UCLA Could Benefit From Proposed College Football Playoff Expansion

UCLA could be the beneficiary of a pseudo Big Ten bid as talks continue towards expanding the College Football Playoff.

Nov 8, 2024; Pasadena, California, USA; UCLA Bruins head coach DeShaun Foster on the sidelines during the second half against the Iowa Hawkeyes at the Rose Bowl. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

There is pressure building from the Big Ten and the SEC for an expanded College Football Playoff that could see entries of 14 or 16 teams. The current format allows for 12 teams and several programs complained without merit that they were excluded from the last dance.

The problem is that those teams belong to the SEC and the conference continues to be the top dog in college football in terms of influence despite their reign over the national championship having ended two years ago.

The Big Ten is joining in to expand the playoffs because more entries mean more money for the conference and two to four additional spots would give the Big Ten another pseudo automatic bid into the playoff.

In 2024, four teams represented the Big Ten in the CFP as Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State and Indiana gained entry. If the playoffs were expanded, Illinois would have a strong argument for their inclusion, and considering they defeated South Carolina, a team ranked ahead of them in their bowl game, the Big Ten could and should expect five programs in a 16-team playoff.

The playoff will expand. It is destined to happen.

"Last spring, during intense and, at times, heated negotiations over the future of the College Football Playoff, leaders of the Big Ten and SEC threatened to create their own postseason system if they were not granted a majority of CFP revenue and full authority over the playoff format," wrote Yahoo Sports college football reporter Ross Dellenger. "In the end, executives of the 10 FBS leagues and Notre Dame signed a memorandum of understanding handing control over to college football’s two richest conferences. Soon, they are expected to exercise that control. Within the SEC and Big Ten, momentum is building to further expand the playoff to 14 or 16 teams, assign multiple automatic qualifiers per league — as many as four each for themselves — and finalize a scheduling arrangement together that may fetch millions in additional revenue from TV partners, sources told Yahoo Sports."

If this is the case, UCLA could find itself in the playoff in the near future. The Bruins were almost bowl-eligible in DeShaun Foster's first year, and considering teams will be able to get in with three losses, a weak non-conference schedule and a good enough performance in conference play seems to be all the Bruins would need.

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