College Football is changing….again. And it is not for the better. Last fall in the middle of the 2022 college football season the College Football Playoff board of directors agreed to the expansion of the College Football Playoff starting with the 2024 season. That means that next season is the swan song for the 4 team playoff model. 10 years after the Playoff was introduced to the College Football world it is getting a face lift, and I don’t like it.

Official Logo of the College Football Playoff

It is fair to say that the old system, well the older system, the Bowl Championship Series or BCS, was not working. Too many computers involved, too many bizarre decisions that left deserving teams out in the cold. One year it was strength of schedule, the next year it was conference record, the following year it was average margin of victory, every year seemed to bring new and different criteria to decide the two teams that got into the National Championship Game. In January of 2014 the BCS had its final run with Florida State beating Auburn for the National Championship in front of 95,000 people at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. The following season marked the beginning of the College Football Playoff and it got off to a roaring start. Reigning champ Florida State played Oregon in the Rose Bowl on New Year’s Day followed by Ohio State upsetting #1 seed Alabama at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans to advance to the title game and eventually win the first ever College Football Playoff. Over the last 10 years there have been issues with the 4 team playoff. Look no further than that first year when Ohio State got in over Baylor who thought they deserved to be in the College Football Playoff. A lot of the semi-final games have been one sided and have been blowouts that have resulted in lackluster enthusiasm in the games. There is still an SEC bias as there have been a number of years where two teams from the SEC have gotten into the Playoff over other teams who have won their conference. Overall, the Playoff has been a success and an improvement over the BCS.

Now, we move into the latest era of College Football and the College Football Playoff, a sport that should have change as it’s middle name. Go ahead and try to tell me the teams who will make up the Big 12 this year. A little harder than you thought huh? So along with realignment, a process that started when Nebraska joined the Big 10 on July 1, 2011 and 11 years later to the day continued with word that USC and UCLA will be joining the Big 10, the playoff is now set to expand to 12 teams starting with the 2024 season. At first blush more playoff teams means more playoff games and more big time matchups so what’s not to like? More games to broadcast means more money to be made and if there is a top priority for folks in college football it is just that – making money. I believe that the expansion is a BAD thing and will end up hurting college football as a whole more than it will help it. On the surface it seems easy to think that this a good thing and more teams will be able to have realistic aspirations about winning a title. More games with playoff implications in the regular season. More teams in the College Football Playoff from outside the SEC will certainly be a welcome site to many, especially those in the ever competitive Big 10. But overall there are more cons than pros that come with this move and I will lay them out here.

1. More Competition with the NFL

NFL aka National Football League

Some college teams are playing 15 games already during their season, only two less than an NFL season. With a 12 team college football playoff more weeks are needed at the end of the season for important games. The first round of the Playoff would most likely be sometime around the second or third week of December. When does College Football tend to play its games? Saturday. What day does the NFL start to move games to in the middle of December? Saturday. You see the issue here. No one is going to beat the big bad NFL when it comes to viewership. Going up right against the NFL is akin to suicide – no one beats the NFL. So now suddenly all that money that TV networks are paying to broadcast these games and are expecting big audiences for these important college football games will have to be told that their first round games might not do so hot. How is it going to look when a first round game between Baylor and Wisconsin averages 1.6 million people on ESPN while Chargers at Jets gets 17.5 million for CBS during that same time slot? You could move some games to different broadcast windows, say Thursday or Friday night, but then some teams are getting extra rest and how do you navigate potential final exams that week for students? Then we jump ahead and the semi-final games would go up against Super Wild Card Weekend for the NFL. Think that anyone is going to be watching the college games? I think not. Those are two of the five biggest games in the college football season and they are going to get drowned out coverage wise and audience wise by the NFL. Not good.

2. College Season becoming way too long

In order to make a 12 team college football playoff possible the season will have to start earlier and end later than ever before. It used to be teams would start in the second week of August and be done after Thanksgiving plus a bowl game. Now for a team that makes it to the title game they will have started lets say August 1 and played all the way through the middle of January. In theory that team would be together for just as long if not longer than some NFL teams. NFL, the guys who are professional players. Don’t forget these are allegedly “student-athletes” who are also in school. Some schools start spring semesters in January right after New Years Day. So what does a player on a team like Georgia do if they start classes January 4th but can’t make a class until January 21st because of football schedule. These teams travel to the sites of games, have meetings, media obligations, etc… It isn’t like they are in and out of the city like the NCAA tournament. So how are they going to keep up on their studies? Working backwards, that also means that games will have to start before Labor Day weekend, the traditional start to the college football season. Which means more games in August with students not on campus yet and umm have you been in Florida, or Texas, or Georgia, or Louisiana in August? Or any southern state for that matter? It is a wee bit hot out there. Shouldn’t we be concerned with the potential of heat related illnesses or injuries happening to these kids? We all remember what happened to the Bills when they played in Miami last September. Move that to August where it is slightly hotter in Miami and add in the fact that it is not professional athletes, grown men, who are in the prime of their life and have access to the top of the line training and development but now it is a college kid who graduated high school 3 months ago and is still eating McDonalds every day. Is that the safest environment for them to be playing in?

3. Less meaningful games

With 12 teams now set to make the playoff the common refrain you hear from many is that there will be more games with playoff implications. But alas, there is a catch to that statement. The more meaningful games might be between Michigan State and Minnesota not necessarily the true blue bloods of the sport. Take Ohio State for example in the same conference as the two previous teams. Even if they were to lose two games in an upcoming season they are still going to make the playoffs every year. What motivation is there for the players to play hard and go all out knowing that 99 times out of 100 they are going to make the final 12? The final game of the regular season – Michigan vs Ohio State will still be special for the rivalry aspect but it no longer will have a playoff like feel. No more “win and your in” like we have had the last two years. Picture in two years Alabama and Georgia play for the SEC Championship – a game that normally would be ENORMOUS and have lots of implications. At this point those two teams know they are going to the playoff and likely assured of a top 4 seed and a bye. So why would they give it their all for that game? The traditional powers can basically use the regular season as tune up games. We all saw what Georgia did to TCU last year, picture Georgia playing a quarterfinal game against say Kansas St. Who is going to watch that? Is there any intrigue in that game? Now think about for the traditional bowl games – what happens to games like the Rose Bowl, the Outback Bowl, the Holiday Bowl? They have already lost relevance and are certain to lose even more. We will start to see a scenario where if a team doesn’t make the playoff they really don’t care about the bowl game. Now these tradition rich games lose their meaning. All for the almighty dollar. Which leads me right into my next reason…..

4. The Greed is Getting out of control

College Football has become all about the Money

Lets get to the nitty gritty – this move was made with only one thing in mind…money. Conferences, schools, networks all stand to make more money from these games. It doesn’t matter if more games are bad for young kids, it doesn’t matter if all the tradition of college football is now gone, it doesn’t matter that UCLA playing at Rutgers will be a conference game, all that matters is the fat cats getting wealthier. With all the cash flowing take a guess who isn’t guaranteed a piece of the pie? You got it, the players. The actual athletes on the field who we are watching. This is corporate greed at its finest. More playoff games means college football can charge the networks more money to broadcast the games. More games to broadcast means more money from advertisers and promotions. More money available for the schools to make to pay their coaches. But yet no money going to the players. Yes there is NIL and now a way for players to profit off of themselves but ESPN is currently paying $470 million annually to broadcast the College Football Playoff games. I am no mathematician but adding eight more games would probably mean ESPN having to fork over some more dollars to continue to broadcast. If three playoff games right now equate to $470 million than it is fair to assume 11 games would garner somewhere around $1 Billion annually. That is $1 billion, with a B. Remember these are “student-athletes” and it is amateur athletics – not professionals. The fact that they receive none of the is money is wrong.

5. More chance for injuries

This one is simple – more football games equals more chance for players to get hurt. Imagine an 8 seed trying to win 3 straight playoff games with each game getting progressively tougher. There isn’t a chance that a team can play a first round playoff game and 6 days later be physically ready to play against Georgia or Alabama who are sporting numerous NFL players up and down their rosters. Football is a collision sport and a violent one at that. The more times we put 18 and 19 year old’s out there to smash into each other the more likely injuries occur. Simple. The powers that be cannot talk about the safety of the sport and making it safer but than also start to have more games. It is extremely difficult to recover from a high level football game and the more times you are out on the field playing the chance of injury increases. These are not full formed adults that are playing college football. It is one thing for a 29 year adult to play extra games when he has a contract that pays him $12 million. It is another when we are asking a kid who is still growing and developing at the age of 19 to go out on the field and play week after week. When you get to the College Football Playoff these kids have now played a full 5 months of games and that is before the games that make up the playoff. The College Football Playoff will have games that are more intense than any other game that year and thus more chance a kid tries to play through an injury, like a concussion and further hurts himself.

Let’s bring this home – I am a huge college football fan. I sorely hope that I am wrong in my opinion about the College Football Playoff expanding. I want the college football playoff to work and work well. I want it to lead to more excitement and games that will be remembered for years. Sports are ultimately an entertainment value proposition and we watch the games to be entertained. College Football and the College Football Playoff offer a high level of entertainment. However expanding the college football playoff could be a terrible mistake. The evidence strongly points to this hurting the sport more than helping and ultimately lessoning that entertainment value for the consumer. The only thing we know for sure is that College Football will continue to evolve and change. How do we know this? Money talks and college football leaders tend to listen when that happens. 10 years ago it was a 4 team playoff now it is a 12 team playoff. What is it going to look like in 2033?