The Breakdown
With Ben Fader '21 Editor-in-Chief
Since the very first College Football Playoff (CFP) was held in 2014, questions have come up about the event. When it started, the CFP was only 4 teams, picked by a 13 person committee. They would duke it out to be crowned the best team in college football. Now, in 2021, there are still only 4 teams that participate in the CFP out of 130 total teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). The question needs to be asked: Why won’t they add more teams?
Other main sports have many more teams than football in the tournaments: NCAA basketball has a 68 team tournament, baseball is a 64 team tournament, soccer is a 48 game |
ELLICOTT CITY, MARYLAND, January 8, 2021 - Alabama and Clemson (pictured above) met for the second of four matchups in the CFP’s seven year existence here, where Clemson defeated Alabama 35-31 in the national championship game. - STREETER LECKA/ LION’S TALE
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tournament and lacrosse is a 17 team tournament. The FBS can’t place a similar amount of teams as the other major sports because the tournament would run on for too long. Football only plays one game a week to ensure player safety and health, which means the tournament needs to be kept to a smaller number of teams. Nonetheless, four teams is still too few for a league consisting of 130.
Many people have pondered the idea of adding teams, with the possibility of expanding to eight or ten teams being the most common. However, no serious discussions about whether to add teams have ever occurred. Senior Ryan Anderson says, “They should expand to an eight team playoff. College sports playoffs are one of the most exciting games to watch; more games would be great.”
Personally, I think that a ten team playoff would be best for the FBS. Six extra teams and two additional weeks of playoff football means a lot more entertainment for the fans and a lot more revenue for the league. The ten team playoff would have the lowest four seeds play a play-in. From there, the teams would battle in an eight team bracket—single elimination to determine the winner. This would allow more teams to have a chance to win meaningful games towards the end of the year. For this format to be completely successful, however, I do believe one more change is necessary.
The FBS regular season is 12 games long, with the division winners in each conference playing one extra game to determine the conference champion. A maximum of 13 games is not a long season at all. If a team is initially perceived as low quality with the preseason rankings, it can be very difficult to make up ground on other teams with very few games. Three teams in the past four seasons have finished the season undefeated and still were not given a chance in the CFP. The FBS needs to eliminate rankings for their teams until at least week four of the season. This will allow for a fair and accurate ranking to every team based on real results, rather than assumptions of how a team will do before ever truly seeing them in action.
The current rankings hold great benefit to the teams given high rankings in the preseason because they are already at the top of the country. It also benefits teams that are in a better conference, basically making it impossible for a school not in a top five conference in the NCAA to ever make it to a playoff game. If the CFP can change their rules to a more just ranking system and expand the playoffs, I assure a more entertaining experience for every college football fan.
Many people have pondered the idea of adding teams, with the possibility of expanding to eight or ten teams being the most common. However, no serious discussions about whether to add teams have ever occurred. Senior Ryan Anderson says, “They should expand to an eight team playoff. College sports playoffs are one of the most exciting games to watch; more games would be great.”
Personally, I think that a ten team playoff would be best for the FBS. Six extra teams and two additional weeks of playoff football means a lot more entertainment for the fans and a lot more revenue for the league. The ten team playoff would have the lowest four seeds play a play-in. From there, the teams would battle in an eight team bracket—single elimination to determine the winner. This would allow more teams to have a chance to win meaningful games towards the end of the year. For this format to be completely successful, however, I do believe one more change is necessary.
The FBS regular season is 12 games long, with the division winners in each conference playing one extra game to determine the conference champion. A maximum of 13 games is not a long season at all. If a team is initially perceived as low quality with the preseason rankings, it can be very difficult to make up ground on other teams with very few games. Three teams in the past four seasons have finished the season undefeated and still were not given a chance in the CFP. The FBS needs to eliminate rankings for their teams until at least week four of the season. This will allow for a fair and accurate ranking to every team based on real results, rather than assumptions of how a team will do before ever truly seeing them in action.
The current rankings hold great benefit to the teams given high rankings in the preseason because they are already at the top of the country. It also benefits teams that are in a better conference, basically making it impossible for a school not in a top five conference in the NCAA to ever make it to a playoff game. If the CFP can change their rules to a more just ranking system and expand the playoffs, I assure a more entertaining experience for every college football fan.