Does UCF prove CFP needs to expand field?
The regular season is over. The bowl matchups are set. And now we have weeping and gnashing of teeth over which teams have been left out of the College Football Playoff, plus a call to expand the format from four to eight or even 16 teams? Spare me. College football needs plenty of overhauls, but this shouldn’t be at the top of anyone’s list, especially not anyone connected to a Power Five school.
Georgia, Michigan and Ohio State all had their chances. They lost games. End of discussion.
Central Florida, however, has a gripe that merits consideration.
UCF just completed its second consecutive undefeated season – going 12-0 after finishing 13-0 last season – but has been shut out of the playoff both times.
“The current system is not a fair and reasonable system,” Dan Ravicher, an antitrust lawyer, said.
“The experience we’ve had with it shows it,” he said later. “Of the five years we’ve had it, each of the 20 teams that have been in the College Football Playoff have been from a Power conference.”
The exception is Notre Dame, of course, but Ravicher – a professor at the University of Miami Law School who has practiced in various forms for 20 years and appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court – said it’s effectively an ACC school, since it competes in that conference in other sports.
To him, the current system is a collusion lawsuit waiting to happen.
Plus, he asked, “How exciting would the college football playoffs be this year if we had, in addition to the four current teams, UCF, Buffalo, Fresno and other Cinderella darlings?”
It’s an interesting perspective. And if a lawsuit comes, we’ll cover it, but in terms of competition, do we really need playoff expansion?
Wright Waters, executive director of the Football Bowl Association and former commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference, doesn’t think so.
“Until we get to a point that there are eight teams that are the quality of an Alabama or a Clemson, well, we don’t need to dilute it,” he said. “We don’t need to ask people to play in games that are for a national championship, if we know the winner.”