The sport’s postseason is officially expanding. Despite a few drawbacks, that’s a very good thing.
Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football (quarterback controversies sold separately in Ann Arbor and Clemson):
MORE DASH: Successful Debuts | Break-Up Time?
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 is expanding to 12 teams, effective whenever the sport can get its act together. (That’s 2026 at latest, maybe ’25, possibly ’24.) This was announced late Friday heading into a three-day weekend, a PR dead zone, a time when the U.S. was otherwise busy trying to have holiday fun, and college football itself was busy trying to open the season.
Basically, the university CEOs who comprise the CFP management committee fast-tracked an announcement that had been slow-tracked for months due to mystifying commissioner intransigence. After waiting for more than a year to act upon a plan that was presented as nearly done-and-dusted in June 2021, there apparently was going to be no more waiting. Onward, they cried, even if nobody was listening.
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 endangered framework of the sport. Let’s count the positive developments created by a 12-team Playoff:
Conference stability (21). It’s not guaranteed, but this enhances the survival chances for the three diminished Power 5 leagues outside of the SEC and Big Ten—not to mention the downstream Group of 5 leagues. There are six guaranteed spots for the top six league champions. That means the champs of the ACC, Big 12 and Pac-12 should make a 12-team Playoff every season, and a second Playoff participant from those leagues is possible as well.
This is an injection of hope, even if there is a revenue chasm between the Power 2 and everyone else. If a school can compete for a national title within a conference that makes geographic and traditional sense, why leave to take long trips for beatdowns in a behemoth league? Winning has to matter more than athletic department revenue. It does to 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 also should keep Notre Dame off the market, which is the most important single realignment lever in college sports. The Fighting Irish maintain—and even enhance—their Playoff access, which lessens the need to go elsewhere. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick was one of the architects of this Playoff plan, and he’s not signing off on anything that pushes his school toward conference membership in football.
This also derails (or at least delays) one doomsday scenario that had the SEC and Big Ten staging their own miniplayoffs, with the winners then meeting for a national championship that wouldn’t truly be national in scope. We don’t need an NFC-AFC postseason in college football. We need a melting-point Playoff.
More sustained excitement for more teams (22). One byproduct of the four-team Playoff was watching the potential field of competitors whittle itself down to maybe six or seven (no more than eight) teams by November. The Playoff race has been exciting but narrow in scope. This expands the number of teams playing for something other than a second-tier bowl game in the last month of the season.
And it breathes life into conference championship games, particularly for an underdog—win and you’re in.
A bigger pool of schools having “successful” seasons (23). Just as in college basketball, making the tournament will be a mark of validation for many schools. Think back to 2020, when a one-loss Texas A&M team finished fifth—a good year, for sure, but there was no opportunity to play for a title. Think of 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 then proceed to the CFP than a bowl game where a season simply ends? Often with the best players sitting out? Pitt QB Kenny Pickett isn’t opting out of a Playoff game like he did the Peach Bowl. (And unless you’re Brian Kelly, coaches aren’t opting out of a Playoff game to change jobs. At least one would hope.)
The biggest on-campus games ever (24). In December, teams seeded 5–8 will host teams seeded 9–12. And it’s going to be glorious. Bowls cannot replicate the energy and noise that come 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 would have hosted Playoff games that produced epic scenes. These would be recruiting centerpieces—academically and athletically—that simultaneously save the fans travel money and help the local economy, not the economies of vacation resorts in Florida and Arizona.
The next step should be turning the quarterfinals into campus home games as well, instead of farming them out to the bowls. When the teams seeded 1–4 see the benefits that come to lower-seeded programs 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 Playoff push last year showed that it’s possible for a Group of 5 program to make a four-team field—but the deck remains heavily stacked against it happening. In the future, someone from the G5 is making the bracket every year. Those conferences have renewed reason to dream.
Money for the players (26). Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said it over the weekend—cut the players in on the increased financial windfall from an expanded Playoff. It’s not only the right thing to do, but it has some ancillary benefits for the sport. A Playoff share is one more reason for top players not to opt out of the postseason to protect draft status, and it can provide an alternative revenue stream to the NIL/collective money that makes so many coaches and administrators panic.
Money that might actually trickle down to someone other than King Football (27). Could a rising tide lift all college athletic boats? Including Olympic sports? If the continual lament is that athletic department budgets are stretched thin, well, here comes a whole lot of new cash. Perhaps instead of adding another two million dollars to the coach’s salary or funding that 13th football analyst position or 10th recruiting assistant, this money can help guarantee the survival of other sports on campus.
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And now the drawbacks to an expanded Playoff:
Too many games (28). If a team seeded 5–12 advances to the championship game and plays in its league title game, that’s a 17-game season. Even the teams that get a first-round bye are looking at a 16-game slate. That’s an NFL workload, without NFL salaries. One more reason for revenue sharing for Playoff contestants.
Too long a season (29). As it currently stands, the season already is encroaching on December finals and stretches well into January for two teams. That number will increase, and the title contestants will be engaged for most of that month. That trespasses upon the spring academic semester—remember academics?—and an additional two layers of the Playoff will mess with fall semester final exam schedules.
This also further complicates the rest of the football calendar. The December signing period simply has to be pushed back, if not completely eliminated, since it dictates so much other movement in the sport. That, in turn, could alleviate some of the pressure on the hiring cycle and keep coaches engaged in their current jobs through the postseason.
Lessens the regular season (30). This is a common fan lament already, and it will grow louder—the amount of weight placed on each regular-season game will be reduced. Those Game of the Century meetings in November won’t really be games of the century, since two teams ranked that highly will both likely make an expanded Playoff. Every game will still matter—don’t believe otherwise—but it may not matter quite as much.
The best regular season in sports would now be more of a setup—but it’s setting up what could be the best postseason in sports. Nobody laments the NCAA tournament being bigger than the basketball regular season, and ultimately fans won’t lament this change for the better, either.
MORE DASH: Successful Debuts | Break-Up Time?