The expanded College Football Playoff has brought a ton of excitement to the College Football season. The new format has given us added excitement each weekend as teams with two losses are still alive compared to most years when they would've already been decided.
The new format isn't universally beloved however as two conferences have the biggest gripe with the Playoff Format. The SEC and the Big Ten are likely to be the victims of automatic bids due to the five highest ranked Conference Champions earning automatic bids with the Top Four earning automatic byes.
The SEC had Missouri ranked 23rd, South Carolina ranked 18th, Texas A&M ranked 15th, Tennessee ranked 11th, Georgia ranked 10th, Ole Miss ranked 9th, Alabama ranked 7th, and Texas ranked 3rd.
The Big Ten had Illinois ranked 25th, Indiana ranked 5th, Penn State ranked 4th, Ohio ranked 2nd, and Oregon ranked 1st.
The biggest gripe for these conferences should be the issues of Automatic Byes as the format isn't set up the best. As things currently stand Miami who is ranked 8th and Boise State who is ranked 12th will earn Automatic Byes just because they won a weaker conference. BYU is ranked 14th and will make the College Football Playoff as it currently stands because they won a much weaker conference.
Miami and Boise State are ranked lower than a ton of teams in contention yet, they'll earn Automatic Byes having to win one less game because their conference is inferior. BYU gets in as the 14th ranked team while Tennessee would get left out because of the automatic bids. If Tennessee played BYU, Miami, and Boise State they'd be expected to win everytime.
This is the first of many formats for the expanded College Football Playoff
The College Football Playoff is in the first year of this new format which means we'll see a ton of tweaks. The fact of the matter is that giving teams an automatic bye despite being ranked lower doesn't make any sense. If the sport thinks its best to include the extra conferences then give them the bids but, they also don't need to get an automatic bye.