Dan Wetzel is concerned that college football is broken because the same teams keep showing up in that national championship room. Dan Wetzel, being playoff expansion’s biggest hammer, sees that as nothing more than another nail, which is only to be expected.
Expand the College Football Playoff
This might seem counterintuitive, especially in a season where there may only be two great teams (Clemson and Alabama), but while adding schools to the playoff might not alter the immediate result of who raises the trophy, it should greatly impact the future.
Dan throws a few other options in to give his expansion push a little balance, but it’s not hard to know where his counterintuitive heart lives.
Meanwhile, Dennis Dodd is just asking: Why have College Football Playoff games, in general, not been close?
He, too, goes all counterintuitive on our collective ass.
On the surface, the blowout nature of the CFP would argue against expansion. More (and probably lesser) teams aren’t going to make the CFP more competitive. But for some, anything is better than watching Alabama and Clemson again. If both win their semifinal games, they would meet for the fifth time in the seven years of the playoff.
Are things more interesting if Cincinnati and Texas A&M are in the mix this year?
I think we know the answer to that, Dennis.
Look, you guys are jaded and bored. I get it. But if you really want a more competitive postseason, you have to increase parity in the sport. The most direct way to do that is to reduce the 85-man scholarship limit. Let me know when you get Dabo and Saban on board for that. Until then, the cream will keep rising, no matter how big a cup you pour it in.
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UPDATE: Let’s hear it for one college football writer who gets it.
What often gets categorized as a Notre Dame problem is actually a major college football problem. A tiny group of teams have bolted away from the field simply because they are accumulating far more talent than their competitors.
The elite high school players are clustering at a small number of schools and creating an almost insurmountable gap between the very best and the rest.
That is something a sixteen-team playoff isn’t going to fix.
Get The Picture 
An expansion of the playoffs could only be more interesting with season/career-ending injuries to key players such as that sailor named Lawrence. Otherwise the #8 team will get the shit beat out of ’em worse than the #4 team does now. Just as the only interesting guns are accurate guns, the only interesting games are competitive games.
Unless, of course, it’s a GAU-8 chewing up enemy tanks or the Dawgs laying a beatdown on any orange team. That’s always worth watching.
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Hey soldier, lots of guns and tanks, but what about the fighters and tankers! NKAWTG! lol.
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As a A-10 guy of over 10 years, I love that analogy! I got love for the tankers now too. Warheads on foreheads and always GO DAWGS!
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So, no matter what the problem is the solution is to expand the playoffs?
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Wetzel’s been like that as long as I’ve been reading him.
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Reading that crap over a long period of time can’t be good for the digestive system…
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Or your grey matter.
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Next is the…”but March Madness !” citation (it’s probably in the articles I’m about to glance at). I’m not going to go look it up, but I’m fairly certain there has always been an exponentially greater chance of large upsets in basketball rather than football. 85 man rosters in an 11 on 11 sport is a way different animal than 5 vs 5. I would however like to see an undefeated Group of 5 team get beat down just to settle this debate.
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Hang in there for 24hrs. and your wish will come true.
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If the omniscience columnist, commentators, and Kirk Herbstret needs something everyday, get rid of the playoffs. Go back to the days when three or four sets of fans could argue until the following New Year about who was really champion.
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Great NT matchups, and everyone can claim an NC, and it doesnt matter. Thats the thing – it doenst matter. Bobby Bowden, and I think with Richt, “do you feel any different today? No, just back to work”.
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New Years, NY
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So now it’s about the name of the Team on the Jersey… competitive games don’t matter, just that ESPN and all sports media outlets need to see anybody different at the top, competitiveness be damned. Just like politics, sheep are going to follow the herd, and swallow whatever BS gets thrown at us by those that control the ink pen. Quite sad.
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“There are only four programs capable of winning a national championship, so we have to be sure that eight programs get to play for it every year.”
Makes sense.
The regular season has ALWAYS been the playoff for college football. That is a huge piece of the puzzle that has made the sport so special. We’ve diluted that with the four-team playoff, but it’s still the case. Alabama is only team with an unblemished argument for the championship – MAYBE Ohio State if you’re going to be as charitable about their lack of games as the Big Ten was – every other team in the country lost in the regular season playoff or they failed to compile a resume with impressive wins. Cincinnati does not deserve a national title shot. Coastal Carolina does not deserve a national title shot. Whoever the tallest midget in the Pac 12 was does not deserve a national title shot, and the Big 12 champ certainly does not. The playoff is big enough already. Leave it alone.
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One other point, the NCAA Basketball Tournament is 68 teams if you include the “Opening Round” games, and there are a whole lot of coaches who want to expand it further because they want the job security that they believe making a watered down tournament would bring. Every year on Selection Sunday, there are coaches who bitch and moan about how their team was “snubbed” – as if failing to make a 68 team field in a sport where you earn automatic entry simply by winning your conference’s tournament can be considered a “snub.” College basketball only matters to people for four days a year, the first two rounds. Don’t take the most wonderful sport in the country and make it into NCAA Basketball.
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Oregon would have been very good this year. I think corona hurt them the most. Between the PAC-12 decisions, and lack of west coast football love. Their program got hit in the gut. Beat Bama good? maybe not, but beat a ND good? I think so.
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“Are things more interesting if Cincinnati and Texas A&M are in the mix this year?” Yes they should have been in and Ohio State and Notre Dame out.
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“A tiny group of teams have bolted away from the field simply because they are accumulating far more talent than their competitors”. If you want teams to be competitive you have to distribute the talent – What we need is a college draft of the high school players. This goes hand in glove with paying players; no amateurism but paid employees. You wouldn’t have signing day but something bigger and better!
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oh man. Where on earth does one even begin.
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The players’ union will never agree to a draft (and Nick Saban, Kirby Smart, Dabo Swinney, Ryan Day and others won’t either).
“With the first pick in the college football draft, the Vanderbilt Commodores select Trevor Lawrence, QB, Cartersville, Georgia.”
Ain’t going to happen.
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You just aren’t thinking BIG enough. This could totally remake the field. In fact, you could go further – instead of scholarships make the players sign a 4 year contract – with the opportunity for the school to trade or dismiss (with owed pay). Would stop the processing of players / greyshirting etc. – I think I’m on something here – er, onto something 😎
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Only problem with that is top players from GA and the rest of the South won’t go to touchdown Jesus to play in freezing weather.
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We’ll have 8 soon enough. It’ll be exciting for a minute. Then people will realize their regular schedules become meaningless after they take a loss, certainly 2, rivalry games loose flavor, bowl games become even more of a joke, if that was even possible. And their won’t be any putting humpty back together again.
Everything creeps. It takes good character to overcome that in your own personal life, so, when it comes to the 2 things driving this: TV and Vegas, there is no stopping it.
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We’ll have 8 when Mickey or Fox is willing to stroke the check for 8. It won’t be Vegas, the Group of 5 or even competitive balance. It will be about advertising rates and cable subscriber fees.
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Mickey would shit a brick if certain NBA franchises didn’t make the playoffs this year and many of those are getting there by having 2-4 players decide they want to form a “super-team.”
But it’s bad when high school football recruits decide to do the same?
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Just say NO to expansion. But it’s coming. So one possible if however remote benefit could be that some top talent sees one of the underdog programs routinely make the CFP and decides to go there to be “The Man” instead of be warehoused by Saban for a year or 3. For example, put Lawrence at TAMU (or us!) this year with even just a 6 team playoff and you might have the potential for an upset over Bama or Clemson. I’m not suggesting that scenario dilutes down to Cincy or Coastal Carolina, but it maybe opens up chances for a few more teams each year than the top cartel we have now.
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I think the new transfer rules and perhaps the NIL changes will lead to changes in the make up of the top 4 — or at least give more opportunities for others to join. I don’t think they will go back to expansion conversation until 2023
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