Stewart Mandel’s logic ($$) escapes me here:
I will continue to shout this from the rooftop: Four teams is plenty sufficient to crown a national champion.
What I failed to anticipate, and what ultimately drove me to change my stance on expansion, is the way a small number of teams, nearly all of them from the same region, have come to dominate the CFP, which itself has come to dominate the sport. It’s negatively impacting national interest in the sport (as evidenced by the two lowest-rated title games coming in the past two seasons) and turning what should be the crescendo of the season into largely an anticlimactic letdown, especially with so many semifinal blowouts and the diminished prestige of the other New Year’s Six bowls.
No Playoff format is going to change which teams dominate the sport, or the scores of the semifinals, but making it a more inclusive event should keep more fan bases in all parts of the country invested in the entire season and restore importance. You’ll very likely get some entertaining early-round games where the teams are more evenly matched and you’ll restore importance to the bowls hosting those games. And believe it or not, you may actually find yourself less bothered by an Alabama-Georgia title game since the teams had to win multiple Playoff games to get there.
I mean, in the vast scheme of things, it’s irrelevant, because the suits chasing expansion are only doing it for the money. But just because I won’t waste any time getting worked up over his reasoning doesn’t mean it’s not incredibly dumb. I mean, a Georgia-Alabama game will be more credible if they blow out two teams instead of one along the way? Who thinks like that?
Get The Picture 
I think you know he’s anticipating early-round games among schools not from the South. Like, ND-Pitt, for example, from this year.
I’m not saying he’s right or that you’re wrong, but at least address his real point fairly. Would having early-round games among non-South schools be more competitive and/or create more national interest?
(And yeah, creating more national interest is a worthy goal, because it is absolutely waning. Living in a different part of the country, I can see that the NFL is killing CFB right now.)
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College football’s strength has always been its regional appeal. Watering that down is a fool’s errand.
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I agree, but I do see the value of it appealing to more than one region. As far as making the Georgia-Alabama final more more credible, that seems dubious to me. But the other point he makes, keeping fans of other regions and other teams engaged in the regular season longer, I can buy that. And eventually there will be a team that breaks through. That for me is a bug, rather than a feature, but I understand why Mickey would like for hope to spring eternal.
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We have plenty of fools making the decisions.
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Maybe so, but the appeal level turns into something more like lacrosse or college hockey when the relevant regions are whittled down to one, IMO.
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I doubt the Big House will only be 20% full when Michigan plays Ohio State if playoff expansion doesn’t happen. The question is whether the sport needs this change to grow viewership in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
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What Mr. Montana is saying to cheerlead for expansion is what everyone at The Athletic is saying. We need expansion not because there are more than 4 teams who typically are worthy but we want good games in December.
The CFP has sucked the life out of the CFB post-season especially the non-playoff bowl games (opt outs, ticket sales, etc.).
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They’re not wrong.
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So let’s suck the life out of the regular season too!
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When we’re two 6-6 teams in the Idaho Potato Bowl ever going to be exciting. Boring, low attendance, low rating bowls are because…boring, not the CFP.
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Now explain the falling attendance, ratings and op-outs of the non-playoff NY6.
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Remember when you couldn’t get a ticket to a Nascar race??!! They forgot their core audience and now they are screwed. I can see this happening to college FB. Just damn!!!
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If only there were teams from the non-south in the playoff this year maybe we could assess. Like if a Midwest school with a massive national fan base made it. If that ever happens we could look at the tv numbers from that game.
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Moreover, he cites the low ratings of the last two championship games as evidence of the problem. It’s really too bad that one of those two games didn’t have one of the other Midwest schools with a massive national fanbase in the game.
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The “recruiting dictates results” people have said that better recruiting in other regions of the country is the key to creating more national competition. I’m inclined to agree. It’s good for CFB, in my opinion, if Riley, Sarkisian, and Harbaugh can get their recruiting to the point that they can be competitive with top-tier SEC teams. And that’s probably the only way it will happen.
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It’s just a heavier lift elsewhere. Ohio State can do it, Penn State can do it, Michigan can possibly do it, Notre Dame can possibly do it. Southern California can do it. Outside of those five schools, if you’re not in the South (or Texas), it’s going to be hard to roll that rock up the hill because the local talent just isn’t there. And even the schools with huge fanbases and strong traditions (looking at you, Nebraska!) just don’t seem to have any ability to overcome that. The Huskers are a top five program historically and it’s much easier to get a great class at Mississippi State than it is in Lincoln.
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You two are spot on. The issue of stringing together top 5 recruiting classes outside the SEC vs. ESPN getting more eyeballs on their product are at odds with each other. The two things they want are at odds with each other and any machinations they come up with to try and get more eyeballs aren’t sustainable.
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These goobers truly think an Oregon-at-Wake Forest quarterfinal or whatever would be appointment viewing with national attention, and then would result in these two schools getting monster recruiting classes.
“And believe it or not, you may actually find yourself less bothered by an Alabama-Georgia title game since the teams had to win multiple Playoff games to get there.”
I know, Dawggrading, but it’s hilarious how UGA stuffing Michigan into a body bag has been erased from history.
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Exactly
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“UGA stuffing Michigan in a body bag”. Now that’s funny.
What wouldn’t be funny is watching a Brock Bowers or Nakobe Dean type being hauled off on a gurney in a meaningless blowout to satisfy some shithead’s region envy or to squeeze a few more advertising bucks for Mickey Fuckn Mouse.
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Bama did the same to Cincy yet they think it is a good idea to put these rust belt teams into a first round slaughter house which will some how draw more TV sets but would likely get beat by reruns of Dexter.
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I said near the end of the season that if Cincy made the playoff, it would set the G5 back 10 years. I hope I was right. For the sake of “championships”… the P5 and G5 should be considered different classes of football.
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I agree & wish they would have separate championships
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His problem is that his goal is playoff viewership, not parity.
Also he ignores the fact that the (expanded) 4 team playoff had teams from other regions other than the south this year, and it allegedly tanked. Maybe the problem isn’t regional.
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It’s Mickey’s goal, as well.
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Exactly.
What if this article said “pay the players a flat rate, cap athletic spending and coaches salaries.”
Oh and make bowl games between fcs schools a chance for a 2 year promotion into a big conference.
Now we are talking!
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I mean as Georgia fans we don’t want that. Massive discrepancies in resources got us a natty FTW. BUT if we did care about parity …
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There’s a reason Kirby has the largest recruiting budget in CFB. Care to guess who’s second on that list?
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Cincinnati…?
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Add to Mickey CFB writers and their paymasters. Their revenue goes up with each click. More playoff games greatly increases their clicks. While driving yesterday I channel surfed the sports channels something I rarely do anymore. To my surprise a common theme was a version of all college football fans are demanding playoff expansion. That was breaking news no one in our tailgate group wants expansion. Until yesterday I thought it was just Mickey and the schools. Lesson learned stick to my personal tunes never listen to talking heads.
The ESPN talking heads agreed within five years all playoff eligible schools would be paying players the only question for them was would the amount be equal something similar to the NFL salary cap.
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It’s so annoying to hear the media rope “all the fans” into something completely driven by their own self interest.
JeezH, we had 2 teams from the midwest, one of whom was a Cinderella they’ve been clamoring for and the other a major brand on a long drought….. and they both got boatraced. It was perfectly possible for 2 fresh faces to appear in the final. Just don’t get curbstomped in the semis…. now of course the answer is to move the late REGULAR SEASON drama from the top 8, to teams 12-20. The nation is clamoring on pins and needles to see how TCU and Iowa State perform down the November stretch.
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And the question will be (that never gets asked) –why should I be concerned about viewership? Will college football go away? And how will bad lopsided games increase viewership?
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[….nearly all of them from the same region, have come to dominate the CFP, which itself has come to dominate the sport]
Stewart’s bs narrative is a result of slow season abd cfb hibernation content starvation. But we can run with this a moment, he should round up his rowdy friends & call up the conference commissioners who are too greedy & complacent in their cushy jobs to chase down and gather up the cans they keep kicking down the curb. But when it comes to regionalism, I guess he is saying the CFP is now too exclusionary and that the Southeast section of the US just can’t dominate like this!
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I’ve been trying very hard to understand why the sports media is so in love with playoff expansion. I think it’s because they are looking for more content because more content = more money. They say it’s hard to get man to understand something when he is paid not to understand it.
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If there were 12 teams in the playoff, they could stretch that weekly CFP rankings show to 2 hours!
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With a quick look on the interwebs, all of the big bowl games (with conference champs) ranged between 7.6 – 9 million views except the Rose Bowl which had 16+ million viewers (and was an exciting game with one of CF’s true elite teams). Most of those games featured teams from different regions and that was with a close game featuring “national team” Notre Dame.
The Semifinal games which were around 17 – 19 million viewers. The CFP NCG was 22.6 million viewers.
I’m not sure that sticking a “1 team will advance” will bump those numbers much more. Teams that have huge followings, will typically do well. Teams that don’t, won’t.
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Hey, you know what would make things more inclusive? Let’s just award the NC to a team ftom a different part of the country every year! Why even make them play games? You know the SEC just has too many inherent advantages, other schools with less talented players and fewer resources deserve to feel success, too! Those other schools will ever catch up if we don’t help them overcome the inequitable burdens they face! Think of the children!
Or, maybe they could just quit whining and get to work. Sports is supposed to be the ultimate meritocracy. Or is all we care about now just “TV ratings”? College football is doing fine. Only the people who make money covering it, or whose teams are getting beat because they don’t prioritize it, are complaining. But sure, adding more teams to end up with the same handful in the final four is genius. Nobody will ever notice.
Media people love dynasties, as long as they’re in NY, Chicago, or LA. Let 2 teams from flyover country play for a title (Atlanta v Houston World Series, Milwaukee v Phoenix NBA Final) and they’re all clutching their pearls about ratings, NOBODY WILL WATCH! FTMF. Nobody who loves CFB cares if some slacker in skinny jeans in Brooklyn, or Santa Monica, etc is watching. Leave us alone.
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When you said “whose teams are getting beat because they don’t prioritize it”…… maybe we should start pissing, moaning and demanding changes and pointing fingers at others because Georgia Basketball hasn’t had their fair shake. College basketball would be so much better if the world made it a priority to do anything and everything to get Georgia fans more interested ! Amirite ?!
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Does he not remember that two of the schools in the playoff this year were from Michigan and Ohio? That’s fifty percent of the playoff field that was not from the South. I don’t understand hid logic.
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*his
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Random thought here….
I think the presumption among some proponents of CFP expansion is that people like me oppose expansion merely because we can’t imagine anything more than four teams, and we’re not “used” to it. They think we just want the status quo because it’s the status quo —- we don’t like change, etc. etc.
But let me say this…..
I was born in 1983. And ol’ Google tells me that the 64-game NCAA bball tournament started in 1985. So, I’ve ONLY EVER KNOWN a 64-game tournament. And, you know what? I’ve ALWAYS thought — ever since I was old enough to care about such things, probably early- to mid-teens — that there were TOO MANY teams in the tournament. It’s ridiculous. 64 teams? How can there possible be 64 teams worthy of competing for a national title each year? 16 teams is probably about right. 32, maybe. But 64 is ridiculous.
I know it’s a completely different sport. And, to be clear, I do see some arguments for a very wide field in basketball. Namely that teams can vastly improve during the course of a season, and a wider field gives teams that end the season as great or very good a shot, even if they dropped a lot of early games.
But football is not like that. If you’ve lost three regular season games, guess what, hoss. You are not that great. You don’t deserve to compete for a national title.
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And i think there’s this fetish with tournaments, like the do-or-die path has to be laid out in ink or it’s not legitimate or devoid of drama. How about, tune in the first week of October, MFer and enjoy the show with a puckered sphincter hoping your team doesn’t lose and eliminate you. There’s never going to be enough mulligans for these people who can’t enjoy the game for what it is. They simply don’t understand that if we have 3 losses by November that we still want to beat the fuck out of Auburn or (now) Tennessee because beating the fuck out of Auburn or Tennessee is itself one of several end goals.
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Fix the bowls. Get rid of conference tie-ins and create interesting matchups. Use some of Mickey’s money to pay players a stipend (sounds better than cold, hard cash) to keep them from opting out. Then pick two or four and settle the NC.
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Legitimate question, if the sport was being dominated year in and year out by, say, USC and UCLA would all these media folks be clutching their pearls over the southern cal region’s dominance over the sport? Somehow I think not.
Hell, now in the NIL era, we’d probably wind up with some reality show on MTV starring the USC offensive line living together in one house or something.
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So many excellent arguments here this morning.
The bottom line is that the media wants expansion because that means more eyeballs and more clicks leading to more ad revenue and higher rates.
It’s not the SEC’s fault that the Northeast and the West Coast don’t value college football. I don’t give a damn about the NFL (I’ve never been in a fantasy league even) and don’t expect the NFL to convince me to consume their product.
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Ask the NFL whether expanding the playoffs results in more interesting games. All but two of the six wild-card games were blowouts, a problem that has already been decried at length w/r/t the CFP semis.
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I’ve changed my tune on this over the years. I, for one, would much rather a postseason Pitt game with Kenny Pickett than without. So if expansion decreases the likelihood of the opt-outs, creates more compelling matchups than the bowls, keeps fans from other regions engaged, and has a path for the G5, then I think that is better for the health of the sport as a whole. I fear it will grow beyond 12, however.
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Definitely worked out well for Matt Corral.
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Let’s be honest. It’s Alabama fatigue. If the SEC championship had been close, hadn’t felt like the same old same old, this game would’ve been more highly rated. If we beat them in the SECCG and it’s us vs Michigan in the final, even more so.
What can you do about the GOAT still coaching?
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The 2022 National Championship Game was the highest rated cable event in 2 years.
Don’t let the declining “viewership” numbers due to streaming shake your perception that a hell of a lot of people were interested in this game.
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Was it network programming prior to this?
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“A small number of teams, nearly all of them from the same region, have come to dominate the CFP, which itself has come to dominate the sport. It’s negatively impacting national interest in the sport.” Sod off, tosser. CFB has always had strongly regional appeal, and it’s always been most popular in the Deep South and Rust Belt.
I’ve lived in ten states. In the two in which I grew up, GA and FL, people care deeply about college football. I’ve bounced around between DC and Boston for almost 30 years now and the only people up here who care about it at all are transplants like me who went to an SEC or big integer school (or ND).
And that’s what these promoters of “national” CFB deliberately choose to ignore: If you didn’t grow up with the tradition or attend a school that was part of it, you’re likely going to be only a casual fan at best. Mickey has instructed its stenographers (Dan Wetzel has made similarly illogical arguments) to carry its water in advocating for content expansion and they’ll be content if they can get even short-term increases in ad revenue and clicks. They couldn’t care less if CFB winds up just as watered-down as NASCAR in ten years.
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This was my experience in the Marines. The only people who cared were people from the South(and Texas), Midwest (mainly Ohio and Michigan), a few Californians with some sort of tie to USC (this was when Carroll was there), and a few Northeasterners who were ND fans. This is a large swath of the country but I would see the same guys in the common rooms where the televisions were on AFN.
The NFL was way more popular and people would try to talk to me about the Falcons and I would have to explain to them that I had never been to a Falcons game and hadn’t missed anything as far as I could tell. The NFL is a national sport and is designed to be so. College football is probably best as a national sport but just wait til 6 of the 12 teams are from Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Texas and we’ll likely see a call for further expansion.
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I love the avatar, Siskey. You’ve spent more on spilled drinks in the last year than Stewart Mandel has spent on critical thinking in his entire lifetime. Wooo!
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Siskey, you and Tronan are cracking me up. But your experience is mine also. I was called in one Sunday afternoon by the Provost Marshal who was a friend.
“Brawling in your day room, Russ.”
Racial?
“Worse. Giants and Eagles fans.” Dumbasses throwing plastic chairs like Slick Rick and Dusty Rhodes.
“people from the South(and Texas)”. LMFAO! I know some Texicans who, if they heard that, would let out a Rebel yell that would curdle the blood of yankee and Comanche alike. True Sons of the South.
You can always tell a Texan.
You just can’t tell him much.
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For those casual fans, though, I guess he has a point even if I utterly hate it. Expanding the playoff takes away from the meaningfulness of regular season games like Auburn/Georgia and Penn State/Ohio State. But the casual fans don’t usually watch those games anyway. They’re doing family stuff so they can spend Sundays watching NFL games. They’ll probably watch the playoff games, though, so the fact that they made Bedlam marginally less important isn’t really a loss for them. The die-hards will still watch both. But what the calculus doesn’t account for is that the number of die-hards will slowly start to dwindle as the regular season is neutered.
We keep going back to college basketball, and it’s exactly what we’ll see with football. There are a handful of schools for whom the market is seemingly inelastic, and they’ll fill the arena for a random midweek Kentucky/Vandy or UNC/Clemson game even though the stakes are relatively low. For the vast majority of schools, there will be a small contingent who are there no matter what each game and then a lot more people who still half pay attention and catch a few games, then tune in during the postseason when the games really matter. And then the majority of people out there will get to March and scour the internet to figure out who is good this year so they can fill out their brackets. The problem is that those of us who are die-hards aren’t enough to offset those who just want fun brackets, and in a business model that prioritizes raw numbers of eyeballs, that’s not going to change. The only way this doesn’t end up happening is if the cable/satellite/streaming bundle model absolutely blows up and we end up with some sort of team/conference/league subscription model for live sports that makes the casual “bracket” fans largely irrelevant.
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You may be right. It is hard for me to compare college football to college basketball because the former has changed so much due to the NBA’s policies compared to when I first became a fan. Up until around 2000 or so I was as big a college basketball fan as any other sport besides college football.
I am now more of a casual fan who watches a game or so every two weeks and waits for the tournament to begin to really get interested. Not because I want to fill out a bracket but more so because that is the part of the season that matters. Hopefully, an increased college football playoff doesn’t do the same to less diehard fans than those of us who read and post here.
I blame my lack of interest in college basketball more on the quality of play and the inability to keep up with the players.
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I blame my lack of interest in college basketball on the fact that UGA has sucked at it for most of the years I’ve been alive.
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I was a fan of college basketball before I was a UGA fan so I am still waiting on those glory days. I used to live on Rutherford when Tubby was here and I did get to see Arkansas in Athens in 1994 but that’s the high water mark.
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The Fat Tuesday game against Florida in 2003 was one hell of an atmosphere. It felt like UGA basketball had finally arrived. And in less than a week, the entire program collapsed.
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I was on the floor when we beat Shaq, Stanley Roberts and Chris Jackson to all but seal the regular season championship. I was in Auburn a week later to see the Dawgs clinch. We then proceeded to get bounced from both the SEC and NCAA tournaments in our first game.
I have a love/hate relationship with UGA hoops … mostly hate. BTW, I’m guessing Josh Brooks will have his biggest coaching decision to make in about 6 weeks when the men get knocked out of the SEC tournament in March.
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We’re about to get a lot of licensing dollars coming in this season from the natty. Josh Brooks needs to give Kirby what he needs to keep running with Alabama, but after that we need to inject some capital into both the basketball and baseball programs. Those ought to be generating a lot more money than they currently do, and a chance to give them a shot of adrenaline with some found money that isn’t guaranteed every year would be a worthwhile investment. We’ve got a healthy reserve fund, so no need to pad that; if we didn’t have to dip into it during a global pandemic, we’re not likely to need to add to it any time soon.
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He’s not entirely wrong, he just presumes and outsized effect on interest from the “still got a shot” factor, and seems to miss that most of those at large bids will be going to all those teams everyone is apparently sick of watching in the playoffs.
It will definitely give irrational hope to more teams for more of the season, though. I expect even you, Senator, might agree that irrational hope is a substantial part of what makes CFB great.
But it ain’t a reason to expand; it’ll just be a small side effect when expansion happens. The better argument to his point might be that more of the usual suspects who have late season surges (or a second loss), can put it together and make a run. Think 2007… that year Baylor/TCU got snubbed for Ohio State, etc. Still, it doesn’t help with “inclusiveness,” really, but it does open the door to chaos in some years; all other years, it’ll just be a headache and injury risk for the clear top two or three teams.
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You know what’s gonna happen to that irrational hope after four or five seasons of watching lesser teams get pounded continually by the three or four superpowers?
And you know what Mandel will suggest when that happens, right?
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Expand the CFP to include a team from Montana? 🙂
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The writers of this narrative are being paid by the very people who’ll benefit from expansion. It’s not just the schools or ESPN it’s every dam paid writer who covers college football. It’s collusion from all involved in promoting expansion. I’m still waiting for my email as a long time season ticket holder asking my opinion on expansion. Everyone involved except the fans paying the bill are pushing expansion. The ACC is just posturing to get a better deal then they’ll be all in too.
I’m so happy we won a NC while taking over stadiums wherever the Dawgs we’re playing.
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Ignore the noise. If you enjoy the rivalry games of the regular season (which I do) then why let the post season nonsense ruin it for you? That’s a you problem. ESPN is going to do what they do and the talking heads will continue to ramble on. Tune them out. If we have a good team we’ll play whatever format they present to us at the end. Sankey isn’t going to let them go automatic qualifier which is all that should concern you.
I can’t help you with conference expansion though.
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I think the point is that, in 15 years, we don’t want to see October games at the sure fire sellout big schools only 70% full and energy sapped because we’re waiting / saving on “something bigger.”
The great thing about big regular season games right now is that that game in question MIGHT be the biggest “rush” of the season for fans. Which is why you can’t miss that Arkansas game that gameday is coming to which then gets shown up 2 weeks later by the Kentucky game. Playoff expansion really risks putting those games on ice for top teams who can then back in to an expanded playoff with as many as 3 losses.
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I should mention, I’m working under the belief that not even Sanford Stadium (or its peers) has 93k “diehards” in the stands on any given Saturday. I don’t want the diehard to cut back from 7 to 5 games per year or the more casual to go from 2 to 0.5. We all add to the regular season atmosphere.
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Get rid of all playoffs. Let everyone argue about who is best from Jan 1, 20xx until Labor Day. Then start another argument. I’m old but at least we had something to talk about instead of Stu Mandel’s stupidity.
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The FCS has what 16? or more teams in the playoffs. ND State has won 9 of the last 11? Inclusion has really helped there.
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A players union is coming, playoff expansion without player input (or a reduction in regular-season games) will definitely speed its arrival. The best teams (largely) have the best players; those players aren’t going to be happy risking their football-futures on beating up multiple teams that have no reason to be playing them in the post-season.
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Stewart is going to have to tell me what team he thinks deserved a shot at a national championship this year because I am drawing a blank.
Look, people who love college football are going to watch college football. Let’s not ruin it to try to make it appeal to NFL fans who don’t give a damn about college football. When it was Texas-USC in the national title game, I watched. When it was Nebraska-Miami, I watched. When it was USC-Oklahoma, I watched. I didn’t care that there wasn’t a southern team playing. If you’re a fan, you watch. Let’s not destroy the best regular season in all of sport just to try to tempt the eyes of a Philadelphia Eagles fan.
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Ohio State would likely be the first and only team on that list. Notre Dame might be given momentary consideration until the result of the Fiesta is brought up.
Honestly, a seeded bracket of P5 champs+1 is the best we could probably do. It gives “regionality” a chance, and provides a path for an undefeated Notre Dame or a very strong title game loser to still be in the fold.
But, it also adds a game for two teams, and likely doesn’t solve the problem of “there aren’t 6 teams worthy.” I mean, if an 8-4 division winner catches fire or a few lucky breaks in their conference championship game… then has to face 11-1 OSU or BAMA or whatnot in a playoff… do we really expect a second dose of bottled lightning? And then a third?
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The Group of 5 would never agree to this. The only way a 6 team format works would be for the Power 5 to break away, and they aren’t going to do that because of March Madness.
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G5 could fight to be the 6th team – it’s no worse than what they have now… better, actually… as an undefeated G5 champ has a better chance of being recognized as the 6th best team than the 4th best.
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Ohio State lost twice in the regular season. They were a very good team this year, but including them in a national championship playoff invalidates the regular season, which is what I think college football really needs to try to avoid doing. Baseball has made a lot of changes to try to attract non-baseball fans to watch. Well, they still aren’t watching, and now baseball isn’t the same for people who DO like baseball. I hate to think we’re going to ruin college football just trying to squeeze money out of people who don’t like college football that much in the first place.
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Screw all the yankee and west coast teams.
If they want to get in the playoffs, let them get better.
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It is bad for the sport nationally that it’s going to end every year with Bama, UGA, Ohio State, Clemson and OU battling for 3 of the 4 spots. Only to see an SEC team win 90% of the time.
That part is correct. This isn’t about the Cincys of the world. It’s about Michigan State, PSU, Texas, USC, UF, Wisc and Michigan feeling that they’ve got no shot. And therefore no reason to watch. That’s bad for the game long term.
There’s no easy fix here. But expansion would help with that for the first 2 rounds. Semis will still be blowouts. And the SEC is still going to win most of the time.
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Logically, wouldn’t that mean in a best case scenario that the first round would get more eyeballs, only to see them go elsewhere once their teams fall by the wayside and it’s back to business as usual?
The problem isn’t national appeal. It’s lack of parity. You could make the CFP a 64-team field and it still wouldn’t change that.
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Splitting conferences into divisions ruins parity. Ridding divisions should get 1st priority.
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In this century, only 3 National Titles have been claimed by teams outside of the “The South”. USC – 1, OSU – 2.
Football is what we do.
You don’t see us bitching about Lacrosse championships. Sheesh.
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Or hockey.
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please someone cue up the eric stratton courtroom/panhellenic committee meeting as this injustice can not stand.
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Vos désirs sont des ordres. Allez Dawgs !
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It always appears to be assumed that if you are a fan of a school with no chance to win the CFP then your interest in the sport is diminished – regional appeal and rivalries are deemed unimportant, etc. I would argue that if your team has no chance at the CFP, then your interest in your teams rivalry games, conference standing, and bowl game could be increased. You got nothing else to cheer for.
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Doesn’t the latest playoff expansion argument just take as a given that Coastal Carolina against UTSA in the Beef O’Brady Bowl that has a “CFB Playoff Round of 16 Sticker” will get significantly more interest from the casual fan than Coastal Carolina against UTSA in the plain old Beef O’Brady Bowl would?
You would think that the pundits would explore that issue before arguing for expansion.
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You lost me at Stewart Mandel and logic.
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