Drew Kerekes

Picture a three-round college football playoff with the first round featuring the following matchups: No. 8 Central Florida at No. 1 Alabama, No. 7 Michigan at No. 2 Clemson, No. 6 Ohio State at No. 3 Notre Dame and No. 5 Oklahoma at No. 4 Georgia.

Sound fun? Proposed changes to the current College Football Playoff format mainly argue for adding four more teams and, instead of adding additional bowl game sites to the list, allowing higher-seeded teams to host the first-round games before the second- and third-round matchups would follow the current format.

Reading the tea leaves, while CFP expansion may not happen in the next several years, it certainly feels like an eventuality. NCAA president Mark Emmert has stated he would like to see all five Power 5 champions have a shot in the playoffs. While I haven’t spoken to any of the Power 5 commissioners, there is little doubt in my mind at least some of them would be in favor of expansion at some point. There is too much money to be made, especially if you go with the proposal of higher-seeded teams hosting first-round games. Think universities wouldn’t love the revenue that would bring? 

There are certainly arguments to be made against expansion. Do you really want the possibility of a 9-3 team that has come on late in the season suddenly getting hot during the playoffs and winning the whole thing? Why top at eight? Why not 16? Is there any indication that the current system doesn’t work, even when you consider the outcry of Central Florida fans for being left out? Wouldn’t it just make regular-season games less meaningful?

Those are all fair arguments, but I can’t be convinced teams like Georgia or Ohio State, even when you look at their losses on the season, don’t deserve at least some kind of shot to win it all. Losing to Purdue is a bad look and why the Buckeyes are out of it, but you can’t tell me Ohio State isn’t one of the best eight teams in the country. Georgia’s two losses were to top-10 teams, one of which was by only seven points against the current No. 1 team. Even counting the argument about regular-season games not meaning as much, we already forfeited that reality — and the reality of bowl games losing their special feeling — when we decided to go to a playoff. Ohio State and Georgia in the playoffs makes for a more interesting postseason and is worth the tradeoff.

Notice the rankings I used in the opening paragraph? Those are the rankings that were released leading up to the week of the conference title games, and there’s a reason for that. Playoff expansion to a third round should be accompanied by the elimination of conference title games. 

The possibility of losing championship games might be more of a non-starter than playoff expansion for some fans. Still, remembering last year when Alabama made it in despite not even playing for a conference title, as well as Ohio State making it into the playoffs the previous season under the same circumstances, the playoff committee has already signaled that a conference championship is not the end-all, be-all in determining who gets in. I’ve previously argued Alabama would have gotten in this year even if it had lost a close game to Georgia, as I saw the addition of Missouri in the top 25 as a signal by the committee that it considered Alabama one of the country’s four best teams.

If conference championships aren’t a requirement — and I agree with that sentiment, as it was clear including non-SEC champion Alabama in last year’s CFP was the correct decision — then what are we still doing playing conference title games instead of expanding the playoffs? As usual, it comes down to money. The fact that conference title games exist is because of the revenue they bring. Watch the ESPNU documentary “The Play That Changed College Football,” which explains the background of the SEC championship game.

In that documentary, it was clear the SEC coaches didn’t like the idea. Listen to then-Alabama coach Gene Stallings lament how they “were 11-0 and hadn’t won anything” because the Tide had yet to play Florida for an SEC championship. Alabama was one Antonio Langham interception away from possibly losing to Florida and, thus, not having a 1992 national title to its name, all because of a money grab.

Long-term, though, conference title games ended up being good for the sport, but their time has passed, and it passing is a direct result of the CFP’s introduction. Expansion would make the sport better, and if conference title games aren’t a requirement, then it’s time to phase them out. Dropping the championship games in favor of an expanded playoff would add more teams to the pool, and eliminating it in favor of a third playoff round would also mean some teams wouldn’t have to play a 16th game if they made it all the way to the national championship round.

Change is coming sooner or later, and conferences won’t like the idea of losing their big money makers, so something would have to be worked out in that regard. Ultimately, though, it would make too much sense not to allow the sport to evolve further. 

Drew Kerekes is the sports editor at The Meridian Star. He can be reached at dkerekes@themeridianstar.com.