I know most people will love having more teams involved. But the way this will work is having byes for the top four conference winning teams. Then you’ll get two other conference winners and six at-large spots. It means Notre Dame won’t ever get a bye unless they join a league and win it. I do see a cheapening of the regular season though. It won’t matter any longer if a team only goes 10-2 as they’ll still have a pretty good shot at getting into the field. A group of five team will always get in as a conference champion but honestly, do you ever see a Cincinnati or Houston going 4-0 in the expanded playoff to win the NC? Won’t happen. The SEC probably won’t have under four teams in it once those at-large spots go out. Can certainly see a group from Alabama, UGA, LSU, UF or Texas A&M getting any four in for a playoff.
In the four team playoff since 2014, there were years when Clemson played Alabama that we really didn’t even need four teams to get to those two. So now…12 make it in? While it seems on the surface that more football is always a good thing, is that many teams necessary?
at this point i think it should be expanded but 12 is too many. why do #11 and #12 deserve a shot at the title? at the very least you should be in the top 10 to stake a claim and even that is pushing it.
This is exactly what happened to college basketball. Back in the day only conference winners and a very few minor conference winners got in the 32 field. It made the regular season very important. Then the ACC started it’s own tournament and the winner got the automatic bid. They believed, and rightfully so, that if a weaker team won the conference, the NCAA would be forced to include as one of the at large teams the ACC regular season winner. And, just like that the ACC gets two bids. The SEC loves the 12 team deal because it’s championship winner will be in and one or two runners up will get in………I would prefer giving the “major” conference champions automatic bids and have two others bids based on merits. Some years it would be ND other years UCF would get bids. One day Coastal Carolina might get in……….