This Saturday, the College Football Playoff management committee will meet in Indianapolis to see if they can reach unanimity on a playoff expansion. It is unlikely the committee will reach an agreement, which is good because the playoff expansion model they are looking at will only make the current problems with postseason college football worse.
Here, from Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger, is what the most popular proposal would look like:
Dellenger goes on to note that this model was cruising to approval earlier this year before Oklahoma and Texas bolted for the SEC, which Dellenger notes “hurt feelings around the country and painted the league as untrustworthy.”
Yeah, the SEC is untrustworthy, and the 12-team playoff outlined above would only reward them for it. Not only would the SEC champion get a bye every year but all six at-large selections would go to SEC teams too. The college football postseason would look even more like an SEC invitational tournament than it already is.
Instead of rewarding the SEC with even more playoff spots, college football should go in the opposite direction and only give them one.
This would require a little more conference realignment, but after the mess of the last 10 years, a return to some past rivalries would do attendance numbers some good. Here is what the conferences could look like:
ACC
Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Maryland, North Carolina, North Carolina State, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wake Forest.
Big East
Boston College, Central Florida, Miami, Notre Dame, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia.
Big Eight
BYU, Colorado, Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, and Utah.
Big Ten
Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Michigan State, Minnesota, Northwestern, Ohio State, Purdue, and Wisconsin.
Pac 10
Arizona, Arizona State, California, Oregon, Oregon State, Stanford, Washington, Washington State, UCLA, and USC.
SEC
Alabama, Auburn, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi, Mississippi State, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt.
Southwest
Arkansas, Baylor, Cincinnati, Houston, Louisville, SMU, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech.
That’s a “Big 7” of 10 schools each, all of which but SMU and Notre Dame are already in a Power 5 conference. Each conference champion would then go to the playoff, as would one at-large team from the Group of Five conferences.
The first round of the playoffs would then be played on New Year’s Day, honoring the traditional bowl-conference relationships.
The Cotton Bowl would kick off at noon EST with the Southwest playing the Big East.
The Orange Bowl would kick off at 3 EST with ACC playing the Big Eight.
The Rose Bowl would kick off at 6 EST with the Big Ten playing the Pac Ten.
The Sugar Bowl would kick off at 9 EST with the SEC playing the G5 at-large team.
The semifinals would then be played on campus on the first Saturday after Jan. 8.
And the championship game would be played on a neutral field the Saturday after that.
It’s not perfect, but it would make for a great slate of New Year’s Day games that would involve fan bases from around the country.
