Should the Playoff Expand?

So, it's happening: The College Football Playoff will be expanding to 12 teams for the 2026 season and could happen in time for the 2024 season. Lots of people have their own opinion about it, some are going back and forth about what's best for college football. I'm going to break down my take on the playoff expansion and how it'll coincide moving forward.

First and foremost, I definitely believe that the CFP needed to expand from its current four-team structure; however, 12 teams is way too many. Personally, I think 8 teams really is the best middle ground for everyone. You can have the five highest ranked conference champions (no matter who they are) and the next three highest non-conference champions. Have those team play the quarter and semifinal games on college campuses and play the national title at a rotating location. This format could appease the most people and even give a chance at an AQ bid to the Group of 5 teams. Another idea I could get behind is a six-team playoff. In this format, we give the number 1 and 2 teams first round byes. Both the quarter and semi-final games will be held on college campuses and the title game will be rotated amongst the NY6 bowls yearly. The lower seed plays at the higher seed up until the championship (played at a neutral site).

My thoughts on the 12-team format aren’t exactly similar. I am not a huge fan of the 12-team form and here’s why. Pete Thamel stated in a tweet “One of the main drivers of this College Football Playoff expansion was money.” he also went on to say, “Presidents felt they were leaving too much on the table.” When your main motivation has nothing to do with the student athletes and the college game, then you're doing it wrong. Through this chase of money, we have chosen to dilute our playoff with teams who, compared to the top 4 of the rankings every year, aren't very good. Adding teams may add games to watch but the question we need to ask is, are they really worth watching? If we were just going to watch these teams trot in and get killed year in and year out just to get the same result, is it even worth it when we could have these games in bowls where these teams can actually win trophies. There is a steep drop off in quality of opponents after the first 4-6 teams in the country, so my question is if you are ranked 12th do you really deserve a chance to compete for a title? If you lose three games, are you really that good and do you deserve to compete for a title? I personally don’t agree with that philosophy. The playoff should be an honor to be a part of, not diluted with teams who don't deserve to be there.

What I hope happens from this 12-team format is: The power 5 and Group of 5 both break away from the NCAA governance (which is what's going to happen with mega conferences anyway) and split into two divisions. Now we basically have 3 D-1 leagues in college football, the power 5 continue doing their thing with an 8-team playoff (instead of 12) with the 5 conference champions getting AQ bids and the rest of the field gets 3 at-larges to fight for. Now the G5 can form their own playoff and crown their own national champion. I also would return to the old BCS ranking system for both leagues that would replace the 13-person committee. Let's be real, even with an expanded playoff the G5 will never win a title. They may compete in more playoff games, but they will never be talented enough to win those games against the top dogs. This way teams such as 2017 UCF, 2021 Cincy, 2009 Boise State and many others can actually win and compete for a national title. With this idea we can get rid of the “little guy” who doesn't get a chance because he now has his own playoff and title to compete for.

Splitting these groups makes the regular season much more important. As a G5 team, if you play a close game with, or beat a P5 team then that will look great on your playoff resume. It can build the G5 up for their run at a title. For both sides it massively puts importance on your conference title game because now you automatically qualify by just winning your conference so everybody will be playing their best ball so they will have the chance to compete for that playoff spot or be likely left out of the playoff all together.

All of this to say, I think this will be a great change especially with all of the conference realignment. I am very much looking forward to an expanded playoff. I believe eventually all the small things will be worked out and we will have something sturdy that will enrich the traditions and pageantry of the college football that we all know and love. Now let's just hope that they make it about the players and not about the money.