Hurdles exist for an eight-team playoff
College Football Playoff expansion talk brewed this week, and an eight-team playoff seems to have more momentum than ever before.
But before the celebration ensues, it’s best to remember the hurdles that could keep the playoff field at four for quite some time.
The Athletic reported this week that Wisconsin athletic director Barry Alvarez, a past member of the playoff committee, said, “Everyone has the same feeling; expansion is inevitable… I think we need to serve more people. I think four was the right way to get started. In my opinion, we need to take a look of adding more teams…”
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said “it’s an appropriate thing to begin thinking about.”
Of course, those are not similar statements. Alvarez is ready to charge up San Juan Hill. Bowlsby put multiple qualifiers on the concept, from “begin” to “thinking about.” In fact, Bowlsby basically was saying, decision-makers have not even started thinking about a playoff.
That hasn’t stopped everyone else. And frankly, there are blossoms that make this a ripe time to expand to eight teams.
The angst over Power 5 conferences being omitted from the playoff will always cause dissension. The Big 12 was left out in 2016. The Pac-12 and Big Ten each were left out in both 2017 and 2018; the Big Ten champion hasn’t made the playoff since 2015.
And the bowls continue to slide in relevance. Any expanded playoff would hurt the bowls to some degree, but there’s less and less reason to care. Coaches have long declared their antipathy for bowl games, often taking jobs and leaving their teams before the postseason game. Now players have caught the bug, figuring they’re better off preparing for the NFL Draft instead of playing in the Camping
World Bowl.
Defending the bowls has become a thankless task.
But snapping your fingers won’t create national quarterfinals.
Most eight-team playoff plans center around five Power 5 champions, one mid-major champion and two at-large selections. To keep the same general calendar, the league title games would
be scrapped, replaced by the national quarterfinals on the home fields of the top four teams.
Nice try, says SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. In the wake of the playoff talk Wednesday, Sankey released a statement: “The SEC Championship Game is important to this conference and our fans … this year’s game was the highest-rated regular-season
game on any network in seven years … the SEC Championship Game is important to fans of college football well beyond our conference. All conference championship games are important and relevant, which is why every FBS conference has followed the SEC’s lead and created championship games of their own.
“The day a four-team College Football Playoff was introduced, public speculation began about a larger bracket. That’s human nature. This is not a new conversation. College football has a system in place that has been remarkably successful in its first four years and we expect this success will continue for the current CFP format.”
Party-pooper. But powerful. Sankey basically patted Alvarez on the head and said, go enjoy the Pinstripe Bowl.
So Plan B is necessary,
which means either cutting back on the regular season or adding to the current schedule. Neither passes muster in this environment.
Most of the Power 5 schools rely on the 12-game schedule to supply an extra home game that pads budgets. And the vast majority of Power 5 schools have no calf in the contest. Cal-Berkeley, Indiana and two dozen other Power 5 schools have no delusions of making the playoff. Show them the money.
Of course, you might very well be able to show them the financial advantages of an expanded playoff. But then you’ve got the concussion issue.
The concussion lawsuits are vast throughout America, and universities are in the judicial fight of their lives. They’ve got to do everything they can to show they’re trying to make the game safer.
Expanding the season is not the way to do it, even if an eight-team playoff would mean just two teams playing potentially 16 games.
Hard to argue that you’re trying to be as prudent as possible for players’ health and at the same time expand the season. Lawyers aren’t likely to sign off. And school presidents listen to lawyers more than they listen to former football coaches miffed at not making the Orange Bowl.
So Bowlsby is right. Perhaps it’s time to begin thinking about expansion. But Alvarez is wrong. An eight-team playoff is not inevitable.