doesn’t help that three of biggest OOC games are the last game of the season.
WVU has three losses (Bama, OU, TCU) and ranked 23rd.
And man, wouldn’t the skivvies get scrunched when Mississippi State, Auburn, Bama and FSU win those games?
It doesn’t take nearly as many people per school to fill up a sub-regional and regional b-ball site.
Biggest B-Ball arenas have 20-25K seats (divided by either 4 or 8 schools).
Biggest Football stadiums have 70K-80K seats.to fill
No, Auburn/K State is in there – it shows as Auburn’s best win and K State’s best loss.
I’ve updated my table to show Bama’s best win as 23 West Virginia instead of unranked A&M, but that doesn’t move the needle on their ranking.
Is FSU an honorary member of the SEC now?
If there’s an 8 team playoff and 4 teams from the south get out of the 1st round…so be it. Can’t argue with results on the field.
K-State was left off Auburn’s best win in your original post, and so was Bama’s best win.
The SEC critics have been arguing with results on the field for the last 9 years.
The only thing about FSU that is not SEC is the conference that they play in. They have the speed and talent of the best SEC teams. 
There you go. Proclaim them honorary members of the SEC, and you’ve got 8 straight national championships. 
Basketball tournament sites are more dispersed instead of just in warm weather locations. The committee also tries to put teams in regions closest to them. A lot of the teams that make the long journeys are big schools that underperformed other teams from their major conference (who got the “home” region.)
I’d love an expansion if the extra round involved a series of home games for the top 4 seeds with the lower 4 seeds traveling to them. I’d love to see one of those fancy-schmanzy speed based spread offenses outdoors in the snow and cold. I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from warm climate schools now though. I can hear the chattering of their fans teeth even more.
The problem with this is, the #5 team’s fans would be screaming that they should have been seeded higher than the #4 team and should be hosting the 4 vs 5 game.
Oh I agree with that too, but the #5 team’s fans are going to howl a lot louder under this 4 team deal. At least they’ll get a shot, even if they gotta win game one in a hostile environment.
Upset Alert—Notre Dame down 31-3 in the 2nd, and Auburn is struggling with TAM at home.
Auburn’s LT tackled an A&M pass rusher from behind and it wasn’t called. SEC refs trying to protect their playoff team.
And Auburn just pissed down their leg 
Wow! Auburn shoots themselves in the foot but recovers, only to shoot themselves in the other foot. Wild ending.
#9 beat #10. Not sure what the spread was.
Well, that was unexpected.