Paul Finebaum is upset at Georgia, SEC regarding potential CFP changes

The first year of the 12-team College Football Playoff is behind us and overall it was pretty successful. There will always be controversy surrounding the CFP, but when the only negatives come from teams who got left out of the playoff after losing three games than there isn't much of an argument against this new 12-team format.

The new format played into Georgia football's hands as they earned the SEC's automatic top four seed by winning the conference championship this season. Unfortunately they did not take advantage of the first round bye that came with the top four seed as they lost to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals.

Even though the first year of the expanded playoff went pretty well, there are already discussions being had regarding what changes should be implemented in the future. One of the ideas, spearheaded by Big Ten and SEC representatives, centers around both conferences earning three or maybe even four automatic bids into the CFP each season.

This idea has obviously received a lot of pushback, including from ESPN's Paul Finebaum who is very much against this idea.

"It just smells of a level of elitism that I’m not a big fan of."

Should the CFP add more automatic bids?

The playoff is currently set up so the top five highest ranked conference champions receive an automatic bid into the playoff. This almost certainly guarantees that the four power conferences (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC) will receive a bid as well as the best group of five team in the country. But should the CFP actually add more automatic bids for the two best conferences in the country?

There's no denying that the SEC and Big Ten are the best conferences in the country by far as they have three or four teams every year that likely would win the ACC or Big 12 conference and earn their automatic bid that would come with it. But even if that is the case, adding more automatic bids is not the right choice.

The College Football Playoff is a national playoff, not regional. That means that the best teams from all over the country deserve the right to compete for the championship even if their schedule may have been a little easier. The strength of schedule argument is the main reason why the Big Ten and SEC are pushing for more automatic bids to be handed out to their teams, but if a team has already shown they aren't capable of being one of the best teams in their conference then they do not deserve a chance to play for a National Championship.

So even if 3-loss teams like Alabama and Ole Miss from this past season would have likely beaten SMU who made it into the 12-team field, those two teams should have just won one more game and then there would have been no argument to leave them out.

If the Big Ten and SEC want to come up with a separate tournament or showcase during the regular season then they have every right to, but for now the CFP should be left as a national playoff with every team having to earn their right to participate by winning the games on their schedule.