
Massive College Football Playoff expansion risks diluting sport's unique regular season
Of course, either program could really benefit from expansion. Nebraska has only made one bowl game since 2016. The Tigers, however, did make a New Year's Six game before the playoff expanded to 12 teams this past year, winning against Ohio State in the Cotton Bowl.
Here are Drinkwitz's comments:
"Now you've got 30 teams, 30 teams. Now you're talking about an opportunity for 30 teams, 30 fan bases to be excited and engaged, engaged in giving revenue. You've got 30 teams with players who have access to compete for a championship,' Drinkwitz said. 'So, for me, I think that makes a lot more sense.'
No -- just, no.
College football is (or was) the best sport in the world. The big differentiating factor from others is that the regular season, in and of itself, was a playoff, or a play-in. You could afford to lose one in the four-team College Football Playoff era, and even then, it depended on who you lost to. With the expansion to 12, one team (OSU) entered the playoff with two losses (one to unranked, five-loss Michigan); the other participant, Notre Dame, lost at home to Northern Illinois early in the season. During the four-team era, both would, essentially, be disqualified. However, both got in, made runs, and got into the final game.
Some would argue that that means expansion was necessary. I disagree. The results in-season need to mean something. And giving teams multiple mulligans dilutes the importance of the College Football Playoff and the national championship.
Note, this isn't just preserving Michigan's 2023 win -- the 2016 and 2018 teams very well could have won it all (especially the former) if the playoff had been expanded. However, in-season results meant something, and the Wolverines were on the outside looking in. And, in my opinion, rightly so.
To allow more and more teams in to compete to win a national championship lessens the importance of the regular season. It also lessens the significance of making the playoff. When it was four teams, it meant something, being able to hang that College Football Playoff insignia in your building. Like bandied about in the movie, The Social Network, exclusivity means something. But to keep expanding to let teams in that couldn't make the four-team iteration dilutes the product.
Yes, some teams found success in the first year of the 12-team version. Some expected (like Ohio State), others got in for the first time (Penn State, SMU, Boise State, etc.). While that was certainly a special moment for the latter teams, and their fan bases were more excited, does that make the product of college football better? I'd argue, no. Be better in the regular season, make the climb -- that's what makes a season special, not just going on a late run against what might be more favorable matchups. In the 1980s NBA, the Lakers had to overcome the superior Celtics. Once they had, the Pistons had to overcome the superior Lakers. Once they had, the Bulls had to overcome the superior Pistons. There's something to be said about the climb, and while there can still be a climb, the bar for entry even with 12 teams is too low.
Michigan fans will tell you that making the four-team playoff after being on the outside looking in made the 2021-23 run particularly special. 2021 was unexpected, 2022 was expected but finished in disappointment, but 2023 -- the national championship year -- came with overcoming Alabama and then Washington. I don't think a single Wolverines fan would trade that run for getting additional chances in 2016 or 2018.
So, this isn't even just an argument about 30 teams as Drinkwitz suggests -- this is an argument that even 12 teams is too much. 30? That's just insane.
And considering that there's talk, already, of expanding from 12 to 16, someone needs to put a stop to this, because a 30-team playoff, honestly, isn't terribly unrealistic considering the trajectory. Yet, with programs desiring shortcuts, greed at the top of the sport, and people running things that don't seem to understand what makes the sport special, we're teetering on the brink of losing college football and its unique system that differentiates it from everything else in the world.
We need fewer teams in the College Football Playoff -- not more.
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