TAKE ONE: The Myth of a Playoff Solution
is almost impossible to compare college athletics to professional sports.
The NFL, NBA and MLB have conferences and divisions that tie directly into a playoff structure with division winners, wild cards and a built-in cadence that allows for something close to an apples-to-apples comparison. College football has never really had that. Unless the sport creates a new tier above the current FBS, it seems unlikely there will ever be a clean way to compare every playoff-worthy team under the same standard.
That is what made the recent New York Times article arguing that a 24-team playoff could actually save college football such an interesting approach. The foundation of the argument is pretty simple: the old traditions were gone a long time ago, so it is probably time to stop pretending they can still be protected. Yes, the regular season might be devalued by an expanded playoff, but more teams and fan bases would stay invested deeper into the season.
The problem is that we have heard some version of that argument before.
It was said when the BCS was created. It was said when the four-team College Football Playoff arrived. It was said again when the sport moved to a 12-team format. Maybe there is some merit to it. More teams being involved later in the season is not a bad thing on its own. But the reality is that no one really wants to see James Madison or Liberty get crushed by Oregon in a game that is technically part of the Playoff. It was not especially entertaining. It was not the playoff atmosphere at Autzen people had hoped for. It looked and felt more like an early-season nonconference game under the lights.
Any expanded version of the Playoff has to solve that problem.
I do not think a 24-team playoff is going to save college football any more than a 12-team playoff did. It sounds nice to frame expansion as something being done for fans of teams that deserved a chance, but playoff expansion has never really been about the fans. It has been about money. If ESPN and Fox thought they could sell naming rights to a pothole and get 8 million viewers to watch it, there would be a selection committee by Tuesday.
The other major flaw with playoff expansion is what it asks of the players. Football is a physical game and a mental game. College athletes already operate under formal limits on preparation time while also trying to manage the demands of academics, travel and postseason pressure. That is how you get moments like the Indiana-Oregon semifinal, where one team looked overwhelmed by the stage, the calendar and the weight of everything around it.
Worse yet, the academic calendar is still going to wreak havoc on some of those teams with three or four losses. The Lane Kiffin situation was unique because he was leaving for a conference opponent, but doubling the field only raises the potential for more of that kind of chaos every year. Coaches will still move. Players will still have decisions to make. Rosters will still shift. Schools will still try to balance football ambition with academic obligations, even as the postseason keeps stretching deeper into the calendar.
Without a real fix to the academic calendar and some way to create binding postseason rules for coaches and players, I do not know how much expansion really saves. And those fixes are unlikely to happen. Instead, a 24-team Playoff may simply shift the current problems into a different format. The sport may get more games, more inventory and more arguments for television, but the calendar and the lack of structure will continue to make college football feel like it is veering out of control.
Then again, if the networks could monetize a bracket reveal for a game played in a parking lot, we would all be arguing about seeding by lunch.
TAKE TWO: The Myth of a Legal Fix
That brings us to the other part of this conversation that sounds good in theory but starts to fall apart the longer you look at it: the Protect College Sports Act.
