Tag: College Football Playoffs committee

The idea of a College Football Playoff expansion has been a hot topic of discussion in the last several years. Under the current model, only four teams get a shot at the National Champion each year. There are two semifinal games with the winners meeting 10 days later to decide a champion. In the current climate with conferences playing a different number of games, some starting later than others it would be perfect situation to test the waters.

However, Heather Dinich of ESPN is reporting that the committee squashed the idea. At least this year. In her report, one Power Five commissioner pitched the idea of an eight-team playoff.

“They decided that doing that now would be such a significant change, and come with so many challenges, especially given the timing with the season already underway, that they concluded that the best outcome would be to make no changes in the format,” Hancock told ESPN. “They will continue to discuss the future, which is just good, responsible business practice, although I must say that dealing with COVID has become everyone’s focus now.”

While it is a valid point that it might be a bit late in the game this year for expansion, it should have already been on the docket for discussion. As it sits right now, most projections have Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State and Florida as the playoff teams for this season. The Pac-12 and Big Ten conferences aren’t starting their season until late October.

Due to the fact that there are little to no nonconference games, the ability to pick which teams will make it is a difficult one. Expansion would only help those teams who were just on the outside. Maybe a team like Central Florida who has run the table before but not received a fair shake due to the Power Five schools at the top.

As Stanford head coach David Shaw stated, it is going to happen at some point. So maybe there is hope for next season but for now it will move forward with just four teams in 2020.