Forty names, games, teams and minutiae that make the news in college football (quarterback controversies sold separately at Ann Arbor and Clemson):
MORE DASH: Successful Debuts | Break time? | QB Matchups
THIRD QUARTER
A BETTER PLAYOFF IS COMING
In classic fashion, the College Football Playoff managed to whisper incredibly big news into a jet engine last week: It’s expanding to 12 teams, effective as long as the sport can get its act together. (That’s 2026 at the latest, maybe 25, possibly 24). This was announced Friday night before a three-day weekend, a PR dead zone, a time when America was busy trying to have fun at parties and college football itself was busy trying to open season.
Essentially, the CEOs of the universities that make up the CFP management committee expedited an announcement that had been delayed for months due to the commissioner’s baffling intransigence. After waiting more than a year to act on a plan that was presented as almost done in June 2021, there would apparently be no more waiting. Go ahead, they cried, even if no one was listening.
The main question now is, when will the extended CFP come into force?
Roger Steinman/AP
However, don’t let the idiotic timing obscure the fact that this is a huge and welcome development. Potentially one that can save the sport’s endangered framework. Let’s count the positive developments created by a 12-team Playoff:
Conference Stability (21). Not guaranteed, but this improves the chances of survival for the three diminished Power 5 leagues outside of the SEC and Big Ten, not to mention the downstream Group 5 leagues. There are six guaranteed places for the top six league champions. That means the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 champions should make a 12-team playoff each season, and a second playoff entrant from those leagues is also possible.
This is an injection of hope, even if there is a revenue chasm between Power 2 and everyone else. If a school can compete for a national title within a conference that makes geographical and traditional sense, why go for the long trips to beating up in a giant league? Winning has to matter more than the revenue from the sports department. He does it for the fans and the players. This is a chance to win a league championship and compete for a national championship without a school selling its soul.
It should also keep Notre Dame off the market, which is the single biggest realignment lever in college sports. The Fighting Irish maintain, and even improve, their access to the Playoffs, reducing the need to go elsewhere. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick was one of the architects of this playoff plan, and he will not approve of anything that pushes his school to become a member of the football conference.
This also derails (or at least delays) a doomsday scenario in which the SEC and Big Ten hosted their own miniplayoffs, with the winners meeting for a national championship that wouldn’t really have national reach. We don’t need an NFC-AFC postseason in college football. We need a Melting Point Playoff.
More sustained emotion for more teams (22). A byproduct of the four-team Playoff was seeing the potential field of contenders shrink to maybe six or seven (no more than eight) teams by November. The playoff race has been exciting but limited in scope. This expands the number of teams playing in something other than a second-tier bowl game in the final month of the season.
And it brings conference championship games to life, particularly for an underdog: Win and you’re in.
Largest group of schools that have “successful” seasons (23). As in college basketball, participating in the tournament will be a sign of validation for many schools. Think back to 2020, when a Texas A&M team that lost just once finished fifth; a good year, no doubt, but there was no opportunity to play for a title. Think back to last season: While Baylor and Pittsburgh had every reason to celebrate and cherish their championships in the Big 12 and ACC, respectively, how much more exciting would it have been to move to the CFP than a bowl game where a season simply ends? ? Often with the best players sitting? Pitt QB Kenny Pickett isn’t opting out of a playoff game like he did in the Peach Bowl. (And unless you’re Brian Kelly, coaches won’t opt out of a playoff game to change jobs. At least one would hope.)
Biggest on-campus games in history (24). In December, the teams seeded 5-8 will host the teams seeded 9-12. And it’s going to be glorious. The bowls can’t replicate the energy and noise that comes with campus home games.
In 2020, Cincinnati would have hosted Georgia in a first-round playoff game. It would have been the biggest home game in school history by far. Last year, Baylor and Mississippi reportedly hosted playoff games that produced epic scenes. These would be recruiting centerpieces, academically and athletically, that simultaneously save fan travel money and help the local economy, not the economies of vacation resorts in Florida and Arizona.
The next step should be to turn the quarterfinals into home games on campus as well, instead of taking them to the bowls. When teams ranked 1-4 see the benefits lower-ranked programs get from hosting a playoff game, they’ll want to host them too.
Group of 5 has a place at the table (25). Cincinnati’s breakthrough in the playoffs last year showed that it’s possible for a Group 5 program to form a four-team field, but the deck remains heavily stacked against it happening. In the future, someone from the G5 will do the support every year. Those conferences have renewed the reason to dream.
Money for players (26). Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said it over the weekend: Tell players about the increased financial windfall of an expanded playoff. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it has some secondary benefits for the sport. A share of the playoffs is one more reason for top players not to opt out of the postseason to protect draft status, and can provide an alternative income stream to the NIL/crowd money that gets so many coaches and administrators in in a panic.
Money that could actually go to someone other than King Football (27). Could a rising tide lift all the college athletic boats? Including Olympic sports? If the ongoing lament is that athletic department budgets are being stretched, well, here comes a lot of new cash. Perhaps instead of adding another two million dollars to the coach’s salary or funding that football analyst 13 or recruiting assistant 10 position, this money can help ensure the survival of other sports on campus.
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And now the drawbacks of an extended Playoff:
Too many games (28). If a 5-12 seeded team advances to the championship game and plays in its league title game, that’s a 17-game season. Even teams that get a first-round bye are looking at a 16-game slate. That’s an NFL workload, without the NFL salaries. One more reason to share the income of the Playoffs contestants.
A Season Too Long (29). As it currently stands, the season is already encroaching on the December finals and stretching into January for two teams. That number will increase and the title contestants will be engaged for most of that month. That carries over into the spring academic semester, remember the academics, and two additional layers of the Playoff will be altered with the fall semester final exam schedules.
This also further complicates the rest of the football calendar. The December signing period simply has to be delayed, if not eliminated altogether, as it dictates so many other moves in the sport. That, in turn, could take some of the pressure off the hiring cycle and keep coaches committed to their current jobs through the postseason.
Decreases regular season (30). This is already a common lament from fans, and it’s only going to get louder: The amount of weight given to each regular season game will be reduced. Those Game of the Century meetings in November won’t really be Games of the Century, as two teams ranked that high will likely make it to an expanded Playoff. Every game will still matter, don’t think otherwise, but it might not matter that much.
The best regular season in sports right now would be more of a buildup, but it’s setting up what could be the best postseason in sports. No one is sorry that the NCAA tournament is bigger than the regular basketball season, and ultimately fans won’t be sorry about this change for the better, either.
MORE DASH: Successful Debuts | Break time? | QB Matchups
Source: www.si.com