What is the hurry with a 12-team College Football Playoff?
Now that the College Football Playoff committee is contemplating an expansion of the CFP from four to 12 teams, tell me what that does besides appease all the conferences that want additional teams in the playoffs? In that uneven format, obviously the top four teams get byes and the next eight play off to see which get another game to try to reach the Final Four.
The first weekend would have four games between the fifth and the 12th playoff teams. Whether you think there is balance in college football or not, the 12th best team in the country doesn’t have much chance playing at the fifth team nor does the 11th at the sixth team.
Ten versus seven might be close, and 9 versus 8 surely will be. But all that gets you is four teams that survive to play the top four, which all have had an extra week to prepare.
Wouldn’t it be so much better if you had eight teams, deservedly seeded, and number one plays number eight, number two plays number seven, number three plays number six, and number five plays number four?
Byes in college football are much more advantageous than in pro football, where one game under your belt might help you in the second game against an opponent that could be rusty over its bye week.
In college football, injured players can’t be replaced by other pros being activated for a full roster. The attrition that could come in one game is way more punitive than in the NFL.
So, while you get 12 teams in the playoffs — and all can use that in recruiting — it really ensures that each of the top four teams have an easier route to the national championship than if they just played off amongst themselves.
And then if a big upset does occur on the first weekend, the team that pulls the upset will be a decided underdog in the next round.
For TV, which is depending on ratings in close games, the chance of having one-sided blowouts the second week is even greater than having the original Final Four square off in what should be two close games in almost every instance.
What are we trying to do here, give more teams a chance to say they were in the College Football Playoff, or just create more TV games and higher ratings for the networks?
Certainly, all schools in Division 1 need more money, but what they don’t need is a watered-down CFP that doesn’t really pit the best teams against each other from start to finish.
That just cheapens the product that we all wait so long for at the end of the season.
I say start with the Great 8 and then get down to the Final Four and see where that takes us before a big mistake is made that can’t be rectified.
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