Forde-Yard Dash: College Football Playoff Expansion Is the Sport’s Worst Idea Yet

A push for a 24-team field is gaining momentum again, and it seems inevitable that the power conferences will take away the Group of 6 bid.

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has long proposed a 24-team College Football Playoff, and it appears there is movement toward expansion. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Forty names, games, teams and minutiae making news in college football, where everyone is still issuing statements about the Bail Mary in Ann Arbor, Mich. First Quarter: All the Problems With the Bail Mary in the Big House. Second Quarter: Debut Reviews. Third Quarter: What to Do With Your Problematic League Member.

Fourth Quarter: They Really Might Do This 

College sports leaders love nothing more than flirting with systemic disaster, pushing ideas that most people don’t like without much fear of repercussion. They figure fans love the product so much—the football season, the basketball tournaments—that we’ll eventually swallow every lousy idea they shove down our throats after initial resistance. 

They might be right. But man, this one feels like a bracket too far (31). 

Here comes the worst idea since the destruction of the Pac-12, which was merely the worst idea of the 21st century in college sports. The push is on for a 24-team College Football Playoff (32). 

The lack of public enthusiasm for such a thing is palpable. Yet the leaders are undeterred.

“The CFP has decided to move forward in its evaluation of potential playoff expansion to 24 teams by beginning a media rights discussion with ESPN,” playoff administrators said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon. “This does not represent a decision or commitment to expand, but rather an opportunity to engage with ESPN and gather additional information to help determine a path forward.”

O.K., so we can call it exploratory for now. (And by exploratory, we mean that they find out whether they can make even more money than the current $1.3 billion per year.) The only way this even gets to the exploratory stage is if there is momentum leading the sport that direction. Prepare for impact.

As noted in The Dash First Quarter, the sport has rather inexplicably and unforgivably granted control of the playoff format to two men, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey (33) and Big Ten commish Tony Petitti (34). Their joint stewardship is questionable.

Petitti is to blame for the 24-team monstrosity, which would double the size of a perfectly serviceable playoff in order to make 12 teams feel good about being pretty good. It’s an accounting trick designed to gaslight fans (35) into believing their 8–4 team is somehow better if it ends the season at 8–5 after a first-round blowout loss. That’s a ReliaQuest Bowl season with a facelift and Botox injections.

But Petitti is nothing if not persistent, and he eventually turned everyone but Sankey in his direction. And now it looks like Sankey—who had been championing a 16-team model—is prepared to cave.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was a proponent of a 16-team CFP, but now seems prepared to cave to a 24-team model. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

Reports last week said Sankey would be open to considering a 24-team playoff if all power-conference teams played “10 qualifying events,” which would consist of conference matchups, games against Notre Dame and in-league contests against other power-conference teams. That would force the Big Ten to commit to a 10th such game, above and beyond the nine league games it plays. Petitti has signaled a willingness to ask Big Ten members to do so.

This season, five Big Ten teams (Indiana, Nebraska, Penn State, USC and Washington) play only nine power-conference opponents. So do four from the Big 12 (Arizona, Kansas State, Houston and Texas Tech). Everyone in the SEC and ACC is playing 10.

Call The Dash a cynic, but it seems inevitable that the greedy power conferences eventually take away the one bid allotted to a team from the Group of 6 leagues (36). Because there is never any such thing as enough.

Some of those in power conferences justifying the swing of support to 24 have cited the massively increased investment by those schools to be successful in football. So the reward is a bloated playoff that further diminishes the regular season, because apparently schools are too fragile to accept the risk involved in spending a lot of money without receiving a playoff participation trophy. 

Given all the coaches’ bluster about setting high program standards and demanding the most from their players, it’s amazing how willing they are to receive inflated rewards for scarcely above-average seasons. The easiest path to job security is what drives them and their athletic director bosses.

Making the College Football Playoff is and forever should be the hardest accomplishment in sports. Instead, it might soon become one more sellout of what made the sport great.

Coach Who Earned His Comp Car This Week 

Jim Mora (38), Colorado State

His first game leading the Rams was the 118th meeting with bitter Rocky Mountain rival Wyoming. The result: A resounding, 35–13 victory that marked the Rams’ first win over anyone in 11 months. Mora looks like he has a quarterback in Hauss Hejny, who played just one game at Oklahoma State last season before being injured and before that spent a year at TCU. Hejny threw five touchdowns, ran for 39 yards and caught a pass for 28. Mora is now 21 games above .500 one game into his 11th season as a college head coach; this could be a great fit for him.

Coach Who Should Take the Bus to Work 

Greg Schiano (39), Rutgers

NJ.com columnist Steve Politi started his column after the Scarlet Knights’ unfathomable, 37–21 loss to Massachusetts thusly: “Greg Schiano is toast.” That’s more of an educated assessment than a hot take, because a Big Ten team simply does not get blown off its home field by a MAC opponent coming off an 0–12 season.

Rutgers was outrushed by UMass 200 to 30 and had a long run of five yards. The Knights surrendered five sacks. They had a -4 turnover margin, their worst in eight years. And then there was the postgame fireworks display, wherein the school seemed intent on mocking its own team.

It will take an all-time comeback to recover from this.

Point After 

When thirsty in the Twin Cities, The Dash strongly recommends a visit to Saint Paul Brewery (40). It’s located in the old Hamm’s Brewery, and it captures some of that heritage while blending in a lot of the coolness of a modern bar. There is a fantastic patio garden outside, and vintage Hamm’s signage inside. Order a Space Pirate Hazy IPA and a burger and thank The Dash later.

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