The wonderful feeling of cold weather and Christmas vibes can only mean one thing, the College Football (CFB) Playoffs are right around the corner. Any football fan would agree that CFB Playoffs have always been something to look forward to, but what is the fun in only four programs having the chance to win it all every year? The CFB Playoffs need to be expanded to include more teams because of its repetition and restrictive nature.
It is not only the fact that only four teams have a final shot at the chip, but for five out of the seven CFB championships thus far, Alabama has been a participant. For three of these championships, Clemson has also been a participant. It would be more interesting for fans if there were a bigger variety of teams competing rather than the same pool of teams every year. To solve this issue of repetition and boringness, the playoff committee needs to expand the CFB Playoffs to an eight, 16 or even a 25 team tournament.
Expanding the four team tournament to eight teams will not only give the thousands of college football fans more excitement, but it will give the undefeated teams that are not in the Power Five, or the five major CFB conferences, a better shot to upset the big name programs and show the country why they need some love too. For example, The University of Central Florida (UCF) in the American Athletic Conference (AAC) was snubbed from the playoffs for two years in a row in 2017 and 2018 even though they were undefeated simply due to their conference. Despite beating Auburn, an SEC team ranked 10th in the nation in 2017, UCF was not able to play in the playoffs due to the four spots being reserved for more big-name schools.
Bigger tournaments have not failed to provide excitement, as the infamous college basketball tournament known as “March Madness” can attest. In the 2018 “March Madness,” the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) beat the number one seed University of Virginia as a #16 seed. In 2016, the small school of Middle Tennessee beat the more well-known Michigan State. Crazy upsets like these just can’t happen in the CFB Playoffs because little schools like UMBC and Middle Tennessee wouldn’t have even gotten the opportunity to play.
Although the CFB Playoffs have not been able to give schools of all kind the opportunities they need and deserve, the committee has shown a willingness to grow the playoffs when they took a step in the right direction with giving Cincinnati, who is in the AAC and is an undefeated school not in the Power Five, the chance to fight for a championship in this year’s playoffs. If Cincinnati is able to somehow beat the powerhouses they have in front of them, it could give the CFB committee more reason to allow more teams in the playoffs and put a bigger variety of schools on the map.
The committee has no excuse to not expand the playoffs, as The National Football League’s (NFL) playoffs and the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) playoffs consist of more teams than CFB’s, and there are only 30-32 teams in each of those leagues. As the rumors have been brewing, college football fans can only hope to see a change in the near future.
