Expanded College Football Playoff could benefit local programs

The College Football Playoff needs to expand to eight programs.

In reality, the College Football Playoff needs to skip eight and go straight to 16 teams. This would benefit the local schools a great deal. There has been, and often is, discussion about expanding the playoffs whenever we get to the point of what team or teams were left out of the four-team playoff.

Whereas every other sport in college has a playoff-style format, college football at the biggest level remains the holdout. With five top divisions competing to get into a four-team field and Notre Dame lurking, the idea that conference champions don’t continue is absurd. Expansion is a must.

That would be a great benefit to local programs and for programs such as Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas State, it could really spark a new sense of competition. It would help all schools because I would imagine TV networks would be lined up for the rights to televise playoff college football games.

Take Missouri in 2013, when they finished the season ranked No. 5, and entered the SEC Championship Game with an 11-1 record. Instead of playing in the Cotton Bowl, they would have been an at-large playoff team with the opportunity to compete.

The season before, 2012, Kansas State would have had the opportunity as the No. 7 team (and conference champion) to compete in the playoff instead of enjoying the sun of the Fiesta Bowl.

Those magical seasons that find the Missouri’s, Nebraska’s, Kansas State’s of the college football universe would give those programs playoff appearances, as would happen for Iowa State this season. This season, Iowa State would be headed to the Playoff instead of the Fiesta Bowl.

How would the playoff look in 2020? First, every conference champion would be a part of the tournament, just as the case with all other sports.  Teams are listed with their rankings. In this format, two nontraditional powers, Iowa State and Indiana are participants of the Playoff on top of the lower level conference champions.

Conference Champions Automatic Bids for College Football Playoff

• ACC: Clemson (2)
• American: Cincinnati (8)
• Big 12: Oklahoma (6)
• Big Ten: Ohio State (3)
• C-USA: UAB
• MAC: Northern Illinois
• Mountain West: San Jose State
• PAC: Oregon (25)
• SEC: Alabama (1)
• Sun Belt: Coastal Carolina (11)

At Large Bids: for College Football Playoff

• Notre Dame (4)
• Texas A&M (5)
• Florida (7)
• Georgia (9)
• Iowa State (10)
• Indiana (11)

Format for College Football Playoff

The first-round games are all played on a single day, you can title it however you’d like, Playoff Saturday, whatever that may find itself to be. As best can be done, geography is taken into account. All games are played at the home stadium of the higher-ranked program, which is similar to how the women do their first rounds of the basketball tournament. Here’s how I would seed the tournament.

• (1) Alabama v Alabama-Birmingham
• (2) Clemson v Coastal Carolina
• (3) Ohio State v Northern Illinois
• (4) Notre Dame v San Jose State
• (5) Texas A&M v Oregon
• (6) Oklahoma v Georgia
• (7) Florida v Iowa State
• (8) Cincinnati v Indiana

The second round of the tournament would be played roughly 10 days later, offering the TV networks prime time games, when games can maximize the value of advertising and eyeballs. Beyond that, you can then move into the four-team setup we see currently. I did my best to avoid rematches, such as Georgia playing Florida or Oklahoma playing Iowa State.

Now, a team, such as Missouri or Kansas State don’t have to win the conference to enter the playoffs, being good gets you in. And if you get in, well, anything can happen. Missouri and Kansas State had great seasons in the past decade that resulted in participating in bowl games, while Iowa State will ‘enjoy’ a similar end of the season.

In the future, they will enter the playoffs, and the matter will be settled on the field.