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Inside The Huskies

Making The Case For A 24-Game College Football Playoff

Jedd Fisch is one of those in favor of an expanded postseason.
Dan Raley|
Jedd Fisch and Rob Gronkowski hold up the LA Bowl prize.
Jedd Fisch and Rob Gronkowski hold up the LA Bowl prize. | Dave Sizer photo

As the debate swirls around further expansion of the College Football Playoff, with plenty of opposition to it, Jedd Fisch is all for doubling the field to 24 teams as proposed -- with an added caveat.

The University of Washington football coach also thinks the Power 4 conferences should open the season with games against each other in uniform fashion over the first three weekends to set up the playoff.

For example, Big Ten members would face Big 12 teams during the first week of the season, the SEC the next week and ACC teams the next, or in whatever order is desired.

"We need to know how good these other conferences are so we can determine if a 9-3 Washington team should be ahead of a 10-2 team from a different conference," Fisch said in ESPN radio interview.

The naysayers to CFP expansion from its current 12-team lineup insist a bigger playoff system would become too watered down by four-loss teams.

People in Montlake with long memories would argue that one of the most piviotal games in Husky football history was Don James' 7-4 team taking a 27-20 victory over 10-1 Michigan in the 1978 Rose Bowl, an outcome that set the James' era in motion to big success.

For those concerned about losing high-profile non-conference games to a sprawling playoff system, Fisch says just schedule those match-ups ahead of everything else, presumably on the order of the Aflac Kickoff Game in Atlanta.

A 24-game CFP likewise would eliminate conference championship games, which seem a bit archaic in the shadows of seeking a national title.

It would leave more schools feeling good about themselves by simply qualifying for the postseason and maybe prevent some of the rampant coaching firings that annually take place.

A larger playoff system also would make more bowl games meaningful -- or were you not one of the fewer than 10,000 fans who didn't have to squeeze into SoFi Stadium last December to watch the Huskies defeat Boise State 38-10 in what is now the discontinued LA Bowl?

If there's a trial run for a 24-team playoff, the FCS has operated quite successfully with this format for 13 years now, with Montana State winning the most recent one, 35-34 in overtime over Illinois State.

As for adding teams with multiple losses to this FBS postseason, Fisch doesn't have any issue with that.

"I feel if you win 75 percent of your games in the new world order that we're living in, you should have a chance to go compete for a national championship," he said.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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