College Football Playoffs and why they need to change.
The College playoffs are a new in D1 FBS. Already there is talk about changing them. The talk is about whether to expand the playoffs or not. The CFP (or the college football playoffs) president Eric Barron does not believe that will expand the playoffs right now. However, there are many coaches, players, and fans that believe that only allowing four teams into the playoffs cheats a couple teams out that should have made the playoffs.
Throughout the five years of the playoffs being around. The fourth placed team in the CFP has won it a couple of times. It should be expanded because it the last ranked team is winning that means there should be more teams to make it like March Madness. Now you cannot have that many teams of course because you cannot play that many football games in a row do to the ware and tare of the game has on one’s body. But the expansion of the playoffs would bring more attention to the bigger bowl games during this time.
One of the bigger questions against the expanding the D1 FBS college football playoffs is how they would fit it into the same length of time they have for the college schedule, injuries do too much games in a single season, and the CFP does not want a three-loss team winning the National championship. Which all makes sense because you want to be able to keep your players health and want an undefeated team winning the national championship according to CBSsports.
To go along with that the D1 FCS schools have a 24-team playoff. Now that compares to the D1 FBS schools who only have four teams as of right now. People say if they can have a 24-team playoff then the FBS schools should be able to expand the playoff to more than four teams. However, the FCS only plays 11 games in their regular season to be able to have so many games in the off season. So, then it becomes a thing if people want to cut down the regular season down to be able to fit more post-season games into the season. As you can tell there is a lot of thought that goes into whether it would be worth it to expand the playoffs.
Mike Leach (the coach for Washington State University) is a hard believer in having a bigger post-season playoff. He says that it cuts out a lot of good teams that were on the brink of making the playoffs but where just short do to a little slip up or playing a very tough team. Unlike basketball you can lose several games and still be higher ranked. But in football, if you lose a game you could move down the rankings fast and to make the CFP you must lose at the very beginning of the season, or you cannot lose at all or you will be out of the playoffs. A team could go all the way through the season and lose in the conference championship and there goes the opportunity to play for the CFP national championship. that is every teams goal by the end of the season. To be the team left holding the CFP playoff trophy no matter how many wins or loses a team has. The way Coach Leach says it is that every organization below the FBS seems to know how to run playoffs, even kids’ sports seem to know how to manage playoff games more than the professionals. Mike Leach is not the only coach that is in favor of expanding the playoffs.
Coach Brian Kelly (Notre Dame) says “That they are cheating out a team of conference champion”. He is refereeing to the power five conference’s (Big 12, Big 10, Sec, Pac 12, Acc). With their only being four open slots one of the power five teams is cheated from making the playoffs. The power five conferences are the strongest conferences in the FBS level of play. If the CFP was expanded to at least 8 teams, they would be able to make sure they include everyone from the power five conferences with room to get three other teams from different conferences.
Throughout the four or five years the CFP have been around there have been arguments that certain teams should have made the playoffs instead of another team. With only being able to let four teams in every year. The committee will leave teams that should have made it in the playoffs out do to a judgement call between two or more teams. Expanding the playoffs limits the number of teams that should have made it to the playoffs. 8 teams would make sure you have the best of the best winning and competing for the be all end all trophy that every team wants at the end of the year. In the FCS playoff they have had a team lower than 10 win the national championship. Making it important to have more than four teams because you never know what is going to happen. This also creates the underdog, which is a gargantuan reason why people watch March Madness. No one has any idea what could go on in one game. Just like last year for example, the 16 seed from UMBC beats the number one overall in the tournament Virginia. No one would have thought that would make it past the first round but ended up making it to the second round of 32. Then you have Loyola making it all the way to the Final-four who was a 11 seed.
That is something that college football playoffs are missing, an underdog story to really publicize it. Imagine if a seed that was lower than 10 make a little run in the playoffs. I guarantee it would be way more entertaining to that than have a Clemson and Alabama national championship every single year. It would be able to bring something new to the table. More excitement to the CFP would not be a bad thing.
Sources/ Related articles
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/7/24/17609764/playoff-expansion-scott-frost
