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The College Football Playoff, during its decade-plus existence, has had no shortage of detractors. The 12-team format poured gasoline on the fire with a dud of a first round, which saw all four higher-seeded and home-based teams win in dominant fashion.
It certainly wasn’t the greatest debut for the flashy, new expanded playoff. Fans and pundits alike were quick to fill social media with posts pining for the four-team playoff and wondering if Alabama should have gotten in instead of Indiana and SMU. Some wanted to turn the calendar back to the BCS era, or to a time when computers and scribes decided the outright national champion without the benefit of a designated game.
Fast-forward a few weeks and the NFL postseason began with the wild-card round. Lo and behold, five of the six wild-card games resulted in the higher-seeded and home-based team winning in blowout fashion. The NFL underwent expansion of its own in 2021, from 12 to 14 teams, and its wild-card games have hardly been competitive since.
Yet criticism of the NFL playoffs is, comparably, muted. Nobody is asking if the Minnesota Vikings really deserved to make the playoffs. NFL fans are certainly more accustomed to a playoff system, given that the NFL has had at least four teams battle it out in the postseason since 1967. The four-team College Football Playoff wasn’t instituted until the 2014 season.
So NFL fans, and those that cover the league, come equipped with the knowledge that playoff blowouts … just happen. There seems to be a misconception that all postseason teams are created equal — this is especially pervasive at the college level.
After all, if you’re one of the 12 teams that made the cut, then surely you’re on an equal footing with the rest of the field.
In reality, that’s just not the case. Fans need to accept that that’s OK. It’s not an indictment of the College Football Playoff.
The goal of the College Football Playoff, as with any other postseason in any other sport, is to crown a national champion. An expanded field, naturally, provides more teams the opportunity to compete for that honor. A playoff serves its purpose by culling teams via games played on the field; not through an arbitrary or computer-based selection process that excludes worthy programs.
Blowouts will happen. During the four-team College Football Playoff era, over half of the semifinal games and seven of the national title games were decided by at least two possessions.
Not all college football teams are created equally. Boise State, even with its breakout season and its admirable run to the playoff, does not have the same resources as Ohio State. But that disparity should not preclude Boise State from getting a chance to at least make the playoff, especially since the Broncos earned that right with their play on the field.
We’ve already seen the fruits of an expanded playoff. The two teams playing in the College Football Playoff National Championship — Notre Dame and Ohio State — entered the postseason as the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds, respectively. In previous years, they wouldn’t have even come close to making a four-team playoff.
Every year, with the NFL playoffs, as teams are eliminated, the quality of individual games tends to increase. That’s already the case with the College Football Playoff, as well. Texas’ double-overtime win against Arizona State in the Peach Bowl quarterfinal is one of the best games that the playoff has ever produced. Both semifinal games came down to a final drive. Notre Dame’s win against Penn State was decided by a made field goal with less than 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
Even though this year’s harvest wasn’t great, not every first-round game will be a blowout. An expanded playoff provides more opportunity for a genuine Cinderella team to emerge. We’ve seen non-traditional powers like TCU and Washington make a run at the national championship in recent years. A more accommodating format increases the likelihood of that, which is a net positive for the sport.
The College Football Playoff is not perfect. The still nascent 12-team system could use some tweaking. Guaranteeing byes to the four highest seeds, and not the four highest-ranked conference champions, would have created a much more competitive opening round, with games like Tennessee vs. SMU and Boise State vs. Indiana.
Boise State, in turn, could have had a quarterfinal rematch against an Oregon team that only beat the Broncos by three points in the regular season. Notre Dame and Penn State and Ohio State and Texas could have played in the quarterfinal round, as well, instead of the semifinals, giving the earlier rounds more enticing matchups.
Conference champions would still get an automatic bid and could even be promised home-field advantage if they don’t secure a bye with their seeding.
The College Football Playoff Management Committee still has time to iron out the kinks, especially since momentum is carrying the playoff towards further expansion. Even so, the NFL has had almost 60 years to refine its system and blowouts are still common.
Football is an extremely volatile sport, especially when it’s played by 18-21 year old student-athletes that are still developing. That volatility can lead to skewed results. Blowouts shouldn’t detract from one’s enjoyment of the sport, though, especially considering all of the benefits that an expanded playoff provides.
The 2024 college football season was one of the best, and most competitive, we have seen in a long time. Games mattered more, especially late in the season, because more teams had College Football Playoff hopes hanging in the balance.
Though the actual on-field product wasn’t great, first-round games hosted on campus, instead of neutral sites, provided an unmatched atmosphere. More of that, please.
No possible playoff format will eliminate lopsided games, but it’s the best way to give teams a genuine shot at battling it out on the field. Enjoy the process, because it’s not going away any time soon.
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