TL;DR
- The College Football Playoff system is already obsolete, struggling to rank deserving teams with one or zero losses.
- Expanding the playoff field to 16 teams would shift debate from deserving teams being left out to less deserving teams securing berths.
- The CFP committee's reliance on speculation for rankings is due to increased parity and talent spread across teams.
- Expanding the playoff and discontinuing conference championship games could offer financial benefits and ensure selections are based on merit.
For over a hundred years, college football was played nationwide before the sport finally established a postseason tournament to determine a true national champion, decided solely by on-field performance.
And not even one year passed before that playoff system became obsolete.
That’s faster than Jeremiah Smith in the open field.
Twelve months ago, public worry regarding at-large bids mainly centered on whether a team like Indiana, with its limited football legacy and few significant wins, could stand at 11-1 as more worthy than an 9-3 Alabama squad that bested No. 4 Georgia yet succumbed to unranked foes twice. That concern appears almost quaint now.
With just two more football weekends until the 2025 College Football Playoff field is set, we're left with eight power conference teams boasting one or zero losses, alongside ten teams that have suffered two defeats. There's no clear method to determine which of these teams is most deserving of a playoff spot. Consequently, the CFP selection committee members have opted for the easiest way to rank the potential participants.
They’re guessing.
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This is precisely why it's already appropriate, perhaps even overdue, to increase the College Football Playoff field to 16 teams. This expansion would involve granting five automatic bids to the top five conference champions and offering eleven at-large selections.
At that juncture, the debate shifts from whether deserving teams will be left out. Similar to NCAA March Madness, the question then becomes which less deserving teams will secure the final berths. This primarily concerns the teams themselves. Currently, teams like 8-3 Texas and Tennessee, and 9-2 Georgia Tech, might be struggling to claim those final spots. Few beyond their respective fan bases would be devastated if any or all of them were excluded.
The CFP committee's heavy reliance on speculation for its weekly top 25 rankings this season isn't entirely their fault. For years, there's been very little overlap between teams from different major conferences, a problem that will probably lessen once the SEC and ACC, like the Big 12, mandate that members play at least one Power 4 opponent outside of conference games.
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Furthermore, the sport's increased equilibrium is a consequence of talent being more evenly spread, a shift that occurred as athletes realized they could earn more by participating in a less prominent program rather than remaining as reserves for a top-tier team.
The committee members' haphazard guessing is to blame. A prime illustration is ranking Notre Dame, with its two losses, at No. 9, comfortably within the field if it were decided now, significantly above other two-loss teams like Vanderbilt, Michigan, and especially No. 13 Miami.
Notre Dame's defeated opponents to date consist of merely two P4 teams boasting winning records: USC and Pitt. The combined record of all nine teams stands at 45-53. Contrast this with Miami, whose eight FBS victims collectively hold a 41-47 record, and also features just two power teams with winning records. However, one of those is Notre Dame. The Hurricanes trail the Irish by four positions, which would currently place them outside of playoff contention.
If this is how the final field develops, the Canes will have cause for fury, but they will not be alone. As of now, 9-2 teams Utah, Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech also would be able to present cases for inclusion not all that different from teams that appear safely in.
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It's possible teams like Michigan (9-2, facing undefeated Ohio State at home), BYU (10-1, hosting UCF), and perhaps Alabama (9-2, requiring assistance to reach the SEC championship game) might not make the 12-team playoff because they lost conference championship games that other potential contenders don't have the option or obligation to play.
During college football's less enlightened era, when the championship was determined by committee selection of the four teams they most desired to compete for the title, Chris Childers strongly supported increasing the playoff bracket.
Childers, who co-hosts a SiriusXM mid-morning radio show with CBS Sports analyst Rick Neuheisel, can be quite vocal. He believes expanding the field to 16 teams would be a wise decision at this time, provided it's coupled with the discontinuation of conference championship games.
His proposal was to offer the automatic bid to league champions based on their rankings (and any required tiebreakers), enabling all teams to enter the tournament under similar, fairly equitable conditions. He argued that 2024 CFP finalists Ohio State and Notre Dame, who didn't compete in conference championship games in 2024, gained an advantage in the tournament by having one less weekend of play compared to contenders like Georgia, Oregon, Penn State, and Texas.
“We’ve always made college football so hard,” Childers told AllSportsPeople. “And yet we have models, whether it’s the NFL, whether it’s Major League Baseball, whether it’s the NBA, whether it’s European soccer or whatever, where it’s based on record.”
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Childers anticipates this will occur once schools and conferences can be shown that growing the CFP offers greater financial benefits compared to hosting league championship games. “I hate to say it,” Childers informed SN, “but it is that simple: The answer is always money.”
During truly special times, however, financial resources can indeed secure fairness in athletic competitions. This was evident when the NCAA Tournament grew to 64 participants in 1985. It could soon be a reality with the CFP, guaranteeing that team selections are based on athletic merit instead of popularity.
College football's 2024 season appeared to kick off with an expansion promising every team, especially those in power conferences, a route to the playoffs through strong performance and conference championships. However, dismantling a century of resistance proves to be a more complex undertaking.
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