Why Steve Sarkisian Is Completely Opposed to the Big-10’s Proposed 24-Team Playoff

Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian has never been one to shy away from a strong opinion. And when the subject of college football’s playoff future comes up, he is as direct as ever.

With the Big Ten pushing a proposal to expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams, Sarkisian made his stance clear, and it might surprise those who assume every Power Four coach would welcome more postseason opportunities.

“I think there’s so many factors,” Sarkisian said. “I’ve gone on record saying I’d rather go back to four. Here’s my issue: I understand why people want to go to 24, but we are now in a world where fanbases are living under this umbrella of playoff or bust.”

It is quite the keen observation from a coach who has watched the culture of college football shift dramatically during his tenure in Austin.

"We are now in a world where fanbases are living under this umbrella of playoff or bust.” - Texas Head Coach Steve Sarkisian

Sarkisian took over a Texas program in disarray back in 2021, and his first season was a difficult 5-7 campaign that tested the patience of the fanbase long hungry for its seat back on the college football throne. He rebuilt swiftly from there.

The Longhorns improved to 8-5 in 2022 before breaking through in a major way the following season, going 12-2, a claim of the Big-12 Championship and earning Texas’ first bid into the college football playoffs.

Even with the heartbreaking semifinal loss to Washington in the Sugar Bowl, the message was clear: Texas was coming, and the programs in the SEC were forced to be put on watch.

The journey, and the patience it required from the players, coaches and the overall fanbase seems to directly inform Sarkisian’s skepticism about expanding the field further.

“I don’t agree with (playoff or bust), that’s not true,” Sarksian said. “You had the opportunity to compete for a national championship during those 12 regular season games, and I felt like when we were at four teams, those four teams were held in very high regard, and you earned your opportunity to be one of those four teams.”

The current 12-team format, which debuted in the 2024 season, already represented a significant departure from that exclusivity of the four-team era. A 24-team bracket would take that shift even further, essentially guaranteeing roughly a third of all Power Four programs a postseason berth in any given year.

Supporters of the expansion argue it would generate more revenue, give more programs meaningful December Football and put an end to the controversy of bubble teams being left out. Critics, including Sarkisian, believe it dilutes what makes the playoff special in the first place.

For Texas, the practical implications are layered. The Longhorns, now battling atop the SEC after their high-profile conference move, face one of the most brutal regular season schedules in the country. A larger playoff could theoretically provide a larger safety net after a stumble, but Sarkisian clearly does not want that net if it means cheapening what it takes to earn a championship spot.

His philosophy is straightforward — the regular season should matter most, and the playoffs should reward teams that proved themselves across a season.

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