In 1994, a 25-member NCAA committee assigned to explore a college football playoff buried the lead.
On Page 11 of the committee’s 22-page document revealing its findings, the most important information exists—the postseason formats to be considered.
Option A, the document says, is a one-game championship (something that, as it happens, arrived four years later with the BCS). Option B is a four-team event that the document’s author dubs as a “Final Four tournament” (Twenty years later, of course, the four-team CFP began).
Finally, there are options C and D: (C) an eight-team playoff and (D) a 12-team playoff.