The Playoff Got Bigger. The Debate Got Worse.

College Football’s Latest Controversy

This past weekend, the College Playoff Committee finalized the field of 12 to compete for the national championship. To say their choices have created quite a controversy would rank with some of the great understatements of all time.

How We Got Here

It has only been 27 years since the champion was determined by two polls, the Associated Press and the Coaches. From 1998 to 2013, there was a two-team playoff. From 2014 to 2024, it was a four-team competition.

All this time, there was a demand to an expanded playoff structure. Eight, 12, or 16, any of them supposedly would mean a fair process. So, in 2024, we had the first 12-team field.

The New Structure — And New Problems

The structure was tweaked for 2025. Automatic qualifiers would be the top five-ranked conference champions. For the first round, the four teams getting a bye would be the top four-ranked teams, independent of conference. This year, the Big 10 has two teams getting a bye (Indiana and Ohio State). The other seven teams are at large and determined entirely by a committee.

The criteria, and how they were to be valued, obviously changed week to week this year. When the 12 were being decided, three teams competed for two slots—Alabama, Miami, and Notre Dame. Notre Dame ended up being the team eliminated. The howling and screaming were both predictable and real.

Why the Numbers Don’t Settle It

Statistics and analytics can be found for virtually any decision you choose to reach. Whose conclusion is “right” is in the eye of the beholder. It most certainly is not a matter of just looking at the numbers.

The Case for — and Against — Each Team

For Notre Dame, you argue that after losing their first two games, they ran the table to get to 10-2. However, since Notre Dame is not in a conference, they could not be in a playoff, and essentially would have been given a bye into the field. For Miami, they highlight that they actually beat Notre Dame and ended up 10-2. Alabama also finished the regular season 10-2 (including beating top-five team Georgia). They lost the rematch with Georgia in the SEC championship game, finishing 10-3. With their inclusion, they became the first three-loss team to make the playoffs. Making Notre Dame fans madder was the fact that for weeks, they had been ranked ahead of Miami. Without either playing a game, this got reversed.

A Simple Question Worth Asking

Here is an idea. What say we set the criteria for inclusion before the first game is played? While we are at it, let’s reduce the role of the committee as much as is humanly possible.

A Proposal Rooted in the Field, Not the Committee Room

The SEC and Big 10 are widely viewed as the two best conferences. In recent years, both have expanded membership. Let’s divide each of them into two separate divisions. Within each division, there is a playoff with the winners automatically in. That’s four teams. Each conference picks one additional team. That gets you to six teams. For the Big 12 and ACC, they each have a playoff game, with the winner in. Now we are at eight. Each conference picks one other team. That gets us to 10. One team from the Group of Five conferences (American Athletic, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, and Sunbelt), and we are at 11.

Let the committee meet for weeks on end to pick one other team. Will there be years when a given conference has teams that might have gotten in using the beauty contest approach? Absolutely. For example, this year the SEC has five teams. My proposal cuts them back to three, so the idea is hardly one to designed to benefit a conference.

Turning Back Toward the Game

We need to encourage as much as we can to have participants decide on the field, and additional teams decided by the respective conferences. Let’s avoid having football turn into figure skating.

Common Sense

Common Sense: Football is a game where what happens on the field should count more than what a bunch of individuals, each having their own agenda and biases, have to say.