The latest news about the pending college football playoff is slightly better for the Mountain West and other current non-automatic qualifying schools. The selection committee that will pick the semifinal matchups will also be selecting all the teams that for the major bowls.
The selection committee will pick the teams for all six bowls. Theoretically, it could be the Top 12 spread over 6 games. Huge improvement.
— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) June 28, 2012
This does not guarantee that a No. 8 Nevada team will necessarily get invited to the Fiesta Bowl just because they are ranked in the top 10. There are only five guaranteed bowl bids in the major games with the Rose Bowl taking Big Ten and Pac-12, Champions Bowl for SEC and Big 12 and then the ACC heading to the Orange Bowl.
Even when the SEC, Big Ten or Big 12 teams make the semifinal the bowls they are affiliated with are more than likely going to be replaced from the same league.
One thing that will likely come up is what happens when the Big Ten champion -- or another league with an automatic bowl tie -- is in the top four, but then their second place tema is ranked No. 18. So, will the Rose Bowl automatically take that Big Ten team to be selected over a higher ranked team. That no doubtingly will be something that needs to be worked out, but what would make things easier would be to take the top 16 teams for the 12 spots, so that there is a cut off of teams that earn a bowl bid.
This is a step in the right direction to possibly help out the mid-major schools, but who knows if the committee take them seriously if ranked high enough.
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