Andy Staples is an unabashed fan of playoff expansion, and more power to him for that. I am a little bit amused by his recent enthusiastic piece on the resurrection of the 12-team format ($$). Here’s how he characterizes the original proposal, which became tainted by its association with history’s greatest monster, Greg Sankey:
The original plan called for the automatic bids to go to the six highest-ranked conference champs regardless of the autonomy status conferred upon them by the NCAA. It was admittedly a more elegant solution that ignored major college football’s caste system and provided a better chance for less financially robust leagues to put teams in the CFP.
But something, something, Texas, Oklahoma, trust destroyed intervened. And now we get the latest version of football’s greatest invention since white bread. Here’s how Staples sees everybody winning now:
… It might be worth it to Sankey to try to horse trade approval of the compromise in exchange for a smoother exit for his league’s 15th and 16th members.
If that happened …
• The SEC would get something it wants (more at-larges and maybe Oklahoma and Texas sooner).
• The Big 12 would definitely get one thing it needs (legislated legitimacy) and probably something else it needs (a better TV deal than it would have gotten).
• The Big Ten would get something it wants (conference champions getting most favored nation status and more at-larges).
• The ACC would get something it needs (a guaranteed spot for when the league is down) and something it could use later (more at-larges for when 2016 happens again).
• The Pac-12 would get something it needs (a guaranteed spot).
• The Group of 5 leagues would get something they need (a guaranteed spot in the Playoff, which is not as good for them as the original proposal but is much better than what they get now).
If you missed consideration for “the best”, or even “the deserving”, you’re not alone. Money doesn’t care about any of that. The P5 will slap this together, throw in the obligatory praise about helping the kids, move on and collect the checks.
And anyone who thinks the carousel is going to stop at twelve is seriously deluding themselves. Expansion will only end when there’s nobody willing to pay more for it. But y’all enjoy the brackets!
Get The Picture 
They are going to NASCAR this sport to death: expand the viewership so hard until no one watches anymore.
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Yup. it’s just like NASCAR and Major League Baseball, too – people who like NASCAR and who like baseball are going to watch NASCAR and baseball. The people who don’t like NASCAR and baseball are never going to watch NASCAR and baseball. But if you screw up NASCAR and baseball trying to appeal to people who don’t like either sport, you alienate the people who do.
College football will never appeal to professional football fans in the major east coast and west coast markets. No matter what they do, the power of the sport is going to be concentrated in the southeastern US. Put in as many playoff slots as you want, the SEC and ACC are still going to kick everyone else’s asses on balance.
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I hate this. I hate everything about this. Four has been good. 8 would be great. 12 is the one step too far that spoils everything.
There are no 12 teams good enough to make the playoff, and we’ll see very quickly how this become the “SEC Show” where all the SEC Wild Cards almost always win their games in the first round which will necessitate MORE rule changes.
With a 5+1+2 model, you’ll almost always get a second SEC Team and the years where Notre Dame actually deserves to make it, they’ll be in, too. Yeah, many years giving automatic bids to the Pac-12 or Big-12 will be seen as a waste, but guess what? Sometimes the “worst” team actually wins the whole damn thing.
Just ask the Braves.
Sankey isn’t just wrong here; he’s wrong and greedy, and he’s about to completely ruin his conference’s regular season and championship game because of his greed. Fuck that guy.
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They’re all stupid and greedy.
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I just can’t think of any year where there were 12 deserving teams. I’ll watch and I’ll love attending a playoff game at Sanford but I imagine it’ll be 20 years before a 12 seed wins it all.
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Oh. You think there will be home games? Bless your heart.
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I think that they will have to have home games in order to sell season tickets within the next 10 years.
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The current 12 team proposal has the play-in games on campus hosted by the higher seed.
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I can’t think of any year when there are 4 deserving teams. At most I can remember 3 but those are really strange outliers. Pick the top 2 after the bowls and have at it.
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One thing they’ve left out: what system gives you the best method by which to monetize a unique and desirable way to gamble? That’s the wave of the future and how the TV contracts are going to remain lucrative as cord-cutting removes the subsidization of live sports by non-fans.
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I’m really happy that Georgia is so good in one of the last legitimate college football seasons. Really, really happy.
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They may go to 12 this year just to f us
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Time to strike up the “meaningless playoff games” talk. I mean, that’s killing the bowls and causing kids to sit out games, right?
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You posted about the NCAA changes coming where conferences would be given more autonomy. Those changes would allow for the top schools to form their own playoff by more realignment to get to P4 instead of P5.
That possibility has to scare the Group of 5, PAC, and Big12, and that will get them to agree to the modified 12 team playoff.
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Strength of P&L for the win!
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Honestly, why does anyone even care about the Group of 5? Most of the semifinal games (not all) have been straight blowouts, and all the defeated teams were programs with equal resources, access to players etc. Adding the Gof5 to the mix because “equity” is just stupid. It’s not the Mini NFL, and all programs and conferences are not created equal. Should we hold a spot for the Ivy champ? The service academies? IT’S NOT FAIR FOR THE BIG MEAN PROGRAMS TO GET ALL THE SPOTS!
I don’t give a rats ass about getting 4 or 5 SEC teams in a playoff. That’s what the regular season is for. 4 is fine, there’s rarely a football argument for the 5th team v the 4th team, just more but but but muh give the poor schools a chance! If the Pac12 doesn’t want to be an afterthought, play better. WHY AREN’T ANY SEC SCHOOLS IN THE NCAA WATER POLO TOURNAMENT? is about the same level of stupid question as why not give the group of 5 a chance? To do what? Get blown out and cash a big check?
Of course Andy wants more games. He gets paid to cover games, write about games, theorize about games. What else would he say? He’s a good dude whose work I enjoy, mostly, but this WE NEED MORE is stupid. We don’t. CFB has never been more popular. Screw Disney. Leave us be.
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