The 2024 season was the first year with the new 12-team College Football Playoff, and there are talks about expanding even more. The seeding format last season wasn’t a favorite, so changes are coming soon. The playoff could grow to 14 teams as early as 2026.
Josh Pate on Automatic Qualifiers
The expansion talks lie in the hands of the conferences and their commissioners, with the Big Ten and SEC being the big players.
On Feb. 20, CFB analyst Josh Pate discussed the future of the playoff on his “College Football Show.” He touched upon the field being expanded to 14 or 16 teams but mentioned how the real debate should be about how to seed them.
As he put it, one popular idea among fans is to simply take the top 14 or 16 teams based on rankings and put them in the playoff. No automatic spots for conference champions, just the best teams. But Pate thinks the better idea might be to give the automatic spots to conference winners.
“I’ve decided that’s not what I think is best,” Pate said. “I’ll take any of it. I’ll have to take something immunity, but I come down on the side that I think the automatic qualifier format is pretty substantially what will make for the best product for college football moving forward.”
He said that if the playoff just takes the top teams, big conferences like the SEC might not feel the need to play tougher schedules. They might just take on easier schedules, which could hurt the competition.
But if the tickets are given to conference champions, it would push the teams to play tougher, more competitive out-of-conference games. This way, along with the big conferences, even the smaller ones get a chance at the big time.
“Pretty much what it would look like is, let’s say you got 14 teams, each conference has a certain allotment of teams they know they’re going to have in,” Pate added.
“SEC and Big 10 would have four a piece. You know the ACC would have two a piece, or the Big 12 would have two a piece. The G5 would be guaranteed one. Notre Dame, if they’re in the top 14, they’re guaranteed a spot, that sort of thing,” he continued.
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Pate said that he wasn’t very keen on the idea previously but has come around to it, and the aforementioned school of thought would make the CFP better for everyone.
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