Jim Henry: Shorter schedule should accompany expanded playoffs
Jun. 12—NCAA Division I may finally be catching up.
Catching up, that is, with NCAA Division II, NCAA Division III and the Football Championship Series when it comes to football playoffs.
Some how, some way, these three groups along with the NAIA and junior colleges have placed teams on a bracket and played games for multiple weeks until a national champion was crowned. and even with playoff games every weekend, the players still managed to take all their final examinations.
Even after COVID-19 played havoc or canceled non-Division I schedules last fall, the FCS still conducted a playoff this spring, and the junior college playoffs ended last Sunday. Through the years the playoff field has varied from four to 32 teams.
But the FBS — mainly the NCAA Division I power-5 conferences — have had a four-team playoff since 2014 determined by rankings made by a selection committee. The non-playoff teams along with teams from other Division I leagues were then assigned to fill spots in a seemingly endless list of bowl games.
But there may be change on the horizon.
On Thursday, a sub-group of College Football Playoff's management committee presented a proposal to change the playoff format from four teams to 12 teams. The bracket would be filled by the six highest-ranked conference champions and the next six highest-ranked teams as determined by the CFP selection committee.
There would be no automatic berths and no limit on teams from a conference. So the rest of the country is thinking that this opens the door for a six-loss SEC team to make the playoffs.
With 12 teams, the top four seeds would receive first-round byes, and the other eight would be paired by seeds — No. 5 seed vs. No. 12, 6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9.
Looking at the Power-5, the SEC, Big Ten and Pac-12 all have divisions for football. So their conference champions would be determined in a matchup of division winners.
But the Big 12 (10 teams) and ACC (15 teams counting Notre Dame, which played league schools in 2020) will have to decide if their conference champions are determined by regular-season champions or a game between the top-two finishers.
By the way, Notre Dame would be wise to remain in the ACC for football. The Irish likely have a better shot at the postseason as a league member instead of an independent.
A big reason the FBS has had just four teams is player safety with so many games, but an expanded field would throw those concerns out the window.
As an example, let's say Oklahoma beats Texas in the Big 12 Conference championship game. The Sooners likely would get a top-4 seed and a bye while Texas makes the field as a lower seed, perhaps No. 7. Then if the Longhorns beat the No. 10 team in the first week, then the No. 2 seed, then the No. 3 seed, the national championship game will be their fifth of the postseason and 17th in all.
Seventeen, as in the same number of games for NFL teams in 2020.
One way to shorten the college football regular season is to drop a nonconference game, but the Power-5 schools don't want to lose money generated from a home game. and the conferences don't want to drop their championship game because it's a bigger money maker.
It's time for the FBS to put more teams in the playoffs, but this shouldn't be done at the risk of player safety.
Follow Sports Editor Jim Henry on Twitter at @Jim_Henry53.
