Tag: College Football Playoff Expansion

Discussing what would have happened this season under BCS model

College football is much more competitive with a playoff.

We have a four-team College Football Playoff this season. And while a 13-win Florida State team is excluded, the 2023 national title hunt is significantly less messy than it would have been under the bowl championship series (BCS) model.

Who would play in this season’s national championship under the BCS? Almost certainly, Michigan and Washington would take the top two spots. It’s uncertain if those are the two best teams in college football.

Under the BCS model, Texas could fall below both Alabama and Florida State to No. 5 despite defeating Alabama by double digits in Tuscaloosa. Vegas favors Texas over No. 2 Washington in the Sugar Bowl.

It is probably clear to many that the BCS would not adequately determine the national champion this season. The four-team playoff is an evident upgrade over the prior championship determiner. And while Florida State still sits on the outside, the four-team tournament does a much better job of finding a national champion.

College football has more parity than it has in a long while. All four playoff participants can win a national title. And while some bemoan the changes brought by the College Football Playoff, transfer portal, and name, image and likeness (NIL) era, the three have resulted in the most competitive push for a title in several seasons.

The playoff selection is imperfect, and there’s an argument that six teams deserved to be in this year’s tournament. Nevertheless, you’ll get a much better postseason than you would under the BCS.

Bowl season kicks off with seven games headlined by Texas Tech vs. Cal on Saturday, Dec. 16.

Texas Football: Bowl season proves playoff expansion is necessary

The BCS could never give a postseason like this.

TCU is going to the National Championship. After many argued the Horned Frogs were undeserving of a playoff spot, Sonny Dykes’ team defeated the No. 2 Michigan Wolverines.

Michigan dominated all season, including their regular season finale against No. 4 Ohio State. Many thought Saturday’s game would bring more of the same for Jim Harbaugh’s team. TCU shocked the college football world.

In the following game, Georgia had to come from behind after being shredded for most of the game. If not for a missed field goal, the No. 1 Bulldogs would be watching the championship with No. 2 Michigan in front of a television at home.

Bowl season produced more impressive finishes. No. 5 Alabama looked like a national championship contender against No. 9 Kansas State. The Crimson Tide was not afforded the opportunity to compete for a title.

No. 16 Tulane upset the No. 10 USC Trojans, once again illustrating teams have to show up and play each game.

We’ll never know who would eventually be crowned champions if the 2022 playoff had more than four teams. The issue needs to be remedied moving forward.

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Semifinal Saturday provided a glimpse of College Football Playoff expansion

A tremendous semifinal Saturday provided a glimpse of why College Football Playoff expansion is going to be great in 2024.

TCU pulled off the upset in a thrilling, high-scoring affair over the Michigan Wolverines. With a second chance at their national title hopes, Ohio State nearly did the same. It was a fun and entertaining day of College Football Playoff action on semifinal Saturday.

Neither TCU nor Ohio State won their conference championship. Both teams had one loss to their ledger. Many argued for other teams to be included instead of the Horned Frogs or Buckeyes, but both showed they belonged in the playoff.

In the BCS era, those teams wouldn’t have had a shot. In the four-team playoff era, it’s been rare that a one-loss non-conference champ would be in the playoff (outside of the SEC getting their second team in).

But Saturday provided a glimpse of what’s coming down the pipeline in 2024 when the College Football Playoff field expands to 12 teams. As parity continues to level the playing field, more fun weekends like the one we witnessed on Saturday are ahead. And they’ll have even greater implications.

The College Football Playoff was without Power Five conference champions Clemson, Kansas State, and Utah. Clemson just got beat by more than two touchdowns by Tennessee.

It was missing one of the greatest programs of the last 20 years, Alabama. An Alabama team that boat raced Kansas State, the only team to beat TCU in 2022. The four-team playoff was missing the last two Heisman Trophy winners, Bryce Young (2021) and Caleb Williams (2022).

Proponents of keeping the playoff at four teams would argue that this was an aberration, and based on the history of the four-team playoff, they’d be right. However, with NIL, the transfer portal and television increasing parity across college football, days like Saturday are going to become more and more the norm, especially when the playoff expands.

As we’ve seen in March Madness over the last two decades, the balance of power has shifted. Sure, Duke, UNC, Kansas, and Kentucky are perennial contenders, but Cinderella runs in the tourney allowed for the rise of new national powers like Gonzaga, Memphis, Baylor, and Houston.

A team like Tulane, who had a fantastic season culminating in a trip to the Cotton Bowl, will benefit greatly from the exposure of playing in one of the more historic bowl games in college football. Playing against a team like USC, which resides in one of the biggest media markets in sports, exposes a whole new talent base to the Green Wave. That’s not to say they’ll go into California and pluck five-star talent out from under Lincoln Riley and USC, but it gives them a greater chance to be at the table for other prospects that might not be targets of the top schools.

And an expanded playoff would do the same for even more schools as they get national exposure on the highest stage. More exposure at the national level will open the doors for more schools that aren’t the perennial powerhouses of college football.

TCU’s run has been the college football equivalent of a Cinderella story. A team that was left out of the Big 12 upon its inception and scratched and clawed for a seat at the table. Now they’re one win away from an improbable national championship.

The College Football Playoff provided an incredibly entertaining semifinal. With expansion on the horizon, even more entertaining weekends are in store.

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‘Growing sentiment’: Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC could come as early as 2024

According to a report from Brett McMurphy of Action Network, there’s “growing sentiment” for an early exit for the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns.

When the news first hit that the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns were moving to the SEC, the next question was, “when?”

From Brett Yormark to the networks that broadcast Big 12 games to the universities, all of the invested parties have maintained that 2025 would be when the move would take place. The Big 12’s current grant of rights agreement expires July 1, 2025. Yormark has also indicated that he’s open to a scenario that allows Oklahoma and Texas to leave early, given it’s a win-win scenario.

According to a report from Brett McMurphy of Action Network, “that timetable has since been accelerated and could even get completed by next month, sources said.”

Apparently, there is growing interest from all sides to work out an early exit agreement that would bring down what Oklahoma and Texas would have to pay in order to get out of the conference and their current media rights deal.

With the SEC’s new media rights deal with ESPN set to start in 2024, there’s an incentive for Oklahoma’s new home in the Southeast Conference and for ESPN, to get the Sooners and Longhorns in the conference earlier than anticipated.

The matchups that the “Worldwide Leader” could promote would bring huge advertising revenue for the media giant. Why wouldn’t they, or the SEC, want to make it happen as soon as possible? The big sticking point is Fox.

Fox is part of the Big 12’s current media rights deal and would hate to lose out on the revenue that Oklahoma and Texas bring to the table. According to McMurphy, the negotiations that will take place to allow OU and Texas to leave early will center on how to make all sides “whole” in the exit.

With the College Football Playoff set to expand in 2024, there’s less concern about expanded super conferences. The Big Ten and the SEC will still have the opportunity to get multiple teams into the playoff despite enhanced competition. For Oklahoma and Texas, they can move early, knowing that there’s a door to the playoff despite the step up in competition.

Last month, the Big 12 worked out a new grant of rights package that will pay them $2.3 billion from 2025 to 2030. A significant increase in revenue for their member institutions.

Playoff expansion, the Big 12’s new media rights deal, the conference’s success in 2022 without OU and Texas leading the way, along with the additions of BYU, Cincinnati, Houston, and UCF may have opened the door for movement at the negotiating table.

As McMurphy notes, an agreement could be reached as early as next month with “growing sentiment” and “momentum” to come to a resolution.

And if the businessmen are motivated enough, they’ll reach an agreement. Which means Sooners fans better begin planning for some travel to the southeast in 2024.

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What a 12-team College Football Playoff would have looked like in 2022

What do you think about this bracket? Would you be excited to watch these games?

The final College Football Playoff rankings are out, and we now know the four teams that will be competing for a national championship. By now, you know Ohio State is one of those teams, but so are Georgia, Michigan, and TCU. A four-team “playoff.”

With the news that the College Football Playoff will expand beginning in 2024, we have just one more year of the popularity contest to get an invite to all the fun. I say it’s about time (no offense purists), because it’ll be much easier to know what needs to be done to get into the playoff, and it gives teams that don’t get in on reputation a better shot than what we have today.

Now that we know what the final CFP rankings are, we thought it would be fun to see what the 12-team playoff would look like if it were in place today instead of the “and one” model that we got snookered into.

Here is how it would have played out. Remember, the highest-ranked conference champions take the top four seeds, so the top seeds would be different.

First … The 12 seeds

College Football Playoff expansion set for 2024

Per a report from Pete Thamel of ESPN, the College Football Playoff will expand to 12 teams in 2024. From @john9williams

There was a time when it looked like early expansion for the College Football Playoff was in doubt. As the Rose Bowl held up the necessary unanimous vote in hopes of maintaining their prime window on January 1, there became a standoff between everyone who was ready to push expansion through and the historic game.

Expansion required a unanimous vote between the participating bowls, the conferences, and Notre Dame. The Rose Bowl remaining the one dissenting voice was faced with a deadline and an ultimatum. Vote yes on expansion by Wednesday or risk being left out in the cold win the playoff expands in 2026

Well, now, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN, the Rose Bowl has signed and agreement that will allow the College Football Playoff to expand two years earlier in their current media rights package with ESPN.

Expansion creates an open door for teams that didn’t win their conference but had good seasons. This year, Ohio State would be the prime beneficiary of an expanded playoff as the one-loss Buckeyes will get left out in the cold if the current top four win out.

Moving from four teams to 12 also provides more equity for the Group of Five, who in previous years, only had a shot at getting in if they were undefeated and had significant Power Five wins on their resume. Only Cincinnati of the American Athletic Conference was able to break the glass ceiling. Now there’s a path to the playoff for every school in the Football Bowl Subdivision. And while 2022 Tulane may not be on the same level as Georgia, they hold a win over Kansas State, who could win the Big 12 title this weekend.

The first season of expansion in 2024 will also be the final year the Oklahoma Sooners will play in the Big 12. If they’re able to improve their defense, the Sooners could be contending for a spot in an expanded College Football Playoff.

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What to expect from a 12-team College Football Playoff

The new tournament should improve an already great sport.

The College Football Playoff is expanding. The new tournament is set to feature 12 teams as late as the 2026 season. Continue reading “What to expect from a 12-team College Football Playoff”

Social media reacts to expansion of College Football Playoff

The most likely scenario for a while, reactions varied on the move to 12 teams in the College Football Playoff.

The long-awaited expansion of the College Football Playoff has come as the playoff board voted to move from four teams to 12. It’s been one of the more hotly debated topics for years, dating back to the expansion to four teams.

There’s concern that it waters down the product and that expansion changes little about who will be winning the title. Both of those things might be true. At the same time, expansion provides access to programs outside of the Power Five.

And while they may not win the thing, they’ll be able to partake in the revenue that comes from playing in the playoff. More revenue provides opportunities to create better facilities. Will the teams that are at the top now still be at the top? Sure. But the playoff opens the door for some programs to improve their college football lot in life with the hopes of building a program capable of competing with the teams at the top.

There are certainly pros and cons to expansion, but more meaningful games in December and January means more than the bowl system that’s set up.

Not everyone’s happy about it, but most are excited about the expansion of the College Football Playoff.

Board approves expansion of College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff Board of Managers voted to expand the playoff system to 12 teams.

College Football continues to evolve before us as the College Football Playoff Board of Managers approved expansion of the playoff to 12 teams, according to Pete Thamel of ESPN.

Currently the College Football Playoff contract is expected to run through 2026, but according to Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, the hope is the expanded playoff will get instituted as early as 2024 or 2025.

The playoff, which expanded to four teams in 2014, will feature the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large bids.

This is the plan that was originally proposed by a committee that included former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby before The Alliance (Big Ten, Pac-12, and ACC) voted against expansion at the 11th hour.

Even after expansion was shot down, it seemed only a matter of time before expansion talks returned to the forefront. The potential earnings for the conferences and their member schools became too much for expansion to remain on the back burner.

The four highest-ranked conference champions will receive first round byes. Here’s what the field would have looked like if the 2021 season was under a 12-team playoff.

We can argue about whether or not teams 5-12 have much of a shot, but you can’t argue that those matchups wouldn’t be incredibly compelling. And that’s why playoff expansion made sense.

Playoff expansion will keep more teams in contention for the national championship later into the season. While teams like Alabama remain the favorite, an expanded playoff opens up more opportunities for more players to play meaningful games in December and January. That’ll keep fans and players more engaged than the current bowl season provides.

Time will tell what the overall impact to the sport playoff expansion will have, the move to 12 will create a highly anticipated postseason whenever the 12-team playoff officially begins.

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