At the beginning of a new era, there will always be questions about how things work. Well, with the BCS, there were questions about how it worked up until the very end. With the College Football Playoff set to kick off in about three weeks, there are still plenty of questions left to be answered.

Did the committee get it right?

By most accounts, the answer is yes. That is, unless you’re a TCU or Baylor fan. The four teams that ended up in the playoff field all proved their mettle in conference title games, mostly in convincing fashion (what’s up, Florida State?). Baylor and TCU, through no fault of their own, didn’t get that chance, and as a result were left out of the CFP. While Oregon and Alabama are both heavy favorites, it’s hard to argue for either TCU or Baylor to be included other than simply thinking they were the better teams.

Will the Big 12 petition the NCAA?

Going back to the last question, the Big 12 has to feel like it was slighted as a result of having only 10 teams and no conference championship game, despite being told that wouldn’t affect their standing before the season. Even though the conference plays a true round-robin format, they ended up declaring co-champions, which seems to have hurt them in the committee’s eyes. The Big 12 doesn’t have to actually have 12 teams to get a conference championship; they can instead petition the NCAA to allow it. After seeing this year’s results, it seems like a good bet they’ll go that route.

Will fans travel to the games?

With one bowl game, it’s easy for fans to plan a vacation around the date. With potentially two games, it’s a tougher situation for fans. Especially with great distances to travel — Florida State is going across the country to the Rose Bowl, while it’s a 14 hour drive from Columbus, Ohio to New Orleans — it could be tough for fans to make that commitment and then have to turn around to travel to Dallas a week later. We know Alabama fans will show up in droves wherever the Crimson Tide plays, especially when they’re playing so close to home in the semifinals, but that may not be the case for the other three.

How soon will there be a push for an eight-team field?

The committee makes it sound as if there are no plans to expand the field anytime soon. The original deal calls for a 12-year period with the four-team field, and committee members have indicated that they think expanding the field would serve to diminish the importance of the regular season, a rallying cry that was used before instituting a playoff system. If there are several controversy-filled years in a row, we could end up seeing a change, but for now it seems like the field will hold steady at four teams.

What will the committee change?

There will likely be someone added to next year’s committee, after the original 13 dropped to 12 when Archie Manning stepped down due to health concerns. Some would definitely like to see more transparency in the voting; each week, chairman Jeff Long would talk about how close the votes were and what the discussion was, but we never found out how the committee members voted, unlike the coaches and AP polls. There’s been talk of reducing the number of polls released as well, considering how much changed from the first to final editions, but with interest levels so high it would be hard to imagine dropping the number. On the whole, Long and the rest of the committee members seem pretty pleased with how things went, so don’t expect much to change.