This offseason, the hottest topic has been, once again, College Football Playoff expansion. Despite only getting a taste of the 12-team CFP, the powers that rule college football (ie, the Big Ten and SEC) have been trying to throw their weight around to get more money opportunity to win the crown for their teams. At this point in the process, the two power brokers can only agree on one thing: the CFP must expand. How the CFP expands is the sticking point. The Big Ten has been pushing its 24-team CFP proposal, and some of the coaches have weighed in.
Minnesota‘s P.J. Fleck believes all 18 Big Ten coaches are in favor of expansion. Oregon‘s Dan Lanning lauds it as “creating more opportunity” for new teams. The national championship-winning coach from Ohio State is a bit more reserved, but agrees overall. Ryan Day questions just how good the expansion would be for Ohio State, but asserts that it’s great for college football and the Big Ten writ large.
While Day’s apprehension is slightly understandable – you have to win more games against top-tier teams in a 24-team CFP, plus the season will be obnoxiously long – if the Big Ten gets its way, it’s objectively great for Ohio State.
A 24-Team CFP Would Benefit Ohio State
Expanding the CFP is a double-edged sword. On one hand, yes, it would allow teams that have not made a four-team or 12-team CFP to make it, like USC or a host of Group of 6 teams. If done right, it would open up the CFP to all of college football. However, on the other side, how many losses would knock Ohio State out of contention?
Here’s a question: if the 24-team CFP had been around since the beginning of the BCS era, how many times would Ohio State have been left out? Ready? Twice. Presumably, those two seasons would be the 1999 season, in which Ohio State went 6-6, and the awful 2011 season that ended 6-7 for the Buckeyes.
That includes one four-loss regular season (2004) and one three-loss regular season (2000). In 22 of those seasons, including bowl results, Ohio State finished with two or fewer losses.
How many losses would keep the Buckeyes out? Five? Would a four-loss team be kept out? Would one of those losses have to be a massive upset, or could the Buckeyes get by after losing to the top four teams in the Big Ten?
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The Brand is Undefeated
The thing is, only the power brokers are pounding the table for a 24-team CFP. How we get there tends to be the sticking point, but between the Big Ten and SEC, both want to expand. Obviously, money is driving all of these decisions. However, just like with Ohio State, how many losses would it take to eliminate Georgia or Alabama?
Brands matter. Unfortunately for the rest of college football, nobody has a collection of #Brands quite like the Big Ten and SEC. Of the eight accepted bluebloods of college football, four reside in the Big Ten (Ohio State, Michigan, USC, and Nebraska), and three are in the SEC (Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma).
If the 24-team CFP goes with a model in which a predetermined number of Big Ten and SEC teams make it, plus a few at-large, these bluebloods could be Sharpie’d into the field in August. That is objectively great for Ohio State.
If you thought the 2025 offense was frustrating, imagine a season of coasting and playing not to lose because you already know a slot in the CFP has your name on it. The “load management” would be insane. Sure, the Buckeyes would still get up for The Game or those few top-10 matchups against the likes of Oregon or Indiana, but how exciting would those matchups against the Purdues of the world be?
This is another version of the “expanding the CFP would devalue the regular season” arguments you see on Twitter. Those arguments are not wholly unfounded. For middle-of-the-road programs, the regular season will still be important. For the elites, they can coast.
Hope for the Future
Expansion is coming; there is too much money to be made by the conferences and TV networks. The only voice with any weight opposed to expanding is ESPN…because it wouldn’t be able to monopolize coverage as it does today.
Ideally, if the Big Ten and SEC want to do what’s best for college football, it won’t get high on their own supply and make it a true playoff, and not a Big Ten-SEC invitational. Don’t hold your breath, of course.
If you are going to go as insane as 24 teams, you have to have all conference champions. The champions of the Sun Belt and MAC need as much of a shot as the champions of the Big Ten and SEC. We can keep pretending like all of the Power 4 conferences are on the same level, but the reality is that in any given year, there are not 24 teams good enough to win it all. Honestly, there are rarely eight teams that could win.
So, why not be a real playoff and at least give the “little guys” a shot? The big conferences aren’t going to sign away the possibility that their teams lose to Toledo at home on the national stage, but that’s not the point. If you want to re-incite these blue bloods, make it harder for them to make the dance. If there are 10 spots set aside for conference champions, the margin for error shrinks a bit. Sure, 14 at-large spots give plenty of leeway for Ohio State, but it’s not as wide-open as “you just need to finish in the top 24 to qualify.”
Day is being coy; the 24-team CFP would be an absolute win for Ohio State. As the lone true recession-proof program, Hell would have to be very cold before the Buckeyes feel worried about missing the postseason.
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