What was it that made you first fall in love with college football?
Obviously the pageantry of the game is like nothing else in sports in the United States but for the longest time college football had the best regular season by far of any major sport in this land. The key word being “had”.
The College Football Playoff Board of Managers have spoken and voted to expand the College Football Playoff to 12 teams in a move that is expected to begin with the 2026 season. I suppose that’d be great if it meant every conference champion and maybe a pair of wild cards then had a shot to play in the tournament but we know that’s not going to be the case. Just like Cincinnati was the lone Group of Five member to make the dance last year there will still be only one, maybe two in a crazy year, that make it in this.
All this does is give teams who lose regular season games an extra out or two and that goes against everything that has helped to make college football great.
The College Football Playoff significantly watered down the regular season already by pretty much saying conference championships don’t matter and taking away the punishment for slip-ups that wasn’t previously allowed in the game.
Now were counting down until 12 teams will get the chance to play in the College Football Playoff.
12.
Not expanding to six or eight.
12.
Sources: The CFP Board of Managers has decided on a 12-team College Football Playoff during today's meeting.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) September 2, 2022
If you were to take the top 12 teams from the final College Football Playoff rankings last regular season you’d be looking at six of those 12 teams having multiple losses. Furthermore, three-loss Utah would also be in that group.
I get that it means more meaningful games during bowl season but it means for less significant games the rest of the year. Alright, the battle between a pair of two-loss teams on rivalry weekend ends up being an elimination game now instead of the unbeaten vs. one-loss rivalry matchup previously doing so. Am I supposed to believe that’s a net gain for the sport?
The regular season mattering more in college football was one of the things that first made me fall in love with the game and the longer we go the more and more watered down that continues to get. Congrats to the casuals who have to be told when games are meaningful before they start paying close attention. They now get more of those while the thing that makes the sport great takes a major blow.
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