Paul Finebaum shares honest review of "flawed" college football programs including Alabama, Ole Miss

Weeks after the end of the first 12-team College Football Playoff, speculation about an expanded version being pushed by the two premier conferences, the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, has emerged. According to an ESPN report from last week, the expansion is meant to benefit the two conferences with four automatic berths in the showpiece event.

Last season, there was uproar when the Alabama Crimson Tide, Ole Miss Rebels and South Carolina Gamecocks missed out on the playoffs despite finishing the regular season with 9-3 records.

During Friday's segment of the "Paul Finebaum Show," ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum revealed his opinion that under the expanded format being proposed by the SEC and Big Ten, one of the teams would have made it into the playoffs despite their flaws.

"The fourth team in the SEC this year was either Alabama, Ole Miss or South Carolina," Finebaum said. "All flawed. I think Ole Miss was the best of the three that got left out. But that Florida loss was just really tough to deal with at the end. It was the timing of it."

Analyst weighs in on speculated College Football Playoff changes

The previous two national champions were from the Big Ten, and the last four before that were from the SEC. The two premier conferences in college football have had a stranglehold on the sport's ultimate prize, and the speculated new format will ensure that they have the number of teams to make an assault on it every year.

During Friday's segment of ESPN's "College Football Show," outspoken analyst Paul Finebaum blasted the Big Ten and SEC for seeking guaranteed bids for their four highest-ranked teams in the conference standings.

"I understand the seeding issue, but I believe they are completely wrong about guaranteeing bids,” Finebaum said (25:05). "Doing our show yesterday, even SEC fans are calling in saying they don’t like it. There’s something inherently wrong about stacking the deck before the season.

"Yeah, the SEC and the Big Ten are by far the best leagues, and last year, the SEC only got three [in the playoff], and there were three schools hanging on the ledge.

"But ultimately, you could have a year in, probably more in the Big Ten or the SEC, where you have two or three elite teams, and then your automatic third or fourth, or maybe your fourth, is an 8-4 team that probably doesn’t belong in there. So, I think it’s a bad move right now.”

The budding partnership between the SEC and Big Ten already raised eyebrows among fans and analysts when it began. The move to lock in automatic College Football Playoff bids for their teams seems to justify the skepticism that heralded the partnership.