Twenty-four's a crowd
All signs point toward a 24-team playoff coming to college football sooner than later. That, plus Notre Dame, mob movies, Amazon deals and Andrea goes skydiving.
Three months ago, the Big Ten stood alone in wanting a 24-team playoff.
Now? It sounds as if 24 is all but a done deal.
Yes, ESPN is against it. Yes, Greg Sankey and the SEC have yet to cave. But after ACC commissioner Jim Phillips came out in support of 24 this week — saying his thoughts have “evolved” — it has the feeling of inevitability. Although Mario Cristobal seems to have mixed feelings, ACC coaches said they were unanimous in support of 24. The AFCA wants it. The Big Ten wants it. The Big 12 wants it. The Group of Six leagues want anything that means they still have a seat at the table.
And so here we are.
On the heels of expansion of the college basketball tournament in spite of widespread groans from fans, we’re now looking down the barrel of a doubling of the football playoff — and an 6x increase from where we were just 3 years ago.
First, let’s try to articulate why folks like it. Here’s Rhett Lashlee with Andrea and me this week from Amelia Island.
The general gist:
24 teams gives a proper amount of “access”
With each league now at a 9-game league schedule, it’s harder and harder to make informed evaluations across conferences.
It will allow for more big games without being seriously punitive for the loser
Most important per: the coaches… it’ll allow for the calendar to change, shifting everything up a few weeks and ending the season on the second Monday in January.
One advantage left unsaid, however, is the one most fans and media continue to tout as the primary cause and worst effect of expansion: Participation trophies!
Yes, I do think expansion has a lot to do with giving a little something to schools with no chance at winning a big something. Or, as Phillips put it: “If you’re going to ask presidents and chancellors and boards to continue to invest in their football programs, it’s really important that they have hope, that they have an opportunity at the beginning of the season to get into the playoff.”
But interestingly, when I asked Dave Doeren about this very thing, he believed that was, actually, the exact opposite motivation for the coaches’ support. As he said, it’s entirely likely that a 24-team playoff now makes it more likely that coaches are going to be fired quickly — as it now becomes “playoff or bust” for a lot of teams.
I think he’s probably a little right and a little wrong. Being able to say you were “in the playoff hunt” is probably enough to keep a job, and the “hunt” now probably goes from 14-18 teams in November to… what? Thirty? Forty? More?
And that’s one reason folks love this idea. If more teams have a playoff shot in November, then more games matter. This is an inarguable truth.
But here’s the flip side: More games matter a little. Fewer games will matter a lot. And I think that’s the trade off most fans don’t want to make.
We already saw this two years ago in what I think is the ultimate Rorschach test for the value of playoff expansion when Michigan beat Ohio State, 13-10, knocking the Buckeyes out of the Big Ten title game and out of the top four.
And if that had happened in 2023, that would’ve been the end of the story. Michigan’s upset would’ve gone down as, arguably, the most impactful upset in that rivalry’s storied history. Ohio State would’ve been out of the playoff. Ryan Day might well have been fired.
Instead, Ohio State made the newly expanded 12-team playoff as an 8 seed and won it all. The Buckeyes were, indeed, the best team in the country — they just had a bad Saturday against a stout Michigan D that got a little lucky.
So, what do we, as fans, really want? Do we want one game to have such massive stakes that its outcome will be discussed and debated for generations? Or do we want the best team to win a national title every year?
Look at last year. Miami lost two games by a single possession against two pretty good — though admittedly not great — teams. It narrowly made the playoff and went to the championship game. The two teams left out with the biggest axes to grind — Notre Dame and Texas — could’ve easily done the same. The Irish missed out because they lost to Miami and Texas A&M (another playoff team) in the first two weeks of the season. Texas missed out because it lost to a bad Florida team — but that still had to be paired with a narrow Week 1 loss on the road to Ohio State for the Longhorns to be nixed. In a bigger playoff, both would’ve had their chance to win a title — something entirely possible! — but also Miami-ND and Texas-Ohio State would’ve meant little to nothing in the grand scheme of things.
So which side should we be on?
Well, let’s reconsider Doeren’s point. No, I don’t think a 24-team playoff drastically changes the number of coaches who’ll be fired. But I do think the “playoff or bust” mentality will grow exponentially.
Bowl games are going to all but disappear.1 Schools will have mixed incentives about scheduling, knowing that if they’re 10-2, they’re all but guaranteed to get in. And, I think worst of all, if we don’t have automatic bids (something most fans don’t want) then we’re ceding even more control of this invitational tournament to a committee that has zero accountability and zero clear process for selecting and ranking teams2.
Here’s how things might have looked last year if the playoff had been 24 teams.
SEC - 7 teams
Big Ten - 6 teams
Big 12 - 5 teams
ACC - 3 teams
ND + G5 - 3 teams
First team out: North Texas
Or in 2024…
SEC - 7 teams
Big Ten - 5 teams
Big 12 - 4 teams
ACC - 4 teams
ND + G5 - 4 teams
First team out: Memphis
Now, this isn’t how the playoff would’ve actually looked, in my opinion. There’s zero chance the committee was handing three spots to the Group of Five in 2024, for example. But that’s the question: Do we want the committee deciding whether a third Group of Five team gets in over the eighth SEC team? Or the fourth ACC team over the sixth Big Ten team? Because that’s what’s coming.
There’s a money aspect to all this, too, obviously but I’m not sure it’s what ADs and commissioners believe. Losing conference title games — anachronistic as they may be in an expanded playoff world — is a serious blow financially, particularly for the ACC and Big 12, which get a lower share of playoff revenue (and, for the ACC, give a higher share to playoff participants). And I think it remains to be seen how much fan interest there really is in more playoff games. The vocal crowd is certainly against it, though I tend to think the average fan will still watch anything labeled “playoff.” But even if those new playoff games bring eyeballs, how much will they reduce attention on the rest of the season?
Because if you think Michigan beating Ohio State in 2024 failing to impact the playoff was a problem, just wait until Ohio State has its playoff spot locked up and rests its starters against the Wolverines in 2028.3
What else is David working on?
Usually our Amelia Island show is the Inside ACCess finale, but we’ll have three more pre-taped shows that will follow in late May and early June, including longform interviews with Bubba Cunningham, Jeff Brohm, Fran Brown, John Currie and Dave Doeren.
For this week’s show, we caught up with Dan Radakovich ahead of his official retirement at Miami, and I asked him for a little insight on each of the three coaches he’s worked with over the past 18 years — Paul Johnson, Dabo Swinney and Mario Cristobal.
We also talked with Manny Diaz about the future of governance and tampering. For what it’s worth, most of the ADs I talked to off record think the College Sports Commission is all but dead on arrival, despite the CSC’s win in court this week.
I also spoke with Nina King on how the Duke basketball-Amazon deal came together. My .02 after talking with a lot of folks is that there’s an avenue here for some other schools to sell broadcast rights to some non-con games in football and basketball, but it’ll be a tough needle to thread.
Why? Well, for one, Duke worked hand-in-hand with the ACC and ESPN and had something to offer ESPN to make it all work.4
Also, there’s just a limited inventory — particularly in football. And to be able to circumvent current broadcasting agreements requires playing an OOC game outside of the league’s broadcast footprint. So, yes, Clemson could play a non-ACC scheduled Notre Dame contest in Las Vegas and sell that off. But that also ups the risk that Clemson loses that game, makes it harder for its fans to attend that game, and needs a broadcast partner willing to pay for that game. How many brands command that kind of demand? Not alot.
And I wrote about Notre Dame’s seemingly peaceful relationship with the ACC after a post-playoff dust-up. That came hours before Brett McMurphy dropped this piece saying folks in the ACC were fed up with Notre Dame. I followed up with several ADs — and frankly, there aren’t many who have more than a couple years under their belts — and there was serious push-back on that, with all of them saying they strongly valued the league’s relationship with the Irish.
What’s keeping David entertained?
I took last week off from Substacking, but I did get to go see The Nude Party at The Neighborhood Theater (h/t to my pal Seth for the invite & rec!). First off, don’t Google them unless you add some additional context like “band” or “album.” Secondly, they’re from Boone and met at App State, so I’d like to think Scott Satterfield is a big fan. And lastly, it was a really fun show. They’re a terrific live band, and the music — while it pulls from tons of obvious influences from The Kings to Velvet Underground to the Animals — sounds entirely unlike nearly anything anyone else is doing these days.
I also hit Evening Muse on Thursday to see Flagship Romance. They’re in Greensboro on the 17th if anyone’s in that area and looking for a chill live show to catch
For my flights to/from Jacksonville for this week’s ACC meetings, I watched “The Godfather” for the first time in ages. I can admit the second movie is the better one overall, but I prefer Part I because Brando and James Caan are both so good. Sonny, alone, puts Part I ahead. But here’s the thing I was wondering about: Why are so many people so eager to turn on the Corleone’s? Paulie, the driver, gets Vito shot. Carlo helps set up Sonny to be murdered. Fabrizio turns on Michael and it results in Apollonia’s death. Tessio sells out Michael to Barzini. And while Clemenza is loyal to the end, Tom suggests he always assumed he’d turn on the family. And then, of coruse, there’s Fredo. That’s quite a list of close associates who turned traitor. Vito and Michael must’ve been a real “Devil wears Prada” situation.
Anyway, my mob movie power rankings:
The Godfather
The Godfather Part II
Goodfellas
The Departed
Casino
Note: Mob movies count as crime movies, but not all crime movies are mob movies. Therefore, we’re not counting Heat or Reservoir Dogs or other moves in which the mafia is not front and center.
And lastly…
Andrea finally paid up on our ACC picks bet by jumping out of an airplane. When I tell you the video lives up to my highest expectations, I’m not exaggerating in the slightest.
My favorite part of this is probably the landing.
Even the discussion of this playoff expansion is making it harder to work on bowl sponsorship agreements and host city agreements. The TV value of some bowl games remains decent, but moving to 24 playoff teams could well force major changes and/or contraction. Again, I think bowls should move to Week 0.
If you’re curious, using 2025’s final CFP rankings, a 24-team playoff would’ve looked like this: Round 1: 24 JMU at 9. Alabama (winner vs. 8 Oklahoma), 23 Iowa at 10. Miami (winner vs. No. 7 A&M), 22. Georgia Tech vs. 11. Notre Dame (winner vs. No. 6 Ole Miss), 21. Houston vs. 12. BYU (winner vs. No. 5 Oregon), 20. Tulane vs. 13. Texas (winner vs. No. 4 Texas Tech), 19. Virginia vs. 14. Vandy (winner vs. No. 3 Georgia), 18. Michigan vs. 15 Utah (winner vs. 2 Ohio State), 17. Arizona vs. 16. USC (winner vs. No. 1 Indiana)
Since this isn’t going to be implemented before 2027 at the earliest, here’s another worthy question: Is this much ado about nothing? The realignment rumblings have died down temporarily, but I’d be shocked if we’re not moving toward two super leagues by 2030.
The Blue Devils will play in some ESPN owned-and-operated tournaments in the future.
Just an fyi not gonna go to 24.