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I am glad the College Football Playoff (CFP) expanded to the 12-team field, but I hear national sports pundits say the job isn’t finished. I completely agree with them.
I strongly believe Notre Dame played well enough after 2025’s shaky start to earn a CFP berth. Look how far the alternative choice – the Miami Hurricanes – made their way through the playoff.
Let’s knock out a few walls to build a bigger room.
Conference championship games among the Power Four, and the Group of Five (American Athletic, Mountain West, Sun Belt West, Mid-American, and Conference USA) must cease.
Conference championship games have outlived their usefulness. I say this even fully knowing the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Indiana Hoosiers left everything they had on the playing surface during last year’s Big Ten Conference title game.
Originally, those games helped determine champions in large leagues. But in today’s playoff era, they often do more harm than good.
Consider the current setup: teams play a grueling regular season, then a conference title game, and then—if they make the playoff—they sit idle for weeks before playing again. That stop-and-start rhythm hurts the product.
Players lose momentum. Fans lose rhythm. The games at expensive “sorta” centralized venues themselves can feel disconnected from the flow of the season.
Eliminating conference championship games would solve multiple problems at once.
Roll the dice, instead, on player health in a higher stakes game. Jump right into the CFP. Instead of risking a season in a conference title game, teams would move directly into a broader postseason.
The tricky part would be finding a way – the weekend following the playoff’s launch - to maintain the Army-Navy game’s stand-alone slot.
A conference champion with four losses, however, will NOT be invited to the CFP.
We witnessed a playoff with 12 teams that left some deserving programs out—teams that battled through tough schedules, overcame injuries, and got hot at the right time (I’m talking to you Notre Dame – you were ripped off).
A larger playoff - whether 16 teams, but preferably 24 teams - would open the door wider.
That matters for schools outside the traditional powerhouses. It matters for players who may never get another shot. And it matters for fans who want to believe their team can earn its way in, not depend on a committee in a conference room.
Let’s talk about March Madness again. Do we question large brackets in March Madness? We embrace the chaos, the upsets, and Cinderella stories.
Well, the networks and cable channels don’t embrace Cinderella stories as much as casual fans embrace them. They’re ratings killers.
One of the biggest arguments against expansion is that it would “water down” the regular season. But let’s take a step back.
The regular season still matters.
Right now, a single loss can derail a season before Halloween for some teams. That doesn’t build excitement, it creates anxiety and shuts out fan bases early.
An expanded playoff doesn’t eliminate urgency. Instead, it stretches relevance deeper into November. More teams would be playing meaningful games later in the season (I’m talking to YOU, SEC with your customary November doormats). More fan bases would stay engaged. More stadiums would stay full.
Winning your conference, earning a top seed, or securing a first-round home game would still carry real weight. The stakes wouldn’t disappear; they’d shift.
Early round games played on campus sites would also bring major playoff moments to places that rarely get them - college towns like South Bend in December 2024, wink, wink - where the whole community rallies around a team.
Many of these athletes who turn pro will play their most important games in blustery climes with snow, and colder temperatures, so what’s the fuss about playing in domed neutral stadiums in the early rounds?
This is good for local economies and the spirit of the game.
Some critics will say expansion means “too many games.” But if you remove conference championships, you’re not necessarily adding more total games, you’re redistributing them in a way that actually makes more sense.
