Recently an internal Big Ten document showed what a 24-team College Football Playoff would have looked like using the rankings from the 2025 season.
It’s not surprising the monsters in charge of college athletics would be considering something as heinous as expansion of the College Football Playoff. There is no reason for the playoff to expand to 16, or even 24 teams.
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If anything, the playoff would be perfectly fine at just eight teams, but at this point the genie isn’t going back in the bottle.
Look at the first two years of the 12-team College Football Playoff. Just how many memorable first round games were there? About the only thing that stands out about the eight games played on campus in the playoff over the last two years was the Buckeyes jumping out to a 21-0 first quarter lead against Tennessee and cracking Nico Iamaleava’s helmet so hard that he ended up at UCLA before the beginning of the 2025 season.
It felt like this year’s first round games were even tougher to watch. Miami and Texas A&M battled to see who could miss more field goals in the first game on Saturday, while Ole Miss and Oregon received glorified byes.
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We already saw the Rebels beat down Tulane once during the regular season, I don’t know why we needed to see a sequel. Had Oregon not pulled their starters with the game well in hand, the final score against James Madison wouldn’t look nearly as respectable as it did.
Under the Big Ten’s proposed plan, the top-eight ranked teams would receive a bye into the second round of the playoff. For example, Ohio State would play the winner of Utah and Michigan, who were ranked 15th and 18th, respectively.
Anybody who watched The Game in late November knows the Wolverines weren’t a playoff team. Not that I’m against seeing two editions of the rivalry within a month, I just don’t think the result would have been much different in the second meeting.
Nothing against Utah, but I find it hard to believe they would have advanced past the second round had there been a 24-team playoff in 2025. The Utes were 11-2 during the season, with their losses coming to Texas Tech and BYU.
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Do you remember anything about Utah football in 2025 aside from Kyle Whittingham is now Michigan’s head coach? There has to be a cutoff at some point.
Don’t get me wrong, there are some interesting first round games when it comes to television and gambling content. Miami/Iowa would have been an interesting culture clash. USC/Arizona would have been a throwback to the Pac-12 days.
Imagine 10 years ago telling someone that in the future Vanderbilt/Virginia would be a College Football Playoff game. They would have had you fitted for a straightjacket and a padded room.
Of course an empty suit like athletic director Ross Bjork would love the idea of a 24-team College Football Playoff. I’m sure he’s already planning watch parties at The 1922 Club for mega donors, where it will cost at least $1,000 to get in the door for the festivities.
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I’m sure I’m being harsh when it comes to Bjork, I just feel like he’s programmed like The Terminator in a way, except his internal computer is deciphering how much money he can squeeze out of people.
If the College Football Playoff is going to double in size, when will the season begin? Are there still going to be conference championship games? You just know the conferences aren’t going to want to give up their conference title game cash grabs.
Before you know it, college football teams are playing just as many games as NFL teams are. At least now college football players are at least getting paid for putting their bodies on the line on the field, so expansion doesn’t feel quite as dirty as it would have 10-15 years ago.
This is the same argument as the one when it comes to expansion of the NCAA Tournament in college basketball. After the brackets are revealed, nobody is out there saying “I thought <insert the 74th best team in the country> had a real shot at winning it all this year!”
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I know that the transfer portal and NIL have introduced some parity into college athletics, but it’s not like we are going to have a Cinderella story like Leicester City rising up to win it all.
Bigger isn’t always better. In a way, I wish we were back in the BCS days since at least we only had to rely on computers then and not a committee. At least it felt like the computers got things right more often than not.
Now those in charge of college football and college basketball are too worried about money and keeping their television partners happy.
No matter what happens, at least I’ve come to terms that when it comes to expansion of the College Football Playoff and NCAA Tournament, it’s all downhill from here.
