It was only a matter of time before some sort of controversy would surround the College Football Playoff selection process, and whether or not four teams was enough.

In reality, the questioning began in 2014, when TCU was bumped by Ohio State in the final four rankings prior to the bowl games. Most recently, there was some controversy for including Ohio State in the final four teams in lieu of Penn State, which won the Big 10 and beat Ohio State head-to-head but lost two games in the regular season.

One solution offered was naturally going to be to expand the number of teams that made it into the playoffs. Like I said, that kind of talk was inevitable. It’s also likely inevitable that the playoffs will eventually be expanded to eight teams — maybe even 16 teams one day, though I’m sure that might garner a bit more resistance.

For now, let’s focus on eight teams, and why it’s the right move for the sport.

Penn State deserved a shot this season to challenge for a national championship. In 2014, both TCU and Baylor had an argument for needing a shot in a playoff scenario. You can’t blame the College Football Playoff for beginning its experiment with four teams. As we saw just in its first year, though, there was always going to be an argument for some team that finished fifth or sixth.

I’m looking at the current rankings right now, and I can definitely make a case for the likes of Penn State, Michigan, Oklahoma and Wisconsin deserving a spot in an eight-game scenario. Here’s what the lineup would look like if No. 1 played No. 8, No. 2 played No. 7, and so on:

•Alabama vs. Wisconsin

•Clemson vs. Oklahoma

•Ohio State vs. Michigan

•Washington vs. Penn State

So we would get a rematch of one of college football’s biggest rivalries and a rematch of last year’s semifinal game between the Tigers and Sooners among the four games. Now, let’s examine what it would look like if the top two teams (Alabama and Clemson) got first-round byes:

•Ohio State vs. Wisconsin

•Washington vs. Oklahoma

•Penn State vs. Michigan

Already you’re probably noticing one big flaw: Several of these proposed matchups already happened in the regular season. By having these teams play again, you’re taking the fun out of the regular season by making those games not mean as much.

Fair point, I would say. But by having a playoff system to begin with and then declaring that Ohio State could get in despite not winning its conference, you’ve already established that the value of regular-season games was going to go down. By the non-SEC power conference teams getting upset at the LSU-Alabama rematch in 2011 — and thus, coming together to form a playoff — this sort of change was inevitable. It wouldn’t be a perfect system, but the various pre-playoff systems used to determine a champion weren’t perfect, either.

Out of curiosity, I looked up what teams would be ranked if the old BCS formula was used, and an article I found on The Weekly Standard’s website (http://tws.io/2hsSZG4) would have pitted the following teams, giving No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Ohio State a first-round bye:

No. 3 Clemson vs. No. 8 Oklahoma

No. 4 Washington vs. No. 7 Penn State

No. 5 Michigan vs. No. 6 Wisconsin

Better matchups, I would argue. I hate to be the one to say it, but I actually would prefer bringing the BCS formula back to pick the teams instead of a committee that might be prone to biases. If we’re hypothetically changing the playoffs to include eight teams, why not change it back to the BCS while we’re at it.

Finally, some might say it’s unfair to force a team that has a conference championship game to add yet another game to their schedule, assuming they wouldn’t be one of the ones getting a bye. My solution to that is simple: Get rid of conference championship games.

Did we really need to see Alabama blow out Florida. Or Washington blow out Colorado? The Big 10 title game didn’t even result in its champion making it to the playoffs. Sure, Clemson vs. Virginia Tech was exciting, but had that game never gotten played, could we really argue a one-loss Clemson team didn’t deserve to be in the playoffs?

The fact is, more often than not, these games show us exactly who we thought was the best team in their respective conferences. They serve no meaningful purpose any longer, so do away with them and simply add a quarterfinal or bye week to the best eight teams’ schedules. You could even have the quarterfinal games take place on the higher-seeded school’s campus, a great way to bring in extra revenue.

These are all just musings of course, but an expansion of the College Football Playoffs seems inevitable, and it’s fun to imagine what the future might hold, or how things might look if the future was now.

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.