My Utopian Vision for College Football (aka, 16-team playoff please)

The four-team college football playoff is great and wonderful, but it is also unsustainable.

As a college football fan, the fact we have a true national champion after decades of “mythical” national champions is worth celebrating. Still, there’s a lingering feeling that the system could still be better.

The most pressing concern is the simple fact that five does not fit into four, which means a Power Five conference is left out. Compound that by the inclusion of Notre Dame and the complete impossibility for an undefeated Group of Five team (hi UCF) to make the playoff renders the entire exercise a bit absurd.

How can teams be compared if Notre Dame plays a different schedule than everyone else? What’s the point for Group of Five conference teams, who are essentially eliminated every year before a single game is played?

The recent discussion on expanding the playoff have focused on “fixes” that would make the problem worse. Moving to six teams or eight teams creates more problems than it solves.

So what’s the answer? For years, I have been a proponent of a 16-team playoff. Developments in recent years have only strengthened my belief that’s the future of college football because it would be very, very easy to get there and very, very financially beneficial to all involved.

Without further ado, let’s visit the utopian future of college football.

No Conference Championship Games

Since its creation in 1992, the conference championship game has been a money grab. It’s not crowing a “true” champion in any sense of the word. In 2016, Ohio State gladly missed the Big Ten Championship Game and cruised into the playoff, while Penn State beat Ohio State, won the conference title, and missed the playoff. In the Big 12, a round-robin season is mitigated by an extra game in the championship game that will always be a rematch.

Let’s end the charade. The conference championship game is officially meaningless and needs to go. Don’t worry, conferences will be rewarded handsomely for doing so.

Everyone Plays 13 Games