Coaches would like more clarity

— -- The New Year's Six bowls -- all of them, not just the two College Football Playoff semifinal games -- go much deeper than Nick Saban vs. Urban Meyer and Jameis Winston vs. Marcus Mariota.

There's Michigan State. And Boise State. TCU and Baylor. And Arizona, just to name a few.

In addition to the top four playoff teams, there are eight programs in the new system's most prestigious bowls -- teams that were just on the cusp of contention, and were selected and seeded by the 12 members of the CFP selection committee. While every coach participating in the New Year's Six bowls can tell you how his team achieved its record, those outside of the top four are a little less certain about the committee's path to the final playoff ranking.

"I'd love to sit in the room and hear what they had to say," said Boise State coach Bryan Harsin.

Take a number.

The selection committee worked behind closed doors all season, leaving its weekly rankings and the comments from committee chair Jeff Long as the only insight into how the group collectively thought. For the majority of coaches in the New Year's Six bowls, the heart of their playoff evaluation mirrored that of many fans, centering around the unpredictable weekly rankings and whether or not four teams is enough. None of the coaches were spewing vitriol about the new system -- they're still just trying to understand it.

"There are some questions of how they arrive at their final destination," said Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio. "I think that's a pretty standard conversation going on across the nation, but that's controversy, that's college football, and that's going to happen with the two BCS teams as well. That's just the nature of it. There's going to be controversy."

None bigger than in the Big 12, where TCU was ranked ahead of Baylor all season in spite of the Bears' head-to-head win, only to fall from No. 3 to No. 6 behind Baylor in the final ranking.

"If I'm a kid from TCU," deadpanned Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson, "I'm still trying to figure out how that worked."

"I'm not sure anybody could figure out what the criteria was," he said. "It makes no sense [to] me for Florida State to be undefeated and keep dropping in the rankings. I think everybody knew if they didn't lose, there was no way they could exclude them, so it was just kind of a shell game."

TCU coach Gary Patterson learned something about the College Football Playoff from the Seminoles' ranking, though.

"I learned you need to be undefeated," said Patterson, "then you can control your own destiny. ... The only way [FSU coach Jimbo Fisher] controlled his own destiny was he was undefeated. If he's not, then I think either us or Baylor would've both jumped them."

In spite of being jilted out of the top four at the last minute, Patterson said he'd like to see the system play out for a couple of years before determining whether anything needs to be changed.

"If there was a mistake they made, it was probably putting us at No. 3," he said. "A lot of people would've been OK if we were No. 4 and you got bumped to 5, and knowing the controversy with Baylor and them moving us to No. 6, and I think a lot of people would've understood that behind the scenes, but outside of that it's all the same."

Baylor coach Art Briles said the only change he might suggest would be waiting longer to release the rankings.

"I'm not sure I would go through eight weeks of rankings until we got to the last," Briles said. "Maybe come out two weeks prior to what your final ranking is and roll from there, because there's so much fluidity in the last two or three weeks before the final comes out. It's impossible to really chart that many teams and stay on top of it over a long period of time."

The coaches, though, are willing to be patient and let the system play out.

"It's a process," Harsin said. "I do like the way they did it this year. I like the way it worked out for us where all of a sudden we're in the mix and Game 8 and Game 9 we're getting talked about. All of a sudden it's like, 'OK, we maybe have a chance of playing in one of these games.' We've got to finish what we started, and that's fun. It's fun to chase that as a coach and a team. We didn't try to hide it."

For the Group of 5 conferences -- the American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt -- this new system guarantees the highest-ranked league champ a spot in one of the New Year's Six bowls.

Boise State, though, is hoping the door to the top four is open as well.

"I don't know that, but I hope it's that way," Harsin said. "I'd like to believe that. I'd like to believe our body of work hopefully continues to be successful like it's been, and when it comes down to those decisions, that will hopefully help us in the future.

"At some point, people would like to see Boise State in the four and say, 'OK, here you've got your chance. See if you can get it done.' Probably half would want to see us fail and half would want to see us succeed. Let's pair Boise State against Alabama and see what happens. They'd expect Alabama to come in there and thump us or we find a way to win and we're playing in that championship game for it all. I'd like to believe we have the ability to do that, and I think this playoff is the only way we'd ever have a chance to do that, so I'm all in favor of it."

Johnson called the playoff "a step in the right direction," but said he'd like to see it expand to eight teams "at least." When asked if he thought the committee got it right this year, Johnson said, "Who knows?"

"Anytime there's subjectivity in it, it's always going to be hard," he said. "I wouldn't want to have their jobs, that's why I say eight teams would make it pretty easy. Five conference champions, the highest-ranked non-Power 5 team and maybe two at-large. Then maybe they can argue the at-large, but the others would pretty much be set in stone."

Arizona coach Rich Rodriguez agreed.

"It's tough when you have two or three other deserving teams that should maybe be in it," he said. "There was probably talk of going to an eight-team playoff. But I didn't think there was room before this year. I think it's OK now, but I think in the future there will be a trend to eight or six to make sure every conference is represented."

Dantonio said he wouldn't mind seeing the playoff expand to eight teams. After all, No. 8 is right where his Spartans landed.

"I think it sets things in motion to help determine a true champion," said Dantonio. "I think that's the positive thing. The negative thing is that it becomes a little bit like the Final Four atmosphere in that if you're not in it, you become a little bit of the forgotten. I don't think that's necessarily good for college football for all of the teams involved, but that would be the only negative."