OK, let's try another angle.
Before MLB instituted the wild card:
- 14% of all teams made the playoffs (1 out of 7 teams in each of 4 divisions).
- 17% of all teams were in the playoffs before expansion (1 out of 6 teams in each division).
- 10% of teams played in the World Series before divisions and playoffs were ever created. It was at 12.5% in Babe Ruth's day.
Before the NFL instituted wild card games in 1970:
- 25% of all teams made the playoffs (1 out of 4 teams in each of 4 divisions)
- 20% of all teams made championship game before the playoffs were created (1 out of 5 teams in 2 divisions)
These were the "bygone" eras when many people think the post-seasons were at their purest. In both leagues, you can at least say every team's strength of schedule was roughly the same since they played each other, so it was easy to evaluate the teams. Still, look at those percentages.
Contrast that with:
The FBS now has 130 schools; 10 conferences, plus a group of 7 independents. A 12 team playoff is only 9% of all teams. Even if we only counted Power 5 schools (65 schools) that only amounts to 18% of teams but, of course, it would be wrong to only include Power 5 schools.
9% of all schools is low by any reasonable standard. The current 4-team format amounts to a whopping 3% of all teams. And for anyone who thinks, "I don't care about MLB or the NFL",
no other college sport is as playoff-restrictive as FBS football has been. All other college sports have relatively bigger playoff systems including FCS football.
There is no good reason for the FBS to be as playoff-restrictive as it has been. In fact, the opposite is true. Why? Because schedules are nowhere near the same strength. There is nowhere close to enough intersectional play to properly evaluate a lot of the schools. Only a handful of schools actually play national schedules like ND.
A playoff consisting of 9% of all teams isn't too much.