When the College Football Playoff Working Group presented options for expanding the playoff field 20 months ago, the main surprise was that the CFP was far ahead in terms of expansion, with five years left on the four-team bracket contract. it was locked up.
Second big shock? The working group considered 16 teams. Now, two years into the 12-team playoffs, and with his best CFP semifinals to date, we’ve seen enough.
If 12 is good, 16 is much better.
“I have [thought a 16-team playoff is superior]said TCU coach Sonny Dykes.
4 additional structures exist more Teams move to an enlarged playoff field. It has been discussed and even modeled. This is his one of 63 options that working group presented to his CFP Management Committee. As recently as he was in July, Ohio Athletic Director Gene Smith reportedly told his ESPN:
“In my opinion [16 teams is] The most natural,” said Craig Thompson, outgoing Mountain West Commissioner and member of the four-man working group that created the 12-team bracket.At least the undiscussed scenario [before 2026].”
Thompson is not alone.
“I think 16 is the number,” said MAC Commissioner Jon Steinbrecher. “Four was better than two. Twelve is better than four. Sixteen is the number in my heart.”
“That’s where everyone sees progress,” said US Commissioner Mike Aresko. “I can see it happening down the road.”
You might find that all three commissioners have one thing in common. Their Group of Five conference would benefit greatly from even more access. But that’s why brackets were extended in the first place.
“From my point of view, we needed to get people into the national championship,” said SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, who didn’t specifically talk about the 16-team bracket. I don’t think it’s healthy for college football and college football around the world to be out of the playoffs…it’s a national game.”
In the next 12-team bracket, the six highest-ranked conference champions are guaranteed bids (the top four are first-round byes), and the remaining field is filled by six large teams. This season, that would have meant Tulane (who upset USC in the Cotton Bowl) as the No. 12 seed, and since Utah was his Pac-12 champion, he had a first-round bye as the No. 4 seed. would have gotten
Then project the field onto 16 teams. Not just Tulane, but Oregon (9-3), Oregon State (9-3), Florida State (9-3) and Washington (10-2). Pac-12 has not had a team in his CFP over the past six seasons. In a 12-team bracket, 1 team will be placed. Based on his CFP rankings for this year, the 16-team bracket will have four teams competing for the national title in the Pac-12.
In a 16-team bracket, it’s a fair assumption that eight games in the first week of CFP competition would eliminate these first-round byes. The biggest question then is when are you going to play these games: 2 days or 3 days? One strong industry expert wondered: How do you create eight unique TV windows without stepping on the NFL or creating another programming conflict?
The bracket then falls like a field of 12 teams, with eight teams remaining in the quarterfinals followed by the quarterfinals and the CFP National Championship.
The expert thought deeply about the concept. He concluded that if the initiative is really about access, it has a “good chance” to eventually expand to 16 teams. , recommended that 25% of the team should be able to compete for the national championship.
The football postseason is run outside the NCAA. The expanded CFP will give his 9.2% of his FBS teams of 131 a chance to fight for the title. Expanding to 16 puts 12.2% of teams on the field. Compare that with 19% (68 out of 351) attending the NCAA Tournament. At the very least, the sports will be closer together in terms of postseason opportunities.
CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock told CBS Sports that the CFP president is “firm” in the 12-team bracket.
However, the extension bracket construction is only guaranteed for 2024 and 2025.
CFP Media rights will go out to bids ahead of 2026, with multiple rights holders most likely to get stakes in the playoffs. Will the owner want more content?
“We set the structure,” said Hancock.
The highest-scoring semifinal in the CFP era (179 total points) added spice to a mundane process, and going into the 2022 game, the CFP semifinal average was decided by over three touchdowns. No. 1 Georgia (over No. 4 Ohio State) and No. 3 TCU (over No. 2 Michigan) won the game with a total of 7 points.
My rating went up. increased interest. Will the final four-team season in 2023 be an equally exciting game, or will it return to the margins in the CFP’s first eight years? That excitement translates when the field expands to 12 or even 16?
“I think 12 is going to be great,” Dykes said. “…I’ve always believed that the cream will go up. The more opportunities non-traditional brand schools have, the more opportunities they can have to become a traditional brand.”
Any expansion beyond that should also take player safety into consideration. The CFP Steering Committee has already sold the President in the 12-team bracket. This is equivalent to the NFL regular season. The sport continues to explore limiting “exposure” (the number of snaps a player takes) by allowing the clock to run on imperfect passes or hastily out of bounds.
The 16-team bracket guarantees the two finalists will play 17 games. Imagine playing with two players more A game just to aim for a national title.
Michigan ran 75 plays, the most of any four playoff entrants this season, and lost. TCU only ran his 70 plays and not only won, but appeared to be dragging Wolverine’s tongue.
“Especially in the third quarter,” Johnson said. “We launched a faster attack, rushed, and it took them a minute to get ready. Many of them were exhausted early on.”
Saturday went well, but Alabama was 85. played against Georgia last year and lost the CFP National Championship. The previous year, the Crimson Tide made 83 plays in the Buckeyes rout.
“I certainly think it’s going to be difficult to play better defense than this,” added Georgia coach Kirby Smart.
Perhaps the saving grace could be a vacation between games. CFP modeled his 12-day break following the conference championship weekend for a first-round playoff game. Using last month’s calendar, the playoffs will start around his December 15th.–The 17-day break before the quarter-finals begins begins around New Year’s Day.
“The last game of the conference championship and [quarterfinals] I think you lose your rhythm there, which probably worries me more than anything,” Smart said.
Embankments are well read in this space. He was once sucked into the 64-team vortex of Mike Leach, who has long advocated a football his bracket the size of the NCAA Tournament. Dykes estimates that he spent six hours discussing this subject with pirates once at midnight.
“I kept coming back to him and saying, ‘Mike, I can’t play two games a week,'” Dykes recalled.
