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12-team College Football Playoff approved: How it looks, works and what comes next
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12-team College Football Playoff approved: How it looks, works and what comes next
ATHENS — The College Football Playoffs are officially expanding to 12 teams, possibly as early as the 2024 season, but for certain by 2026.
Comments
Well I guess there's one good thing that might come of this. If I still alternate between pacing and perching at the edge of my seat on game days knowing the Dawgs can lose any number of games and still play for a championship, I'll know it's true love.
As long as ND remains independent they will never get a first round bye. That's a good thing.
I would think Big 10 teams would want outdoor games in December. See how SEC teams do playing in the snow, since we know Big 10 teams don’t do well playing in Fl and Ca in January.
The problem with 12 is that the four top seeds get a bye but don’t get the benefit of a home game. With 16, the four best teams would play the last four bottom feeders which would be as good as a bye and college towns like Athens would rake in the cash and the coaches could empty their bench in the blowouts giving many players who wouldn’t see the field otherwise the opportunity to play in a playoff game.
Even at 12, it is imperative that the NCAA (Lord help us) will need to make drastic changes to the transfer portal. Coaches have got to be able to manage their rosters because the deepest teams will have an overwhelming advantage adding four more possible games to the schedule.
Sankey caved or got sold out. "the 4 highest ranked conference winners" get bye's NOT the 4 highest ranked teams. Huge advantage to get a bye that late in the season. 12 teams will produce a lot of blowout games and little urgency for the regular season. 8 teams was the number. Money grab by greedy presidents and chancellors.
They're doing to NCAAF what they did to MLB. Just like every other sport and every of the league, D1 is now a mercenary sport where the past has zero value and money is the only thing that matters.
I know I am a minority perspective here. Most will celebrate the fact that D1 NCAAF now looks exactly like every other sport. They are thrilled at the idea that the Cinderella team may now have a chance . . . as if those chances have actually changed. Most people never bothered, because they cared, to lament the loss of so many traditions that have held meaning for players and fans for so long - because, perhaps, they have replaced those long-term and sometimes sad memories with the flashing satisfaction of guessing the winners and losers in a new ESPN mobile playoff challenge game for $3.99 a month.
But, hey, just like the new and improved NASCAR and the DH in the National League, you can rest easy knowing that the changes may erode the stakes of wins and losses but that there will be more revenue opportunities for already wealthy corporations. And, whereas a loss to Florida or Tennessee once was cause for some degree of anguish, it no longer will matter so much. A 12-team playoff virtually guarantees a post-season for the same, eight teams every year. Consequences suddenly seem, well, inconsequential.
Because they have been so significant to national and regional culture, these fundamental changes to MLB and D1 football really do serve as a litmus test for American Romanticism. I wonder if John Fremont, Teddy Roosevelt, Jefferson, or Emerson every could have imagined the absence of Romance in the common American.
Perhaps this is a watershed moment for this nation, for our American people.
The draw to college football for some has been the purity it has over professional football . Well recent changes have taken away some of what we thought was pure , at least on the surface lol . It is chaotic for sure but I don’t think anyone wants to see separate leagues which was a possibility. Of course there will be watered down games but there won’t be an outside power conference undefeated team claiming to be national champion . It should be more entertaining than the Bahama or the weed eater bowl . At the end of the day this may come as a shock to most but it’s just that ,entertainment. Hollywood with a football . Are you not entertained ? Lol
On first reading and consideration of this playoff scheme, it sücks.
(Most of why it sücks has already been mentioned.)
Go, Dawgs!
It's about d**m time!
15 months was wasted, but at least we're there now.
- 9 SEC games in the regular season...excellent (get rid of divisions completely)
- Conference Championships are still going to occur....excellent
- 1st round games on campuses...excellent
- major bowls still involved in a rotating playoff game schedule which should appease all the naysayers who were complaining about bowls losing their significance...excellent
- 12 teams allows for more teams to make the playoffs, better and varying matchups, more interesting games, better for fans of more conferences, and allows for the potential of better parity. Overall, I see this as helping spread out the wealth of college football to more teams....excellent
Scheduling is going to be one of the biggest challenges with more games for more teams.
This is going to be awesome!!
So, Ole Miss was the third best team in the SEC last year? I'm old man and forgetful, but that doesn't;t seem right.
So bringing in lower ranked teams that haven't looked like championship contenders all year, to play against the elite teams that actually belong in the playoff, is going to result in more parity and better matchups? You're gonna have to show your work on that one.
I always thought 6 was the best number of teams. I guess the 12 will now give cred to those teams that only lost a couple of games in the regular season because Metchie and Williams were out. Now they are healthy for a playoff run. If that scenario applied to my team, I'd be happy about that. More high end games in the post season? Players not opting out because they are playing for a 'ship? Valid arguments on both sides, let's play ball! Go Dawgs!
@E_Roc...hey, I would have settled for an 8-team playoff, but I'll take 12 teams.
Will there end up being a few games over the years that shouldn't have been played? Probably. BUT, when a competitive 1-loss Power 5 team doesn't make the playoffs then something is wrong with the 4-team model. Both TCU and Baylor finished 11-1 in 2014 and didn't make it. The next season, Iowa and Ohio State ended 12-1 and 11-1, respectively. In 2017, 12-1 Wisconsin missed the cut. Ohio State followed suit in 2018, falling short despite a 12-1 record. That's just wrong. And now there will not be a single Power 5 conference that is left out of the playoffs. There should be no complaining.
Will potentially a 2-loss Power 5 team make the playoffs when you move to 12 teams? Yes.
Now though, the Group of Five teams have a shot at a title or at least to belong in the playoffs. How does a very good team become better and recruit better players? By playing better competition and harder opponents. The playoffs should allow more teams that have not normally made the playoffs to potentially play on a bigger stage and that should potentially make more teams across the college football landscape better and more competitive. Of course, that's the theory. However, bottom line this is all about the money. But, the fans will benefit. One thing I am very tired of is seeing over 30 bowl games every December where more than half of the games are a complete and utter waste. Overall, bowl season has become dull and ridiculous. But, I digress.
No matter what, the 4-team playoff isn't working. It MUST expand. I'm tired of seeing the same teams playing the same games every year. It will be better for fans and teams. It should be a fairer way to give all teams who might belong in the playoffs a chance to put up or shut up. And if you look at FCS and Div-II football, they already have a very successful 12 or 16-team model of playoffs that is highly embraced by their fan base. Heck, I even watch their playoffs.
The biggest losers could be the bowl games unless they are incorporated into the playoffs, but it looks like the first round will be played on home fields. They could have played the first, second and third rounds in current bowls. That would certainly fill those stadiums for 10 bowl games instead of 2 rotating ones like we currently have with the playoffs.
@MikeGriffith ...Mike, you are the resident expert on NIL/TP issues, rules and regulations. @ShoottheHooch brings up an interesting conflict between the CFP Schedule and the new "Transfer Window" rules, recently established by the NCAA.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I may not completely understand all the new changes and nuances involved.
CONFLICT:
GIVEN: A player may transfer during one of two transfer windows. The first window opens, the day after Conference Championships are complete in December, and closes the day after the NCG in January (or something like that).
QUESTION: Can a player legally transfer from an Unranked Team to a Playoff Team in December, after the CFP Teams have been selected?
I.e., for the sake of argument...IF Florida ends the season unranked, AND UGA is the #1 seed in the playoffs; would Brenton Cox be eligible to transfer from FLA to UGA, after the regular season, and enroll in the UGA Winter Quarter in order to compete in the CFP for the Dawgs, despite playing for the Gators throughout the regular season?
SECOND QUESTION: The guideline states that the 4 highest ranked Conference Champions get a Bye. That could theoretically mean that the 4 teams with a bye could be #1, #4, #8 & #12 (or any other variation between 1 & 12). In other words...what if only 1 or 2 Conference Champions are ranked higher than #8? That doesn't seem fair or competitive. The Big10, SEC and ACC are the only Conferences, with Conf. Champs that consistently rank in the top 6. That's only 3 Conferences. ND isn't a Conference or I would have mentioned them.
Moreover; WHAT IF: there are only 3 Conference Champions ranked in the Top 12? What do they do about the 4th BYE?
I don't like the Conference Champion tie-in to the BYE's. How will that tie-in effect the rankings and the way AP/UPI/Coaches Vote in the polls? Will the tail wag the dog? LOL. Just sayin'. There is a whole lot to consider, when you burn down the house and rebuild from the ground, up. It looks like College Football is using a hodgepodge of architects and contractors...each one doing their own thing, with no communication or coordination. It'd be a miracle if they don't have to completely remodel, in a few years.
Everyone concerned needs to get together on a ship, set sail and remain at sea, until they've hammered out all of the issues and wrinkles. I don't care how long it takes. They aren't just tweaking College Football...they're remaking it and they need to start approaching it with a little more respect and attention-to-detail.
I do understand some of what you're saying. I agree that bowl season has gotten out of hand, I just disagree on the solution. Trim it down to 10 or 15 non-playoff bowls, and give them all real names FFS. It would make them all feel special again and, I think, go a long way in erasing this abject fallacy that they are exhibition games. Of course, as we all know, greed simply won't allow it, so your perspective is surely the more realistic one. But I just can't accept that as an intrinsically valid argument that playoff expansion is a good idea.
I disagree that a 4 team format is inherently irredeemable, and think you drastically understate the potential for lopsided results in games that had no business being part of a championship playoff. We already get blowouts in the current format. What makes you think that an increase in the occurrence of such outcomes would be anything less than a certainty by tripling the number of teams that are allowed in?
I think it's a fair point that having more teams in the playoff every year could be good for program building around the country. But I don't see that translating into consistently competitive playoff games, to the point that it's worth watering down the regular season.
But hey, I could be wrong. Maybe it'll all be ok (sincerely). There's nothing left to do now but get used to it, and getting these complaints off my chest seems to help. At least we've been given a couple years to process this one.
Cannot wait to hear the howls when stars of teams 10, 11 and 12, realizing they have no chance to advance, opt out of the playoffs for fear of injury and dropping down in the NFL draft.
If they really want a Championship Ring before they turn Pro...all they have to do, is transfer to a Contender in December. If they're that good...they'll play. Right now, it looks like the current transfer rules and proposed CFP schedule would support that.
As far as expansion...people have been calling for this, since before the BCS was implemented. However, nobody, ever, called for 12 teams. There have only been typically, 6 or 7 teams that played like Champions every year and deserved to be in the playoffs. I don't remember a year that UGA wound up ranked #12, and I thought, "you know what...UGA deserves to win the College Football Championship, this year". Even though,, it would've been fun to watch em try. LOL.
The thing is, on September 3rd of this year, there will be 100+ teams, in DIV1 College Football, playing in a 12 game playoff. It's called "regular Season", but, it IS a playoff. It's been that way every year. Now, that 12-game playoff can win you a spot in a 12 team Ceremonial Playoff, displayed with all the glory of Gladiators fighting it out in the Roman Coliseum. That, being said...it will still be virtually the same 6 or 7 teams jockeying for position in the final 4 every year, but, the money pie is going to get bigger and everybody gets a piece. At least for the foreseeable future.
Television owns College Football. They started buying it a little at a time, the second ESPN and FOXSPORTS was born. LOL
Mike all they did was approve the plan that was presented months ago. Those clowns are so spiteful and yet it is now hailed as some wonderful idea.