all you need is 8 for the playoff. 4 is not enough, 12 is too many, especially with how they formatted it. i don't care that Liberty won a conf. they got no shot and it's a competitive advantage for the non-top 4 seed that gets to play that team at home in a playoff game. maybe even more so than getting a bye.
plus, if you look at who's ranked below Oregon, we've already seen Ole Miss v UGA and Bama. we've seen Mizzou v UGA, we've seen PSU vs Mich and OSU.
granted you cant get away from all possible rematches, but if you're at the end of the season and you are a top 8 team and/or won your P5 conf, you're probably both qualified and capable of winning a title.
to me, i think what you want to get away from is the scenario that allows a PSU or Mizzou or Ole Miss 2nd and 3rd opportunities to play for a national title, when all of those teams already played for and lost those opportunities in the regular season...that's WHY those games were so big at the time.
if the losers still get in..............who freaking cares who won?
Oregon is the anomaly for this year, we've seen OR v Wash 2x....still a good team. but should Wash have to play them a 3rd time to win a title?? if i'm a bama fan, i'm not excited about potentially playing UGA...again or Mich having to play OSU...again.....anyway you get the idea.
we go from what was this year, where those games all really mattered, both in the regular season and conf title games.....to "everyone still gets in".
and who really gets screwed? Oklahoma. 10-2, #12, and you're going to the Alamo bowl because...........Liberty.