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Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic of ESPN's long-running morning talk show "Mike and Mike."

(ESPN)

I'm loath to reference a talk show to make a point, especially one of which I'm not a particular fan. But the guest and the comments on one show this morning I think very acutely brought into focus the inherent inadequacies of the College Football Playoff system which I talked about yesterday.

The show was ESPN's Mike and Mike and the guest was Kirk Herbstreit who, but for an indiscretion here and there (notably his excusing of Jim Tressel's behavior in 2011), I think is about as sane and reasonable an analyst as there is in college football. And before you dismiss his opinion as poisoned by his Ohio State pedigree, I think you need to realize that he was basically forced to move from Columbus to Nashville by rabid Buckeye fans because he was so objective regarding OSU matters both on ESPN and on a local radio talk show.

This morning, as a guest on the show hosted by Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic, Herbstreit interpreted the College Football Playoff selection committee's placing of Ohio State at No. 2 in its fresh rankings released last night as a clear sign that the Buckeyes are safely in the CFP quartet if they win out (@Michigan State, Michigan) -- even though they would sit idle on the final weekend if PSU also wins out. Herbstreit believes that OSU seems to have separated itself from the pack behind Alabama in the committee's collective mind:

"I'm not making up the rules. I'm just telling you what they're thinking inside that room. That, if teams are in 'clusters' - that's their word - where it's an either-or situation and you're really trying to figure out how in the world do we separate these teams," only then do head-to-head and conference-champion factors come into play. He believes Ohio State has extended its advantage far enough that those tiebreaker components would not be employed between OSU and PSU.

Herbstreit also said that Penn State would be merely "in the conversation" for a CFP spot if it won out (@Rutgers, Michigan State and vs. West winner in Indianapolis - if Michigan loses again) and that there's no way that PSU, in his opinion, should get in ahead of OSU were the committee forced to decide between the two for the fourth and final spot.

Golic and Greenberg agreed with Herbstreit's assessment that Ohio State has separated itself from the other contenders behind Alabama based both on the eye test and on their body of work, including a convincing road win at Oklahoma and routs of several opponents including Nebraska. But both also responded that it would be completely unfair for Ohio State to make the final four and a Big Ten-champion Penn State not to.

Golic said, were that to happen, "I would lose my flippin' mind." Greenberg argued: "If Penn State were to win the Big Ten, they will have won the conference, they will have won the same division that Ohio State plays in and they will have beaten them head-to-head. So, even though I agree with your assessment that Ohio State is a better team, it would be very tough for me to justify putting Ohio State into a field that Penn State didn't get into."

By and large, I agree with all of this and it accurately defines exactly why a 4-team playoff in a system with five major conferences is inherently and fatally flawed, as I wrote about on Monday.

As for Penn State winning out with a conference championship, I still would have to see the competition. Can you raise the Nittany Lions ahead of a once-beaten and Pac-12 champion Washington which, say, has won at previously unbeaten Washington State and also beaten a red-hot Southern California? Can you raise the Lions ahead of a once-beaten Louisville whose only loss is in the final minute at Clemson and also won at Houston (to be played tomorrow night)? Or could the Lions even survive the challenge of a twice-beaten Pac-12 champ Colorado if it swept Washington State, Utah and Washington in the final three weeks and played at Michigan very tough before losing? Boy, I don't know.

Again, the verdict is this: The tournament needs to be not four but eight teams with five automatic conference champs, then a "Group of Five" minor-conference rep and two at-larges either selected by a committee or a transparent computer formula.

It's only been fortunate that the committee has sidestepped this sort of dilemma until now. Maybe they get lucky again. But why endure the dysfunction? Make the system make sense and the process will follow. Right now, it's a mess.