WatchStadium.com reporter Brett McMurphy reported yesterday that in a recent Stadium survey 88 percent of FBS athletic directors are in favor of an expanded College Football Playoff when the current deal expires in five years.
Of the 130 athletic directors in the FBS, 112 of them responded to the survey. The numbers broken down show 72 percent of the respondents want the playoff expanded to eight teams, 5 percent want six teams, 8 percent want 16 teams and 3 percent want a different expansion. Broken down further, 83 percent of Power Five athletic directors are in favor of an expansion compared to 91 percent of non-Power Five athletic directors.
This playoff expansion would obviously come with out-of-conference schedule complications and an overall schedule change in terms of when the playoff games need to be played.
Logistics aside, here’s how the possible expansion would affect the Wisconsin Badgers.
The College Football Playoff was introduced in 2014-15 with Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State as the first participants.
Since its inception the Badgers obviously haven’t made the cut for the four-team playoff. They have over the last four years, however, finished the season with a top-10 ranking twice and have been ranked within the top-eight at some point during each season.
After McMurphy’s report, Stadium tweeted what the playoff would have looked like during the last four years had it included eight teams.
As reported by @Brett_McMurphy, almost 90% of FBS Athletic Directors are IN-FAVOR of an expanded #CFBPlayoff.
Here's what the 8-team playoff would've looked like over the last four seasons. 👀 pic.twitter.com/atj6ApJcL6
— Stadium (@Stadium) April 8, 2020
As you can see the Badgers would have been the No. 6 seed in the playoff in 2017 with their 12-1 record at the time and would have narrowly missed the cut in both 2016 and 2019.
What does this all mean?
Given the Badgers recent dominance of the Big Ten West division and lack of real challenges in their out-of-conference schedule (though that may change with their matchups in the coming years against Notre Dame and Alabama), this change in the number of playoff teams would almost ensure the Badgers’ place in the running for the playoff year in and year out.
Specifically, if head coach Paul Chryst’s team builds upon the success they’ve achieved in recent years and they continue to succeed against schools including Iowa and Minnesota, this change would be a great one for the Badgers as they continue to search for the school’s first national championship.