Move 'em on up
If we're headed toward a 24-team playoff, what happens to bowl games? Plus Springsteen, wild 2026 predictions, The Delano, recruiting visits and lots more.
I wrote a bit last week about the seeming inevitability of the 24-team playoff. That buzz has only increased amid the Big Ten meetings this week, including B1G commissioner Tony Pettiti saying it’s either 12 or 24 if he has any say in the matter (which, he does).
A few things to unpack here:
For one, it’s amazing how much the Big Ten has wrested power away from the SEC. I’d once -- not all that long ago -- thought Greg Sankey had pulled a brilliant move by effectively empowering a mediocre Big Ten in the early 2020s to serve as the face of forced change in the sport, while the SEC was really pulling the strings behind the scenes. The Big Ten had, as recently as 2022, done little to nothing to earn national respect and coach after coach that I talked to who had been in that league and others preached that, aside from Ohio State and occasionally one or two others, the conference just wasn’t that good.
Now look where we are. Three straight national titles for the Big Ten by three different teams. Pettiti, through mostly force of will, has turned the 24-team playoff from a non-starter into the default position for the majority of CFB powers. The Big Ten is making the most money, and has as many teams with title aspirations -- Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, Indiana, Oregon, USC, Washington -- as anyone at this point. This is the Big Ten’s world, and everyone -- even the SEC -- is just living in it.
Secondly, there’s been a lot of hand-wringing about the 24-team playoff in the media, and while I don’t necessarily disagree, I think most writers are missing the point. The key argument against it seems to be “24 is too many teams!!!!” and... is it? I mean, I get the notion that the 24th-best team probably isn’t winning a national title so opening the playoff up to them is doing little more than handing out a participation trophy. But... I actually don’t think that’s all that bad.
The more teams involved, the more fan bases involved. And success breeds success. Would Indiana have won it all last year had it not tasted the playoff first in 2024? I think SMU has made huge strides as a program in part because it got to the playoff in 2024, too. Miami was the last team in last year and made it to the title game. What would the narrative around the Canes be if they’d been left out in favor of Notre Dame? More over, are you sure the Irish or Texas couldn’t have run the table last year if they’d gotten in? Heck, I’m old enough to remember when most national voices in this sport were arguing for a larger playoff to match the FCS, with auto-bids for every conference champion (including each Group of Six, long before we called it that). Anyway, more teams isn’t bad, I think, especially if the long-run goal is to generate more fan interest and build more competitive programs.
It’s all the ancillary issues for which no one seems to be asking the right questions (or offering the right answers) that should create some real concerns.
For one, is the money really there? I don’t know that TV networks really want to pony up for more playoff games while eliminating already quite profitable conference championships. ESPN certainly doesn’t.
And look at the ACC. In its most recent tax filing, the ACC earned nearly $19 million from “conference championships,” which is effectively all football and men’s basketball, and it earned more than $133 million from post-season bowls (two of which were playoff games, with the vast majority of that money going directly to the teams involved as part of success initiatives).
Right now, the TV contract for the CFP comes out to roughly $118M per game played, and if we assume that gets raised proportionately (a big assumption), that increases the playoff pot by about $1.4 billion. Well, that’s a lot of money but, of course, the ACC gets a smaller share of the pie (and the Big 12 even less). So in this theoretical world, the Big Ten might stand to gain an additional $400 (or so) million annually. But for the ACC, that number is closer to $200 million. And, of course, that money isn’t exactly right either because there are costs taken out off the top and, as we noted, the funds are distributed evenly (and, as I noted, TV isn’t going to double its money for a twice-as-big playoff). The teams who make the playoff get the bulk of it. And if there were four auto-bids, maybe that’s worthwhile. But also... the conversation right now -- which again, no one seems to be asking about -- suggests the committee will simply rank them 1-24. Which, good luck with that.
(For what it’s worth, using the 1-24 method, The Athletic figured out who would’ve made the playoff every year dating back to 2014.1)
Now remember that the championship game goes away and the vast majority of those mid-tier bowls that are the ACC’s postseason home will be utterly hollowed out.
So how beneficial is this for the ACC really -- particularly if it means tons more money for the Big Ten and SEC and only a small uptick for the ACC? I’ve tried to repeat as often as possible: More money is less important to the ACC that more money relative to the leagues its chasing.
And then look at the costs. Goodbye conference championship games. OK, they’re an anachronism in this era -- but does it really make sense to nix them altogether rather than simply reimagine what that weekend could be? Bill Connelly has a nice column on how using dynamic scheduling could be a good alternative.
Then there’s the bowls.
Like conference title games, we need to acknowledge off the top that bowl season is already a mess on the field. Long gone are the days when a bowl was a “treat” for players. Many opt out. Nearly all arrive a day or two ahead of time for a standard “business trip” rather than using the trip as a chance to enjoy the culture of the host city. The games don’t matter at all to most coaches and players. It’s ugly.
But now take another 12 quality teams out of the pool of potential bowl teams and double the amount of playoff games those bowls are competing against. The best non-playoff teams from 2025 would’ve likely been Tennessee, Georgia Tech, Missouri, Houston and Iowa. I mean, those could be some OK bowl matchups but I doubt the Gator Bowl is drooling over Jackets-Hawkeyes.
But here’s the other thing: The ratings for the bowl games, however ugly they’ve been, are still quite good. The Citrus Bowl (Michigan vs. Texas) drew 9.1 million viewers last year. That’s more than the most-watched game of last year’s NBA conference finals and close to the NCAA men’s basketball championship game. The Duke’s Mayo Bowl drew more viewers (2.4 million) than “Euphoria” despite not having a single sex scene.2
The bowl system is an anachronism -- but it’s a popular one. So, how do we salvage it?
Well, I’ve had a plan I’ve been pushing for years and I think it’s more relevant than ever…
First, let’s stop talking about getting “bowl eligible.” If we move to a 24-team playoff, it’s going to open the door to perhaps double-digit 5-7 teams getting a bowl invite. At that point, why bother? Make everyone eligible to play in a bowl.3 And that’s important because the biggest step in saving bowl season is to change what season it’s in.
Move bowl games to the start of the year — played between Week 0 and Labor Day. This has tons of rationale. It helps fans with easier travel before school revs up most places. It opens the door for dozens of northern cities without a dome to host bowl games. It makes places like my home town of Charlotte much more fan-friendly for the bowls it already hosts. There won’t be opt-outs or portal defections or coaches already out the door for other jobs because these games are part of the season and really matter. And everyone will be 0-04 so there’s hope and enthusiasm and excitement everywhere.
And that last part is important because, while moving bowls from December to August will be a blow to traditionalists, it also can create a new tradition — a college football equivalent to the opening weekend of March Madness.
In my plan, each day for two weeks we have multiple college football games. There’s no competition from the NFL. Kids are still home from school to tune in to the Dupont First State Bowl at University of Delaware’s stadium on a Tuesday at 11 a.m. The games have real stakes, so people will be glued to their TVs. It’ll be a two-week celebration of college football.
Oh, and one of the key parts of this celebration is… Army-Navy. Yes, I know, we want to keep that game special. The way to do it is to make it a centerpiece of the new “CFB-fest” by putting it in an exclusive window in prime time on the Sunday before Labor Day every year. This also solves another big issue we’ll get to in a moment.
Schools need more revenue, right? Well, as Duke basketball showed us, using this type of inventory outside the constraints of current TV contracts can potentially open up some huge revenue opportunities. And more than that, it’s such a fantastic way to advertise the new season and get casual fans bought in early. Over time, I think this can truly grow the college football audience significantly.
Moreover, by playing the games in the late summer, the TV value, I’d wager, gets markedly better, too. There’ll be a groundswell of pent up interest in football for fans who’ve waited the whole offseason. No teams have been eliminated yet, the stars all play because no one is headed off to the NFL or the transfer portal. Coaches aren’t leaving for other jobs. Everyone -- fans, players, coaches, schools, host cities, TV networks -- is all in on these games. It can be a true spectacle — but one accessible to all fans, not just those who can afford a ticket to the natty.
The games also make for a great use of the very limited opportunities for big-time non-conference games. And rather than scheduling them out a decade in advance, bowls would set these games up just six months out -- increasing the odds of quality, unique matchups. But because we’re in a 24-team playoff world, the games can be played -- and lost -- without necessarily upending a whole season’s worth of goals for a school.
There are lots and lots of ideas — some good, some awful — on the best ways to properly end the season. I’m going to stay out of that debate for now beyond saying I think it’d behooves college football to be more creative there. But what’s clear to me is, we can vastly improve the start of the season and create a signature event that would make everyone pretty happy — even if it goes far afield from tradition.
At this point though, most bowls should be thrilled to have anything that injects new life into a system that’s on its last legs.
What’s David working on?
ESPN put out its 100 days until the start of the season piece this week, and because I’m the resident idiot who’s willing to write dumb stuff, I contributed the “10 wild predictions” portion of the story, which you can find HERE.
Beyond that, this week’s been about doing a lot of work for some future projects.
For one, no Inside ACCess this week, but we’ll have three more shows weekly beginning May 27 that will feature longer-form interviews we did at the ACC spring meetings in Amelia Island.
For next week’s show, we’ll have a deep dive into what a 24-team playoff would look like with SMU coach Rhett Lashlee. We’ll also check in with Syracuse coach Fran Brown on how he evolved last season and is taking a more direct, hands-on role for 2026 as well as a chat with Louisville coach Jeff Brohm on why he still wants to schedule the toughest competition possible.
Andrea and I also check in with our list — based on talking to nearly every head coach post-spring — on the freshmen who’ve proven to be the most game-ready so far.
Our June 3 show will be an abridged 30-minute show with Tavita Pritchard and Dave Doeren, and our June 10 show will be a long conversation with outgoing UNC AD Bubba Cunningham. Set your Tivos!
Lastly, I’ve been working on a couple of long stories — one of which isn’t running for a couple weeks and I’ll hold off on sharing details for now other than to say it’s been an emotional journey putting it together.
The other one is set to run next week. It’s my annual tiered ranking of all 138 QB situations in college football. It’s the most Sisyphean task I undertake each year. It involves a truly ridiculous amount of research and includes well over 100 deep-dive statistical nuggets on QB play around the country, all of which will be immediately ignored by readers who are just mad their QB is in Tier 13. Anyway, that’ll be a nice feather in my cap in a few more days.
Oh, and I also joined The OG with Joe Ovies and Joe Giglio to discuss why the ACC wants 24 playoff teams, whether this is a do-or-die season for Dabo, and what the PR strategy is in Chapel Hill as Bill Belichick makes nice with Sean Hannity and Barstool.
What’s David reading?
Fun story from my colleague Eli Lederman on how the revenue-sharing era has transformed recruiting visits.
Mojo attempts to rank Bruce Springsteen’s 50 best songs. This is obviously a pointless endeavor — and this list, more than most, is trying to be provocative — but I’ll just say everyone is allowed to enjoy Bruce however they choose. There is no “best.” There is great, good and less good, sure, but even that is in the ear of the beholder. That said, “Jungleland” is way too low.
Interesting story in the New York Times that speaks perfectly to why Gen Z is ruining everything5 — The historic Delano Hotel in South Beach is back, now as a health-focused resort. Ugh.
I first went to the Delano in, maybe, 1999. I thought it was just about the coolest place I’d ever been and I could afford roughly .75 drinks. In 2011, when I was covering the Phillies, they had road trip in Miami on my anniversary, so I took my wife along and we stayed a night at the Delano. It wasn’t cheap, but of course it was also long past its prime by then. Still, I remember Ryan Howard asking me in the locker room the next day where I’d stayed, and when I told him, he said it wasn’t the type of place you bring your wife, it’s the type of place you meet your next wife. Alas… times have changed.
I think one of the great issues with our society is that it’s never enough to just live a good life, make money and be happy. Success isn’t about achieving, it’s about growing. If you’re not getting bigger, you’re failing. I find that such a ridiculous ideology, and Holly and Spencer over at Channel 6 did a wonderful job of explaining why.
I had lunch with my pal Tommy a few weeks ago and he told me about an awesome story he was working on for “Garden & Gun” — an oral history of the music scene in Athens, Georgia. I can’t wait to read it — it’s out in print form already — but G&G hasn’t put it online yet.
In the interim though, they do have a nice list of other great music towns in the South. I’ve somehow never made it to the Muscle Shoals area, but that’s way up on my to-do list.
Where has all the good “heartland rock” gone has been the subject of a few think pieces I’ve read lately, and the answer, at least in part, probably goes back to the fact that polarization has made anything that attempts to bridge cultures next to impossible. Sigh.
Interesting story from The New York Times this week on how autocracy thrives because low- and mid-level bureaucrats continue to push moral boundaries in exchange for the smallest crumbs of acceptance. Sigh.
An important caveat: These “what would’ve happened” lists always assume things would play out exactly the same — only with more spots. I’m not sure that’s true. This was especially notable in how the SEC and Big Ten took credit for playoff bids that USC or Oregon or Texas “would have” or did get — when had those teams been playing in the Big Ten and SEC at the time, the outcomes would’ve looked a lot different.
And we’re all thankful that Tubby doesn’t have an OnlyFans page.
Every team can play in a “bowl” but teams are separated into pools based on the prior year’s performance. Bowls then “draft” their participants in a big TV event in March or April. “With the fifth pick in this year’s bowl selection event, the AutoZone Liberty Bowl selects... Northwestern.” Imagine the excitement! (OK, OK, but it’ll still be cooler than an NFL schedule release.) What happens if there aren’t enough bowl hosts for all the teams? No worries. Play games on campus. No one’s stopping you.
Or maybe will have played a Week 0 game then their bowl in Week 1. I’m open to that.
I’m kidding. Sort of.
Love the preseason bowl idea. Been agreeing with you for years. But you don't need me to tell you this: If it makes sense, it'll never happen with the folks currently "in charge".