Tag: 12 teams

Sportsbooks and oddsmakers are unsurprisingly thrilled about College Football Playoff expansion

No one wins more with College Football Playoff expansion than sportsbooks.

If there’s one group of people who won’t see any issue with the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams in 2026 (or potentially earlier), it’s those who run sportsbooks.

Extending the schedule of one of the most popular sports in the United States? And putting more games in primetime for a national audience? Yeah, that’ll have oddsmakers cheering.

That all completely makes sense—though it remains to be seen if star players on lower-seeded teams sit out playoff games to preserve their draft stock rather than risk injury in four additional contests.

And while pricing out odds for outright winners may be a little more difficult in the short term, there’s plenty for bettors to like about Friday’s announcement. Namely, more options to chose from — which means more potential edges to find.

Potential futures hitting the market will likely include:

  • How many teams from ‘X’ conference make the playoff
  • Conference with the College Football Playoff winner
  • Schools to host a playoff game

It also helps sportsbooks that many of college football’s powerhouses are located in states where legal sports wagering already exists. That includes Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Indiana and Oregon. California may very well be the next state to legalize betting this November.

Gone will be the days bettors could feel confident in a solid return for blindly putting down futures bets on Alabama and Ohio State. Instead the value may shift to smaller schools who have an easier path to the postseason (meaning we might not see a run like Cincinnati in 2021 again anytime soon).

More offerings are coming, and while more options tend to benefit consumers, there’s no question the payoff for sportsbooks will outweigh all of it.

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College Football Playoff to expand to 12 teams and I hate it

Love it, indifferent, or hate it?

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.

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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Why the College Football Playoff expanding to 12 teams is good for the sport

Without ever thinking about it, 12 playoff teams seem to be the right number. Here is why the reported 12 team playoff will be good for CFB.

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For the second time in less than a decade, college football could have a new method of crowning its national champion. In 2014, the sport ditched the Bowl Championship Series, in which two teams played in a national title game, in favor of a four-team playoff. Now, eight more teams could be on the way.

According to Pete Thamel of Yahoo, the College Football Playoff is likely to expand to 12 teams in the near future. A process will play out over the summer with an announcement expected in the fall.

Nobody seems to have the same opinion as to why expanding is a good or a bad idea. Some want to stick with four, others want eight while bringing back the BCS has even been suggested.

Without even thinking about it, 12 seems to be the right number. Not too many to feel like just anyone can get in, but not too few where nobody can get in. With the system reportedly being put into place, a 12-team playoff will be good for college football.

Here’s why:

Report: College Football Playoff likely to expand to 12 teams

According to Yahoo, the CFP is expected to grow to 12 teams. Six, eight, and 16 have all been discussed but, 12 is reportedly the number.

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College football changed forever when Oklahoma State lost in Ames to Iowa State in 2011. The Cowboys fell on the wrong side of one of the greatest upsets in college football history and finished their season 11-1.

Nick Saban’s Alabama squad jumped Oklahoma State in the polls when it mattered, ultimately facing off against LSU in the national championship. The only issue is that the Crimson Tide had already lost head to head against the Tigers in Tuscaloosa.

We know how the story goes. Alabama wins, people are infuriated with the computer system, and the first rumblings of a playoff begin. It took three years but the BCS was ditched in favor of a four-team playoff in 2014.

Even when introduced, the first question was ‘when will it be expanded?’

The answer: 2021.

According to Pete Thamel of Yahoo, not only is the playoff going to grow, it could have 12 teams. Six, eight, and 16 have all been discussed but university officials, athletic directors, conference commissioners, and media executives feel as if 12 is the right number.

The next three weeks offer a critical period in charting what the future of the College Football Playoff will look like. A pair of CFP meetings are expected to decide a specific recommendation, with a final decision, details and television contract determined later in the fall.

“The reason that you go to 12 is because you can develop the road of least resistance toward a good result,” said a high-ranking college official with knowledge of the process.

A couple of elements would be added to make 12 teams work. The first would be automatic bids. According to Thamel’s report, giving playoff spots to teams who win their conference championship “juices up their league title games as play-in games.” The Group of 5 would have an auto bid as well.

Second would be the previously mentioned venues for the first round. Instead of bowl games, campuses would host at least the first round. From there, neutral sites from the New Year’s Six would host, just as they do today.

To give an example of what a 12 team playoff would look like, we will use the 2019 season. Last year went through too many rough patches thanks to COVID-19 to show a good example.

BYES: No. 1 LSU, No. 2 Clemson, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 4 Oklahoma

All would be automatic qualifiers as well due to winning their conference. The Pac-12 would have its league champion Oregon and Memphis would represent the Group of 5, despite being No. 17 in the final poll.

Here is the first round:

  • No. 5 Georgia vs No. 12 Memphis in Athens, GA (Winner plays Oklahoma)
  • No. 6 Oregon vs No. 11 Utah in Eugene, OR (Winner plays Ohio State)
  • No. 7 Baylor vs No. 10 Penn State in Waco, TX (Winner plays Clemson)
  • No. 8 Wisconsin vs No. 9 Florida (Winner plays LSU)

A “four-member working group” will lay out this idea to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick and Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson on July 17 and July 18 in Chicago.

From there, “a group of 11 presidents and chancellors from the 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame, will examine what’s put forward and likely determine the potential shape — although not the final details — of the playoff’s future.”

A final decision is expected later in the fall.