College Football Playoff Expansion to 12 teams?

[OregonFan4Life]

There are reports there are talks of expanding the college football playoffs and it's most likely going to be 12. Obviously we need more than 4, I personally felt 8 was best, but no doubt 12 is better than 4. Finally the Pac-12 championship game will actually matter as the winner will get into the playoffs and have a chance to win the national championship. While I believe teams 11 and 12 won't have much of a chance it'll be fun to see those teams get a chance. Hopefully this ends the college football monopolies and lowers the excessive and undeserved SEC bias.

One negative is they're looking at making the playoffs played at the home fields for the top teams rather than neutral fields, which means Bama will be getting home field advantage for playoff games. That will hurt the SEC bias less. The other possible issue is does this decrease the value of strength of schedule? Will SEC teams be less likely to schedule a legit non-conference game and starting scheduling 4 FCS teams since there is less room of error to miss the playoffs?

Regardless, while this won't be a perfect solution, I do believe it will be an improvement over a 4 team playoffs.

Mods feel free to move this to Other Guys, I was going to post that there but felt this directly relates to Oregon since Oregon is a regular in the top 15 and in the Pac-12 championship game.

[nogerO]

"Hopefully this ends the college football monopolies and lowers the excessive and undeserved SEC bias."

No, it just means that 5 SEC teams would be in a 12 team playoff.

[StevensTechU]

Yea, I gotta say that a 12 team playoff screams "5 SEC teams."

If you want college football to be more than a regional sport, and therefore maximize eyeballs and dollars, you go to an 8 team format with conference winners automatically qualifying.

I also don't like 12 teams from the standpoint that it's more games and will be more injuries. Oregon's latest appearance in the NC game was a lesson in how injuries accumulate over the season and the best at the end of the year might not be the best. Mariota was practically throwing to himself against Ohio St.

[buckmarkduck]

Yea, I gotta say that a 12 team playoff screams "5 SEC teams."

If you want college football to be more than a regional sport, and therefore maximize eyeballs and dollars, you go to an 8 team format with conference winners automatically qualifying.

I also don't like 12 teams from the standpoint that it's more games and will be more injuries. Oregon's latest appearance in the NC game was a lesson in how injuries accumulate over the season and the best at the end of the year might not be the best. Mariota was practically throwing to himself against Ohio St.

Don’t forget the drug test of UO players but not of tOSU players after the semifinals. The ncaa did us dirty. Although marijuana shouldn’t be something they test for. In no place has anyone gotten any kind of benefit physically from smoking.

As for the 12 team playoff, I’ll take it. I’d rather make the playoffs most year with Mario, rather than go to rose bowls no one outside of Oregon remembers.

[OregonFan4Life]

Yea, I gotta say that a 12 team playoff screams "5 SEC teams."

If you want college football to be more than a regional sport, and therefore maximize eyeballs and dollars, you go to an 8 team format with conference winners automatically qualifying.

I also don't like 12 teams from the standpoint that it's more games and will be more injuries. Oregon's latest appearance in the NC game was a lesson in how injuries accumulate over the season and the best at the end of the year might not be the best. Mariota was practically throwing to himself against Ohio St.

One other glaring issue is the top 4 teams will apparently have a bye week, in basketball that may not mean all that much but in football it is a HUGE advantage to have a bye week. Maybe they're just trying to be like the NFL.

One thing I have not heard if the playoffs will have a designated spot for each P5 conference champion, if it doesn't that'd certainly be pathetic.

[alxtw]

Only thing we can do is to get better and have more depth so that we can be one of those top four teams. The 12 teams is a step in the right direction, but they could have designed it alot better and more fair. Hoping that they will still make changes before its all finalized.

[GrandpaDuck]

12 > 4 but 8 is better then a system that gives a bye.

The number 5-12 teams have to play potentially 4 tournament games and a conference championship game. 17 games is likely trim too many, so they'll likely trim the regular season for everybody. If going to 12 means cutting the cutting 60-120 games for everyone to play 4 first round games that seems like a loss for college football overall.

[ducks5ever]

The regular season should matter... If you're a top 2 team at the end of the season but dropped 2 games in the first half of the season, I don't think such a team should be in a contention for a national championship.

Besides, the current system is fine. There's a pretty clear dropoff between the top 2/3 teams and the rest of the contenders in the last few years. All the semifinal games the last few years have been lopsided and boring. Adding a 1-8/2-7 match will make this even worse.

I could be down if you have play-in games and take 6 teams (5 conferences and 1 open slot) but that's going to generate lots of controversy.

[OregonFan4Life]

The regular season should matter... If you're a top 2 team at the end of the season but dropped 2 games in the first half of the season, I don't think such a team should be in a contention for a national championship.

Besides, the current system is fine. There's a pretty clear dropoff between the top 2/3 teams and the rest of the contenders in the last few years. All the semifinal games the last few years have been lopsided and boring. Adding a 1-8/2-7 match will make this even worse.

I could be down if you have play-in games and take 6 teams (5 conferences and 1 open slot) but that's going to generate lots of controversy.

The biggest problem with the current system is the monopolies that exist in college football, there's no transparency anymore. Granted this is becoming an issue in most sports but it may be worst in college football (only other league that rivals it is the NBA).

Aren't you tired of seeing Bama, Clemson, and Ohio State contending for a national title? While the Pac-12 is completely ignored and written off as irrelevant? We need parity, we need to find a way to get more teams to have a chance, and while a 12 team playoff is an improvement it sounds like Bama will get their way and it'll be set up in a way that heavily favors them with Clemson, OSU, and the excessive SEC bias we have in college football.

Regardless, college football is a completely broken system. There's no way to fix the glaring issues we see, at this point while Saban gets the credit who the coach is at Bama is fairly irrelevant (just like we saw at OSU, Meyer leaves, insert Day), these top programs with fans that support football before anything else have a ton of funds and means to grab whatever recruits they want leaving the rest of the nation to fight for one 5 star and a few 4 stars. With the recruiting classes Bama, OSU, and Clemson get with their unlimited funds it's easy for Saban, Swinney, and Day to look like geniuses.

[ducks5ever]

The biggest problem with the current system is the monopolies that exist in college football, there's no transparency anymore. Granted this is becoming an issue in most sports but it may be worst in college football (only other league that rivals it is the NBA).

Aren't you tired of seeing Bama, Clemson, and Ohio State contending for a national title? While the Pac-12 is completely ignored and written off as irrelevant? We need parody, we need to find a way to get more teams to have a chance, and while a 12 team playoff is an improvement it sounds like Bama will get their way and it'll be set up in a way that heavily favors them with Clemson, OSU, and the excessive SEC bias we have in college football.

Regardless, college football is a completely broken system. There's no way to fix the glaring issues we see, at this point while Saban gets the credit who the coach is at Bama is fairly irrelevant (just like we saw at OSU, Meyer leaves, insert Day), these top programs with fans that support football before anything else have a ton of funds and means to grab whatever recruits they want leaving the rest of the nation to fight for one 5 star and a few 4 stars. With the recruiting classes Bama, OSU, and Clemson get with their unlimited funds it's easy for Saban, Swinney, and Day to look like geniuses.

Breaking a monopoly by making those teams play more games is not the most effective way to accomplish such a goal. The Pac-12 is weak for mainly internal reasons. The best players in the country will still go to Alabama, Clemson, and OSU, and they will maintain their grip. Besides, one of these days when we become regular contenders, do you want random teams weakening our grip on all the hard work the coaching staff is putting in to build this new dynasty? CMC's strategy is very much like that of Saban/Swinney. Patience. I'm not sure how the DL looks next year but assuming it's not a serious liability, we're a bruising RB away from being regular contenders for the next few years. [or maybe Moorehead can make do without one]

[woundedknees]

We got an on-going "PARODY" when Emmert became the top man in the NCAA.

I'd take 'parity' any day of the week!

De-fund the Grammar Police !

[pezsez1]

It's garbage if conference champions aren't guaranteed spots.

[OregonFan4Life]

It's garbage if conference champions aren't guaranteed spots.

100% agree, I thought I heard that would be included but if not then like previous posters said, it'd just be 5 SEC teams, Clemson, OSU and another Big Ten team, Notre Dame, and 3 random teams that very well could not include a Pac-12 team every year. While I will still argue 12 is better than 4, it seems like with what's being talked about the 12 team playoff will be an extremely broken playoff that will heavily favor Bama.

[pezsez1]

I'm not sure if I agree that 12 is better than four if conference champions aren't guaranteed in. Everyone wants the regular season to matter, but how can it if conference champions don't play for the national title? That premise has never made sense to me, and a silver lining of the four-team playoff is that it's small enough that it doesn't completely dominate the sport. Like, having only four teams (that may or may not have won their own conferences) is garbage, but everyone knows it's incredibly subjective and only really matters so much -- a Rose Bowl berth/win still holds tremendous value in our current environment.

If we're going to up it to 12 teams, then I want it to matter. I don't want it to be more of the self-fulfilling SEC dog-and-pony show.

[lukeyrid13]

Stick with 4, or go up to 8. 12 just doesn't work.