College Football Playoff Management Committee exploring options for expansion

According to a release by the College Football Playoff Committee Friday, there is a working group looking at potential expansion.

Before we dive into this, it’s time to throw out some disclaimers ahead of time. Just because things are being looked at, it doesn’t mean change is coming.

That being said, the College Football Playoff Management Committee concluded its annual spring meeting remotely this week, and it appears as though expansion talk is on the table according to a release on Friday. Executive Director Bill Hancock provided an update on a working group within the committee that is studying the potential for future changes to the format of the CFP.

In the group’s analysis, it has reviewed some 63 possibilities for change. Those include 6, 8, 10, 12, and even 16-team options, each with a variety of different scenarios. The anticipation is that the group will make a report to the management committee about the future format at an upcoming meeting yet to be determined.

Well then. The fact that it’s at least being looked at is — at the least — noteworthy.

“Since January 2019, when the presidents charged us with taking a careful look at all aspects of CFP, including the format, this group has diligently evaluated options for the future,” said Hancock. “Its efforts were delayed as a result of the pandemic, but it met again this week in Dallas, and we look forward to hearing more when its work is complete.

“I want to remind everyone that whatever recommendations the management committee may make, all decisions about our future format—whether to remain at four teams or change to a different format—will be made by the 11 presidents and chancellors who manage the CFP.

“We are entering the eighth year of our 12-year agreement for the College Football Playoff and the management committee is extremely satisfied with the popularity and success of the CFP,” Hancock said. “It is wise and good management to review where we stand as we discuss what the future might—’might,’ for emphasis–look like.”

OK.

We’ve said for a long time that the playoff would eventually expand. This doesn’t look like a locomotive steaming out of the station, but it’s at least a few shovels of coal into the steam engine to get the train going to a slow roll, and that’s further along than we’ve been before. You have to believe that most of the country is tired of seeing the same teams make the playoff, and I for one believe you can’t expand the thing too far, but eight teams makes a lot of sense.

Regardless, we’ll continue to keep an eye on this. As it stands at the moment, this is just a news nugget that could have legs further down the road.

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