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One of the most common objections by some is that the CFP will "ruin the regular season." The Athletic polled their readers and then their staff weighed in. It's an interesting read, like usual.
How do you feel about CFP expansion?
Highlights:
theathletic.com
Here’s what our writers had to say:
David Ubben, national writer: Think of this like a balancing act. For the purpose of this question, let’s define “meaningless” as “does not impact the national championship race.” In the BCS era, rivalry week might have, at most, three to five games with real stakes in the national title race. Championship week usually had around three.
That number has grown in the four-team Playoff era. It will continue to grow in the 12-team Playoff era. Rivalry week might have 20-25 games now, where teams are playing for a chance to play for the title.
As for meaningless games at the end, there are two counters to this: One, seeding matters. Nobody is resting starters. Two, even if teams are safely in the bracket, it’s still college football. Teams want to demolish their rivals. And last year, Alabama’s rout of Georgia in the SEC title game sure meant a lot to the fans and the players, even though the two met again a month later. Sure, some games will have slightly diminished stakes at the end compared to previous eras. But dozens of games will have monumentally higher stakes. That’s a trade I’m making every time.
Ari Wasserman, national writer: Meaningless? No. But I do worry about the stakes of the big-time games the entire country is going to line up to watch. I can’t get last year’s Ohio State versus Michigan game out of my head. The beauty of college football is the inherent interest in that game because it’s a heated rivalry. But how much worse would the viewing experience be for fans who don’t root for either of those teams knowing the result of the game didn’t matter for anything other than bragging rights?
Schadenfreude is a key pillar in this sport. We love upsets because we love watching teams’ dreams be destroyed, especially the big-timers who make the Playoff every year. Now all we’ve done is make a scenario where every single season Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia and others in that realm — even in big-time down years — make the Playoff.
Yes, there will be more interest in teams who rank in the teens because getting the last spot in the Playoff will be the new debate we’re all having. But when teams make the Playoff for the first time as the No. 11 seed, it’s not going to feel quite as good as it did for Washington, Michigan and others who finally got over the hump and made the final four.
The regular season will never be meaningless. This is college football. There’s too much passion around it. But the high drama of the upset or the stakes that make this sport so compelling in the middle of the year no longer exist. And that stinks.
Chris Vannini, national writer: A recent comment from Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff caught my attention on this topic. While speaking about the Pac-12’s TV negotiations, Kliavkoff said CFP expansion would help the conference’s upcoming deal because the broadcasters like that there are more games that matter late in the season. So clearly the people whose job is to monitor these things believe this keeps the regular season plenty important, and maybe even more important in terms of the total number of games.
They estimate something like 40 schools could enter November with a shot to make the CFP. That’s a good thing. That’s also the genius of the 12-team model, because then, the top teams are still playing to get a bye. There is still something tangible on the line in an SEC championship game, for example. We just last year had an Alabama-Georgia SEC title game where both teams made the CFP, so you can’t pretend it doesn’t already exist.
G. Allan Taylor, Florida writer: We’re a country that embraces bracket pools (get ready for December Madness!) and do-overs (Urban Meyer, Hugh Freeze, Robert Downey Jr.), so Playoff expansion was inevitable. I favor sticking with the four-team model, but I’m not soap-boxing about a 12-teamer ruining college football. It will rob the sport of its unique week-to-week regular-season drama, because college football has essentially been staging a three-month survival Playoff already.
On Nov. 21, 2015, the day unbeaten Ohio State stunningly lost at home to Michigan State 17-14? The Columbus Dispatch published the headline “Hopes Crushed” and a story calling the loss a “mortal wound” for the Buckeyes’ chances of repeating. Under a 12-team Playoff, it’s merely a flesh wound. The “Kick Six” that knocked No. 1 Alabama out of the BCS title race and brought Nick Saban to tears? Wouldn’t have stung nearly as much for a team hopping back to Tuscaloosa to host a first-round CFP game as a 5-seed.
Scott Dochterman, Iowa writer: This is archaic thinking. This actually will give more meaning and provide greater interest to the regular season. So, the Ohio State-Michigan or Auburn-Alabama games won’t eliminate the loser from the championship chase. Big deal. CFP expansion opens up the sport for more important games late in the season. The Minnesota-Wisconsin game is great in the upper Midwest, but now it could have relevance for North Carolina, LSU or Notre Dame fans whose teams are battling the Badgers for a final slot. That’s much more interesting than watching a rivalry game simply to see who plays in a second-tier bowl game.
Matt Fortuna, national writer: Perfection has rarely mattered in the Playoff era. The first four champions in the CFP era (Ohio State 2014, Alabama 2015, Clemson 2016, Alabama 2017) lost games, as did last year’s champion, Georgia, in its last game before the postseason. The regular season will just become more meaningful. Look at a school like Wake Forest last year, or Minnesota in 2019. Both came up short in winning their conferences, but both ended up posting 10-win regular seasons and created memorable scenes their fan bases will always cherish.
In a 12-team CFP format, those scenes would only be enhanced, as neither program is anyone’s idea of a traditional blue blood, yet both would be playing with national championship implications deep into the season. Can you imagine the recruiting bump a program of that stature would get off a Playoff appearance? Picture a mid-major that makes March Madness for the first time. That, in and of itself, adds more weight to the regular season. (Though I do understand the argument about how some more traditional blue bloods will simply get more mulligans now.)
Nicole Auerbach, national writer: A perfect or near-perfect season should not be a prerequisite for making the CFP because that simply incentivizes weak nonconference scheduling. Or rather, it incentivizes not-terrible-teams-but-not-great-ones-either scheduling to avoid losses. That’s a bad thing, and giving teams wiggle room will encourage more Power 5 home-and-home games to be scheduled. The selection committee is also going to have to reinforce this by its selections and seedings, but it seems obvious to me that teams like Utah this year, playing and coming up just short at the Swamp, should not be penalized harshly for doing so. That’s better than beating a lower-level Group of 5 team any day.
Taylor: I disagree that expansion will mean better nonconference matchups because those were already happening. See Ohio State’s homes-and-homes against Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. See Alabama’s series against Texas, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, FSU and Oklahoma State. See Georgia versus Clemson, UCLA and FSU. See Texas A&M against Miami, Notre Dame and Arizona State. See Auburn versus Penn State, Baylor, Cal and Miami. See Washington against Ohio State, Tennessee and Michigan.
How do you feel about CFP expansion?
| ANSWER | BREAKDOWN |
|---|---|
| Excited. More football! More meaningful bowl games! | 67.7 percent |
| Neutral. Felt inevitable, and this is what the postseason is right now. | 20.8 percent |
| Angry. This is bad for the sport. | 6.1 percent |
| Worried. I feel like this portends too much change. | 5.4 percent |
Highlights:
Survey: Is CFP expansion just a money grab? Will regular season be meaningless? Our experts weigh in
Does expansion make the regular season meaningless? Is college football doomed by big business?
theathletic.com
Here’s what our writers had to say:
David Ubben, national writer: Think of this like a balancing act. For the purpose of this question, let’s define “meaningless” as “does not impact the national championship race.” In the BCS era, rivalry week might have, at most, three to five games with real stakes in the national title race. Championship week usually had around three.
That number has grown in the four-team Playoff era. It will continue to grow in the 12-team Playoff era. Rivalry week might have 20-25 games now, where teams are playing for a chance to play for the title.
As for meaningless games at the end, there are two counters to this: One, seeding matters. Nobody is resting starters. Two, even if teams are safely in the bracket, it’s still college football. Teams want to demolish their rivals. And last year, Alabama’s rout of Georgia in the SEC title game sure meant a lot to the fans and the players, even though the two met again a month later. Sure, some games will have slightly diminished stakes at the end compared to previous eras. But dozens of games will have monumentally higher stakes. That’s a trade I’m making every time.
Ari Wasserman, national writer: Meaningless? No. But I do worry about the stakes of the big-time games the entire country is going to line up to watch. I can’t get last year’s Ohio State versus Michigan game out of my head. The beauty of college football is the inherent interest in that game because it’s a heated rivalry. But how much worse would the viewing experience be for fans who don’t root for either of those teams knowing the result of the game didn’t matter for anything other than bragging rights?
Schadenfreude is a key pillar in this sport. We love upsets because we love watching teams’ dreams be destroyed, especially the big-timers who make the Playoff every year. Now all we’ve done is make a scenario where every single season Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia and others in that realm — even in big-time down years — make the Playoff.
Yes, there will be more interest in teams who rank in the teens because getting the last spot in the Playoff will be the new debate we’re all having. But when teams make the Playoff for the first time as the No. 11 seed, it’s not going to feel quite as good as it did for Washington, Michigan and others who finally got over the hump and made the final four.
The regular season will never be meaningless. This is college football. There’s too much passion around it. But the high drama of the upset or the stakes that make this sport so compelling in the middle of the year no longer exist. And that stinks.
Chris Vannini, national writer: A recent comment from Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff caught my attention on this topic. While speaking about the Pac-12’s TV negotiations, Kliavkoff said CFP expansion would help the conference’s upcoming deal because the broadcasters like that there are more games that matter late in the season. So clearly the people whose job is to monitor these things believe this keeps the regular season plenty important, and maybe even more important in terms of the total number of games.
They estimate something like 40 schools could enter November with a shot to make the CFP. That’s a good thing. That’s also the genius of the 12-team model, because then, the top teams are still playing to get a bye. There is still something tangible on the line in an SEC championship game, for example. We just last year had an Alabama-Georgia SEC title game where both teams made the CFP, so you can’t pretend it doesn’t already exist.
G. Allan Taylor, Florida writer: We’re a country that embraces bracket pools (get ready for December Madness!) and do-overs (Urban Meyer, Hugh Freeze, Robert Downey Jr.), so Playoff expansion was inevitable. I favor sticking with the four-team model, but I’m not soap-boxing about a 12-teamer ruining college football. It will rob the sport of its unique week-to-week regular-season drama, because college football has essentially been staging a three-month survival Playoff already.
On Nov. 21, 2015, the day unbeaten Ohio State stunningly lost at home to Michigan State 17-14? The Columbus Dispatch published the headline “Hopes Crushed” and a story calling the loss a “mortal wound” for the Buckeyes’ chances of repeating. Under a 12-team Playoff, it’s merely a flesh wound. The “Kick Six” that knocked No. 1 Alabama out of the BCS title race and brought Nick Saban to tears? Wouldn’t have stung nearly as much for a team hopping back to Tuscaloosa to host a first-round CFP game as a 5-seed.
Scott Dochterman, Iowa writer: This is archaic thinking. This actually will give more meaning and provide greater interest to the regular season. So, the Ohio State-Michigan or Auburn-Alabama games won’t eliminate the loser from the championship chase. Big deal. CFP expansion opens up the sport for more important games late in the season. The Minnesota-Wisconsin game is great in the upper Midwest, but now it could have relevance for North Carolina, LSU or Notre Dame fans whose teams are battling the Badgers for a final slot. That’s much more interesting than watching a rivalry game simply to see who plays in a second-tier bowl game.
Matt Fortuna, national writer: Perfection has rarely mattered in the Playoff era. The first four champions in the CFP era (Ohio State 2014, Alabama 2015, Clemson 2016, Alabama 2017) lost games, as did last year’s champion, Georgia, in its last game before the postseason. The regular season will just become more meaningful. Look at a school like Wake Forest last year, or Minnesota in 2019. Both came up short in winning their conferences, but both ended up posting 10-win regular seasons and created memorable scenes their fan bases will always cherish.
In a 12-team CFP format, those scenes would only be enhanced, as neither program is anyone’s idea of a traditional blue blood, yet both would be playing with national championship implications deep into the season. Can you imagine the recruiting bump a program of that stature would get off a Playoff appearance? Picture a mid-major that makes March Madness for the first time. That, in and of itself, adds more weight to the regular season. (Though I do understand the argument about how some more traditional blue bloods will simply get more mulligans now.)
Nicole Auerbach, national writer: A perfect or near-perfect season should not be a prerequisite for making the CFP because that simply incentivizes weak nonconference scheduling. Or rather, it incentivizes not-terrible-teams-but-not-great-ones-either scheduling to avoid losses. That’s a bad thing, and giving teams wiggle room will encourage more Power 5 home-and-home games to be scheduled. The selection committee is also going to have to reinforce this by its selections and seedings, but it seems obvious to me that teams like Utah this year, playing and coming up just short at the Swamp, should not be penalized harshly for doing so. That’s better than beating a lower-level Group of 5 team any day.
Taylor: I disagree that expansion will mean better nonconference matchups because those were already happening. See Ohio State’s homes-and-homes against Oklahoma, Notre Dame, Georgia, Alabama and Texas. See Alabama’s series against Texas, Notre Dame, Wisconsin, FSU and Oklahoma State. See Georgia versus Clemson, UCLA and FSU. See Texas A&M against Miami, Notre Dame and Arizona State. See Auburn versus Penn State, Baylor, Cal and Miami. See Washington against Ohio State, Tennessee and Michigan.
