BY MIKE RIFKIN
It’s been announced that starting in 2027 the College Football Playoffs will expand to 24 teams. You cannot sit there and tell college football fans everywhere there’s going to be 24 worthy teams of going to the playoffs. It’s okay though the deal is valued at 300 million dollars. So here’s my question : Why play a season? I mean if you’re just going to put in the “24 best teams”, which I believe is coded for more power four conference teams. The NCAA is turning December and January into a Winter March Madness, before actual March Madness begins.
Take the Ohio State vs Indiana game from Saturday, what a fantastic game by the way. If Ohio State had lost that game that would give them two losses on the season, in a 24 team playoff they’d still be a lock to make it, but in a 12 team playoff things could be a bit more dicey. For the NCAA to say they take the best teams is bogus, they take the teams that can get them the most money.
I get it from the NCAA perspective, they’re in the business of making money. What the problem is here is that in a 24 team playoff some of these Power four schools might schedule an extra game against a cupcake (easy opponent) to help their statistics, and that already was an issue in College Football. I was in favor of the 12 team playoff, if they wanted to go to 16 I can live with it, but 24 is too many. There are already so many bowl games, so they might have to eliminate some of them to allow for this to be more interesting. But the most important part is you cannot deny a team who is worthy of being there. Eventually the NCAA is going to make this into the football version of March Madness and that is not something the sport needs.
