College football is changing again.
Reports this week say the College Football Playoff is set to expand from 12 teams to 24 beginning in 2027. The proposed format would essentially double the current field, add another round of playoff football, put more games on college campuses, and, maybe most interestingly, could spell the end of the traditional Power Four conference championship games.
My initial reaction? I LOVE IT.
I know plenty of people will complain that 24 teams is too many. They’ll say it waters down the regular season. They’ll say a three-loss team doesn’t deserve a shot at the national championship. They’ll talk about tradition and how college football is becoming the NFL. I get all of that. I just don’t care.
Give Me More Playoff Football
The 12-team playoff was a huge step in the right direction because it finally gave us what college football had been missing forever: meaningful postseason games outside of the same handful of programs. Twenty-four takes that idea even further. The proposed structure would give the top eight teams a first-round bye, with seeds 9 through 16 hosting first-round games. The top eight would then host those winners in the second round before the tournament moves into the traditional New Year’s Six bowls for the quarterfinals and semifinals.
Think about what that means: December playoff football in Athens, Tuscaloosa, Knoxville, Ann Arbor, Columbus, South Bend, Baton Rouge, Austin, and Happy Valley. Not neutral-site games in half-full NFL stadiums, but actual college football games, on actual college campuses, with somebody’s season ending that night. Sign me up.
And yes, some team ranked 21st is going to get into the playoff and probably have very little chance of winning the national championship. So what? The NCAA basketball tournament is full of teams that have virtually no chance of winning it all, and that’s part of what makes March Madness great. Occasionally somebody gets hot, knocks off a giant, and gives us something we’ll talk about for 20 years. Isn’t that what the current NIL and transfer portal has somewhat corrected? There are a lot more good teams vs. ten years ago. Let them play.
Conference Championships Are Overrated
Here’s the other part I really like: I wouldn’t lose any sleep over conference championship games going away. They made perfect sense when conferences had ten or twelve teams. You played almost everybody. Divisions meant something. The SEC East champion played the SEC West champion in Atlanta, and the winner was unquestionably the conference champion.
That’s not the world we’re living in anymore. The SEC has 16 teams. The Big Ten has 18. Schools in the same conference can go years without playing one another, and we’re using complicated tiebreakers to decide who gets into a championship game between teams that may not have played comparable schedules in the first place. What exactly are we protecting?
In the playoff era, conference championships have increasingly become an extra hurdle for teams that have already proven themselves over a 12-game season. If Georgia goes 11-1 against an SEC schedule and is clearly one of the best teams in America, I don’t need them playing another game in Atlanta to determine whether they’re worthy of competing for a national championship. Put them in the playoff. I’d say the same thing about Auburn.
If eliminating those games creates room on the calendar for a legitimate playoff while giving the players a week to recover, I’m all for it. Use that weekend for Army-Navy, let everybody else catch their breath, and then start the tournament.
And Yes, This Is Notre Dame Getting What It Wants
Let’s call this what it is, too: Notre Dame has to love this. The Irish don’t play in a conference, which means they don’t have a conference championship game to win (or lose), and they’ve always occupied a unique position in the CFP structure. A bigger field makes independence even easier to maintain.
Notre Dame can build a national schedule, play marquee opponents, avoid a conference championship game, and have significantly more room for a loss or two while remaining in the playoff conversation. In other words, Notre Dame gets to keep being Notre Dame. I’m sure that will drive plenty of people crazy, but it doesn’t bother me much. If they’re one of the best 24 teams in America, put them in. Then somebody gets the glorious opportunity to beat them. Again.
Here Come the Sponsors
There’s another part of this that’s going to make things interesting: corporate sponsorship. College football has never exactly been shy about taking corporate money, but we’re clearly entering another level. With more playoff games, more television inventory, more campus games, and enormous amounts of money required to make this entire system work, corporate America is going to be involved. Heavily.
And you know what? I’m interested to see where it goes. We’re already accustomed to sponsored bowl games, but what happens when sponsorship gets closer to the actual playoff? Sponsored rounds? Sponsored campus games? A presenting sponsor for the entire tournament? Corporate partners helping replace the revenue conferences give up by eliminating championship games? Some of it will inevitably be ridiculous. “The Zaxby’s College Football Playoff First Round” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but if sponsorship dollars help keep these games on campuses, compensate conferences for eliminating unnecessary championship games, and create a better postseason product, I’m willing to listen.
The money is already in college football. Pretending otherwise is silly. The question isn’t whether corporations are going to participate. It’s whether the people running the sport can take that money without completely cheapening the product. That’s going to be an interesting line to watch.
But First: Fix NIL and the Transfer Portal (PLEASE)
This is the bigger issue. We can build the perfect playoff. We can get the seeding right. We can eliminate conference championship games. We can create incredible December weekends on college campuses. None of it matters as much as fixing NIL and the transfer portal.
And to be clear: I don’t have a problem with NIL. College football generates billions of dollars. Coaches make millions, athletic departments have enormous budgets, and television networks and streaming platforms write gigantic checks. If a player can make money from his name, image, and likeness while he’s creating value for all of those other people, I’m completely fine with that. Get paid.
My issue is with the lack of commitment. I don’t believe a player should be able to sign with a program, take NIL money, occupy a scholarship, receive coaching and development, and then simply walk out the door whenever a better opportunity appears without any repercussions whatsoever. That’s not how anything else works.
If we’re going to treat college football increasingly like a professional sport (and clearly that’s where we’re headed), then we need some professional structure around it. Contracts. Defined transfer windows. Clear NIL agreements. Rules governing tampering. And some consequence for breaking a commitment.
That doesn’t mean a player should be trapped at a school. There absolutely need to be reasonable exceptions. Coaches leave. Coordinators get fired. Family circumstances change. A kid buried on the depth chart may legitimately need another opportunity. Fine. Build those situations into the rules. But the current environment where everybody effectively becomes a free agent over and over again isn’t sustainable. It makes roster building incredibly difficult, encourages tampering, and turns recruiting into a year-round auction.
And I don’t think that’s particularly good for the players, either. There should be some value in development. There should be some value in committing to a program, competing for a job, and becoming a better football player instead of immediately looking for the next opportunity. Let these guys make money. Let them negotiate good NIL deals. Give them protections. But there has to be something on the other side of the equation as well.
Ultimately, NIL isn’t the enemy. Unrestricted movement is. Find a way for players to be compensated fairly while giving programs some level of roster certainty. That’s the balance college football desperately needs.
Make the Regular Season Better
There’s another piece of playoff expansion that I think could be one of the biggest benefits. If getting into the playoff doesn’t require perfection anymore, schools should be much more willing to schedule great games. One of the worst side effects of the four-team playoff was that losing could be catastrophic. Why schedule another heavyweight in September when going 12-0 against a softer schedule was the safer path?
A 24-team playoff changes the calculation. Georgia can play Clemson. Alabama can play Ohio State. Texas can play Michigan. Notre Dame can load up its schedule. Lose one? Fine. Lose two? You may still be alive. Suddenly, strength of schedule can become an asset instead of something athletic directors are terrified of.
That means more meaningful games during the regular season, not fewer. And if you finish 8-4 because you played an absolute murderer’s row? Let the committee compare that resume to somebody who went 10-2 against nothing. That’s a much more interesting argument, and I’d much rather spend September watching big-time programs play each other than watching everyone protect a perfect record against three cupcakes.
Let’s Play
College football traditionalists aren’t going to like this, and I understand why. The sport has changed more in the last few years than it did in the previous 30. Think about it: NIL, the transfer portal, the desperate conference realignments, a 12-team playoff. And now, potentially, 24. Some of those changes have been great. Some have been terrible.
But playoff expansion? I’m in.
Give me 24 teams. Give me home playoff games. Give me cold-weather games in December. Give me SEC teams traveling north and Big Ten teams coming south. Give me an 11-seed that gets hot and scares the hell out of everybody. Let the players make money. Let the sponsors write checks. Get rid of conference championship games that have outlived their usefulness.
But while we’re rebuilding the postseason, let’s finish the job. Fix the portal. Put some structure around NIL. Bring some commitment back to the roster. Then let’s play some football.
What do you think?
