Utah's Kyle Whittingham would prefer eight-team playoff format

The decision-making process for college football's new postseason format is being handled mostly by the conference commissioners, but that doesn't mean head coaches will keep their opinions to themselves.

Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, along with several other Pac-12 coaches, expressed their opinions on the four-team playoff propositions during their post-spring teleconference on Tuesday.

"Let's go full fledged and get eight teams involved," Whittingham said. "I want to get away from people voting to determine who will get a shot."

New Arizona State head coach Todd Graham mentioned a format that would include six conference champions and two at-large teams, while California head coach Jeff Tedford suggested that no postseason will appease everyone.

"One of the sentiments was that the eight-team playoff would probably give everybody an equal chance," Tedford said. "I don't know if you're ever going to have a situation where everyone is happy. Someone is always going to feel left out or slighted by a situation. If we're going to do the playoff thing, then let's do it whole-heartedly and go after it."

CBSSports.com's Brett McMurphy analyzed the playoff proposal of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, which would give playoff bids to conference champions as long as they were ranked among the top six teams in the country.

McMurphy pointed out that in that format, No. 4-ranked Stanford would have missed the playoff in 2010 and 2011, with conference champion Oregon as the lone Pac-12 representative in those years.

It is not surprising to see Pac-12 coaches looking for a more inclusive playoff format, with no four-team model particularly favoring the league. Conference commissioner Larry Scott has already expressed his support for a "conference champion only" model, and these coaches would love to see more opportunities for a Pac-12 team to have a shot at the National Championship.

Or you could take Lane Kiffin's stance, which is a bit more simplistic:

"We'll just try to win as many games as they allow us to play."

Maybe a more predictable stance for the Trojans, currently favored to win the Pac-12 and possibly compete for the National Championship in 2012, but at least Kiffin understands that these decisions are being made with very little concern for the coaches' opinions.

Cruise on over to Brett McMurphy's blog for more on the playoff proposals

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