Welp, it’s happening.
Rumors have been circulating over the past year or so about an expansion to a 12-team college football playoff.
However, according to ESPN, the College Football Playoff’s board of managers have voted to expand the playoff to 12 teams in 2026, but are encouraging the commissioners to do it as soon as 2024.
All 11 presidents and chancellors on the board have approved the 12-team playoff, which includes the highest-ranked conference champs as well as six at-large teams.
The 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick are planning to meet next week in Dallas to approve the details of the expansion.
A source told the outlet that the CFP Board held a conference call at 2 PM, and the decision was unanimous, although there were objections from the ACC, Big Ten, and PAC-12 in the past.
The new model is expected to have the same basis as the current four-team model that was put together by SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Swarbrick, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, and former Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.
Many have pointed to the major conference realignments that are coming in the near future, like Oklahoma and Texas joining the SEC, and UCLA and USC joining the Big Ten, as one of the main reasons the decision was made.
However, as exciting as it is, you have to wonder if it’ll change much.
In the current four-team model, the fourth ranked team has historically (save for a couple seasons) gets the shit kicked out of them in the first round of the playoff, so you have to think it’s still going to be a relatively easy path to the championship game for the top two teams.
I mean, there’s generally a handful of teams that are head and shoulders above the rest of the league.
On top of that, football is already a physically demanding sport as it is, and they want to extend the playoff even longer to make the regular season less meaningful?
That being said, the College World Series is exciting as hell and a number of teams get in so what do I know anyways…
Are you in favor?
