Why expanding the College Football Playoff will harm the sport

Earlier in the offseason, Nebraska head coach Matt Rhule joked that the College Football Playoff should expand to 40 teams. But at SEC media days, Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz suggested the playoff should expand to 30 — and he didn’t appear to be joking.

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…

Source link : https://wolverineswire.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/wolverines/football/2025/07/18/college-football-playoff-expansion-opinion-regular-season-impact/85284461007/

Author :

Publish date : 2025-07-19 00:06:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.