Expected move to a 24-team College Football Playoff would be the final nail in the coffin for college football’s regular season
The expected decision to expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams was always an inevitable outcome, and it will always be an terrible decision for the sport.
Recent reports indicate the sport is headed toward a 24-team College Football Playoff starting in 2027. Unfortunately, this was expected. The SEC was the only conference holding back, mostly because it felt slighted by the Big Ten in the expansion talks.
Nobody in these rooms ever asked what’s good for the sport. They only care about the dollar sign. A 24-team format makes way too much money, so of course the SEC was going to bend at some point. That’s not a conspiracy. That’s just how college football works now.
And with decision expected to come to fruition, the 24-team playoff is going to ruin college football.
College football is not March Madness
Before I get into my feelings on this, the conversation needs a baseline.
College football cannot operate like the 68-team NCAA Tournament we see in March Madness. Football is 10 times more physically demanding than basketball. You can’t ask 20-year-olds to stack extra playoff games on top of a full schedule the way a basketball team can play twice in one weekend.
And you may say, Tegan, the upsets are the whole point. More teams means more Cinderella runs. Well, what are we talking about? March Madness produces those upsets because it’s basketball. One hot shooting night can flip a game.
A football game doesn’t work that way, and the bracket won’t produce the chaos people are imagining. It will mostly produce a few extra blowouts in December. Do we really want to see that?
Expansion kills the regular season
The physical toll matters, but it isn’t what upsets me most. What upsets me is that this decision kills the regular season. This is the final nail in the coffin.
Look at this weekend. Indiana vs. Ohio State is a huge game. A lot of us understand that these two will more than likely rematch in the Big Ten Championship Game anyway. Now drop that matchup into a 24-team playoff. Ohio State can lose comfortably, drop another game later, and still make the College Football Playoff without breaking a sweat.
Indiana is in an even better spot. The Hoosiers basically have three losses on their schedule they can afford to take, because a 24-team field guarantees them a spot. So what is this game actually worth? Bragging rights and seeding. That’s basically it.
Half the games on a weekend like this lose their value. The sport used to sell the idea that every Saturday mattered, and that was the best thing college football had going for it. Not anymore.
Losing should still hurt in college football
To this day, it still bothers me that Michigan pulled off an incredible upset against Ohio State and the Buckeyes still got to compete for a national championship because we were in the 12-team playoff era.
And Ohio State should not feel vindicated because it went on to win the whole thing. Let’s call a spade a spade. The Buckeyes should have felt the pain of that loss to the 10th degree. They had a roster capable of winning a national championship. Their biggest rival should have knocked them out of it. That is what made The Game the most important rivalry in the sport.
Here’s what people do not understand. Just because you can win a national championship doesn’t mean you have earned the right to win one. A 24-team field blurs that line even further. It rewards teams for being good enough on paper instead of proving it on the field every week.
Don’t let anyone convince you this is the right thing for college football. It is going in the wrong direction, and the regular season is going to pay for it. Nobody actually wants this. If someone tells you they do, tell me in the comments, because I don’t believe you.
