Well, it looks like the 24-team playoff is about to happen (and possibly as early as next year).

However, it appears that the conference title games might be going away, which makes very little sense, imo.

You can keep the title games AND still do the 24-team playoff without any issues.

It's an easy fix, and I even mentioned it last year in a similar thread.

Start by rewarding the 8 teams that make the P4 conference championships with byes, no matter record. However, only guarantee a home game for the winners. A title game loser might still have to play a road game, depending on their final ranking.

You would then have the 16 teams that were at home during Championship Saturday play the following week on the campuses of the higher seeds.

Those winners would then play the 8 teams with byes the next week on the higher seed's campus, and then the Final 8 would continue play around New Year's.

It amazes me how none of these TV execs or conference heads can figure this out.

Guess we'll see how it all plays out soon enough.

Of the final four teams in 2025, only one played in their conference championship.
Indiana--won the Big 10 Championship
Oregon, Miami, and Ole Miss took a week off--and made a deep run.

Ouch.

The loser of the conference championship game is 9-14 (.391 win percentage) in the College Football Playoffs from the 2014/15 season through the 2025/26 season.

This stat throws a massive wrench in your plan to keep the championship game.

For the record, I am a big fan of the conference championship being round one of the playoff and nobody else gets in. Only winners need apply.

El Oso said:

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Nope. You still punish the teams that play in the conference championship because they play in an extra game.

You really don't have to go back far to see this game costs teams. In 2024, no team that played in a conference championship made the national championship game (Ohio St. v Notre Dame).

Yes, Indiana did win last year and play in the conference championship, but Miami did not. That's three of the last four final two teams that did not play in their conference championship.

It looks like that time off comes in handy.

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Those teams would not play an extra game.

All teams would only play a max of 5 games to win the title.

Title game participant: Title Game, 2nd Round, Qtrs, Semi, Final

Non-Title game participants: 1st Round, 2nd Round, Qtrs, Semi, Final

If anything, you are giving the title game participants an edge, as they'd only need to win one game to make the Qtrs.

The other teams would have to win 2 games in a row to make the Qtrs (one of which likely being a road game).

I may have miscounted games, but it is still a deadly game for your chances to win it all if you lose the conference championship using 12 years of data.

If I just need to be a top 24 team, I'm taking my chances finishing 3-5 in conference, especially if I am in the SEC where 9 teams are in the top 24 right now (so I could finish in ninth place and still make the playoffs). The Big 10 and Big 12 aren't behind with 5 each in the current top 24.

That's 19 of 24 teams from three conferences if the current top 24 were the model for a 24 team playoff.

And this year is not that far off from last year's final top 24 with 7 SEC, 5 Big 10, and 4 Big 12.

I'll make things simple.

Would you rather win 4 playoff games to be champ?

Or would you rather roll the dice 5 times?

Given those options, I'll gladly take Option A - Especially if it means winning just one home game at McLane to earn a trip to New Orleans on New Year's Day.

Leave it up to the SEC and Big Ten, and they'll ensure that 2 Big XII Teams NEVER earn a bye in a given season.

Rewarding the 8 title game participants is fair and still adds significant value to the regular season.

I'd rather only winners be in the playoffs. If you aren't a conference champion, you don't belong. Period.

The playoffs are a money grabbing system.

And the data say you are dead wrong to choose the option you are choosing. The losing team in the conference championship absolutely sucks when they play in the CFP.

That may have been true under the old format.

But we're going away from that model and moving to games on campus.

That is a huge advantage that didn't exist previously.

If I'm not mistaken, 6 of the 8 teams have won at home since the playoff games started taking place on campus.

Now everyone will have to win at least one campus game before getting to a neutral site (and some will have to win on the road in back-to-back weeks).

That can't be overlooked.

It did exist and it isn't a huge advantage. Last year, team's playing on their home field were 2-2. I'd call that no statistical advantage.

Oregon beat James Madison
Ole Miss beat Tulane
Aggies lost to Miami
Oklahoma lost to Bama

El Oso said:

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It did exist and it isn't a huge advantage. Last year, team's playing on their home field were 2-2. I'd call that no statistical advantage.

Oregon beat James Madison
Ole Miss beat Tulane
Aggies lost to Miami
Oklahoma lost to Bama

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And you conveniently left out that all 4 home teams won the year prior.

Plus, if we're being honest, OU shouldn't have even made the CFP last year (Notre Dame should have been in the CFP instead).

As for Aggy - we'll, they're gonna Aggy.

In the 4-0 year you point to:
SMU lost the ACC championship (losers of this game are horrible in CFP)
Tennessee should not have even been in the playoffs. They finished third in the SEC.
Indiana did win the Big 10 and I thought they played well. ND won.
I was at the Clemson v Texas game. Clemson was not good. If Miami had not bombed against Syracuse, they would not have been in the playoffs.

So, you have one good team and three bad teams in the four teams that lost. It's not a good data set to point to when you dig into what happened.

If you can point to one team that shouldn't have been in last year, I can point to three in the year you use (SMU, Tennessee, Clemson).

The conference championship games have never been more than shameless money grabs anyway.

If these leagues wanted their conference championships to mean anything, they'd have never grown to 16 schools in the first place, making it all but impossible to crown a legitimate champion because of strength of schedule discrepancies and ridiculous tiebreaker rules.

The 24-team playoff is going to be awesome. Losing the conference title games is a small price to pay for a the first satisfying postseason format in the history of Division I college football.

LTBear19 said:

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I'll make things simple.

Would you rather win 4 playoff games to be champ?

Or would you rather roll the dice 5 times?

Given those options, I'll gladly take Option A - Especially if it means winning just one home game at McLane to earn a trip to New Orleans on New Year's Day.

Leave it up to the SEC and Big Ten, and they'll ensure that 2 Big XII Teams NEVER earn a bye in a given season.

Rewarding the 8 title game participants is fair and still adds significant value to the regular season.

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I'd rather never play a conference championship game. My preference is that we get back to 10 team conferences with historical and geographic connections. (I'm dreaming). That would make a conference championship game unnecessary AND it might help some teams (Arkansas, Nebraska, Aggies) make the playoffs.

These scenarios never consider that they are adding extra hits on these guys heads. We should consider the future health of the student athlete. Before I hear, they're getting paid now, two things stand out. 1. Congress is looking to cap what a university can pay (not coach) and 2. Not all student athletes make "a lot" of money. Most of them don't. They still practice hard and prepare. An extra tackle on special teams, an extra hitting practice matters.

They won't mind. We should for them.

IowaBear said:

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This is being done to get more B10/SEC teams into the playoffs. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't paying attention. More is not always better.
12 was fine.

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It's 100% their party. We're invited to cater it.

"May I get you another big shrimp, Iowa?"

We should just make the whole season one long playoff. And at the end, the best two teams can play for a championship. We can replace the committee with an AI ranking systems that will use advanced analytics to determine the best two teams. We can call in the big computer system (or BCS for short)

Would hate to miss the chance of seeing the classic conference champion of Arizona vs West Virginia.

Conference already lost their meaning, I don't see why the championships are still needed.

ron.reagan said:

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Would hate to miss the chance of seeing the classic conference champion of Arizona vs West Virginia.

Conference already lost their meaning, I don't see why the championships are still needed.

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Jonesing for the day Rutgers plays Illinois or SMU Cal. Love these rivalries.

If in Arkansas or Nebraska, I'm calling big 12 and inquiring about membership. They may make more money in their conference but their brand? Watered down and buried in their conference.

Nebraska played Indiana last week and the only reason it got eyes is because side Indiana broke through. I can't remember the last Arkansas game I cared about. Basketball against Baylor?

This is great for us. We just need to be in the top 4 of the league and we get into the tourney. We could potentially make it in next year if DJ progresses and Dave retools the lines for next year.

News broke on Thursday that the CFP would be expanded to 24 teams in 2027.

That's great for #Baylor's chances of making the playoff, does that kill the storied tradition of college football?

STORY:https://t.co/Oe1XqUyDBN pic.twitter.com/tfLkV8BYAw

— Baylor Bears On SI (@BaylorBearsOnSI) October 16, 2026

I guess SI agrees with me.

Love the 24 teams!

Now pass the Save College sports legislation as well and we can hopefully return to some form of sanity!

LTBear19 said:

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Well, it looks like the 24-team playoff is about to happen (and possibly as early as next year).

However, it appears that the conference title games might be going away, which makes very little sense, imo.

You can keep the title games AND still do the 24-team playoff without any issues.

It's an easy fix, and I even mentioned it last year in a similar thread.

Start by rewarding the 8 teams that make the P4 conference championships with byes, no matter record. However, only guarantee a home game for the winners. A title game loser might still have to play a road game, depending on their final ranking.

You would then have the 16 teams that were at home during Championship Saturday play the following week on the campuses of the higher seeds.

Those winners would then play the 8 teams with byes the next week on the higher seed's campus, and then the Final 8 would continue play around New Year's.

It amazes me how none of these TV execs or conference heads can figure this out.

Guess we'll see how it all plays out soon enough.

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I think they can figure it out. The problem is not wanting to give up the bowl games.

Especially the big ones (New Years 6) that they can charge more advertising for (back when it was just bowl games or now that they are part of the playoffs). Even the minor bowl games still get good enough viewership to charge slightly higher and space than their regular shows.

They just have to figure out that the bowl format is going to have to change. You cannot have both a playoff and the old bowl system. Just like the Rose Bowl will have to let go of tradition if it wants to stay relevant and understand it cannot be played on new years day every year.

If they really want to increase profits they need to go with home games until the semi finals. Fans won't be able to travel multiple weeks in a row year after year.

Look, the only thing that never changes is that change will always happen.As a southerner, I'm over the Civil War, as a Baptist, I got over no hymns, as a grateful Boomer, living with WWII and Hitler documentaries all my life, I've seen enough, so…college football evolves and will continue to.
It's still football, you'll pick a team or teams to follow, and football season will continue to be great.

IowaBear said:

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This is being done to get more B10/SEC teams into the playoffs. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't paying attention. More is not always better.
12 was fine.

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Agreed.

I posted this in another thread talking about the playoff but.....

IF you took the rankings right now it would be:

SEC- Georgia, Ala, TX, Ol Miss, Miz, Tenn, Kentucky, Mississippi State, LSU (9)
Big 10- OSU, Indiana, UCLA, Iowa, USC (5)
Big 12- Utah, BYU, OSU, Houston, Tech (5)
ACC- Mia, SMU, Wake (3)
Ind- ND
G6- Boise State

That is going to change as they keep playing each other and the season goes on. As soon as some of the teams (Big 12 or ACC) lose a game they will drop a ton, maybe even out of the rankings. And the SEC teams will probably hang around because their loss is a "quality" loss opening up the possibility for a 3 loss or even 4 loss team next year to make the playoffs.

Bingo. All this is doing is positioning those 2 leagues to get 8 plus in rather regularly. There's also B12 will benefit in a sense that they'll get more than 1 team in. But I'm struggling to see how 4 plus B12 teams ever get in.

Let's just do away with conferences and have a 64-team playoff!

Timbear said:

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Look, the only thing that never changes is that change will always happen.As a southerner, I'm over the Civil War, as a Baptist, I got over no hymns, as a grateful Boomer, living with WWII and Hitler documentaries all my life, I've seen enough, so…college football evolves and will continue to.
It's still football, you'll pick a team or teams to follow, and football season will continue to be great.

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Hitler didn't even try to expand the college playoffs

LTBear19 said:

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Well, it looks like the 24-team playoff is about to happen (and possibly as early as next year).

However, it appears that the conference title games might be going away, which makes very little sense, imo.

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It makes perfect sense. Because conference championships have become virtually meaningless. It's all about opinion poll driven rankings and prestige.

It's not a playoff. Never will be until it is based on conference championships. And that will likely never happen, so we will go through the never-ending process of "fixing" a fake playoff system that was never going to work.

Timbear said:

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Look, the only thing that never changes is that change will always happen.As a southerner, I'm over the Civil War, as a Baptist, I got over no hymns, as a grateful Boomer, living with WWII and Hitler documentaries all my life, I've seen enough, so…college football evolves and will continue to.
It's still football, you'll pick a team or teams to follow, and football season will continue to be great.

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I don't like how much I've been agreeing with you lately. Haha.

It's like liking Ron DeSantis' tweets on AI. I do it, but it just feels weird.

cowboycwr said:

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IowaBear said:

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This is being done to get more B10/SEC teams into the playoffs. Anyone who thinks otherwise isn't paying attention. More is not always better.
12 was fine.

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Agreed.

I posted this in another thread talking about the playoff but.....

IF you took the rankings right now it would be:

SEC- Georgia, Ala, TX, Ol Miss, Miz, Tenn, Kentucky, Mississippi State, LSU (9)
Big 10- OSU, Indiana, UCLA, Iowa, USC (5)
Big 12- Utah, BYU, OSU, Houston, Tech (5)
ACC- Mia, SMU, Wake (3)
Ind- ND
G6- Boise State

That is going to change as they keep playing each other and the season goes on. As soon as some of the teams (Big 12 or ACC) lose a game they will drop a ton, maybe even out of the rankings. And the SEC teams will probably hang around because their loss is a "quality" loss opening up the possibility for a 3 loss or even 4 loss team next year to make the playoffs.

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I think we'll see a similar standard to what we've seen in the 12-team playoff. As a member of the SEC -- and to a lesser extent, the Big Ten -- you'll get a one-loss "strength of schedule" cushion. But they're not going to put 8-4 or 7-5 Power 2 teams in over 10-2 or 9-3 Big 12 and SEC teams.

The Power 2 leagues will get some benefit of the doubt, and they should based on the depth/quality of the teams in them. But you'll still have to be good to make the playoff field, and that's a good thing. You shouldn't get in if you're not.

IowaBear said:

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Bingo. All this is doing is positioning those 2 leagues to get 8 plus in rather regularly. There's also B12 will benefit in a sense that they'll get more than 1 team in. But I'm struggling to see how 4 plus B12 teams ever get in.

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I think four Big 12 teams will get in most years. With a 16-school roster and wildly disparate schedule strengths inside the league, the Big 12 will almost always have at least four teams with three or fewer losses. Those types of records usually equate to rankings between 11-21. It's going to be virtually impossible to squeeze solid top-20 teams out of the CFP rankings entirely.

I think the Power 2 will account for somewhere between 13-15 spots most years, and that's fine. That's nine to 11 spots for other deserving teams -- most of which have had no access whatsoever in the four- and 12-team playoff formats.

If you want to improve your access from there, there's a simple way to do it. Win early-round games when you have the opportunity to against SEC and Big Ten also-rans.