Michigan Football HC Kyle Whittingham weighs in on CFP expansion

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There’s been a lot of talk this week about College Football Playoff expansion. Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger shared that news that a White House committee had been weighing in on expanding the CFP to 24 teams. Later in the day, On3’s Chris Low published a story about coaches around college football thoughts about the format.

Despite maintaining 12 teams for this year’s CFP, there’s still a lot of talk, and apparently desire, to expand even more. While the two major conferences in the Big Ten and SEC haven’t been able to agree upon a format, it seems more and more likely the powers that be will choose to expand it once again.

According to Dellenger, the most recent fight is over whether the CFP should expand to 16 or 24 teams. While the article focused on some involvement by a presidential committee, it also seemed to outline that money is at the center of the conversation. Dellenger laid out how expanding the CFP would bring in more revenue for schools.

Money is at the center of every discussion around college football, and that’s what Kyle Whittingham focused on, too. Here’s what Low’s article included from first-year Michigan head coach:

Michigan first-year coach Kyle Whittingham, who spent 21 seasons at Utah, told On3 that 16 teams is the right number, but that he thinks there’s a super league coming to college football with anywhere from 48 to 60 teams. He envisions four quadrants geographically situated in a 16-game playoff.

“There’s too much money being left on the table, and that’s what it’s all about,” Whittingham said. “Unfortunately, that’s the bottom line, the dollars. And so to me, 16 is the right number, but only in a super-conference structure. You govern yourselves. The NCAA is not involved, and you have your own commissioner.

“Again, we’re talking about minor league NFL, salary cap, the whole thing. I don’t see it going any other way. Now, I could be dead wrong, but I think the odds are that’s what is going to happen.”

I’m personally hoping Whittingham is dead wrong about a so-called “super-conference.” The references to the NFL and trying to emulate what a professional sports league is doing misses the point of college football. While money has made the sport go round for decades, the introduction of NIL and revenue sharing is leading to another push to monetize the sport.

Those involved in the CFP and expansion decision are clearly talking to executives and stakeholders. They’re talking to conference commissioners. They’re hearing from coaches, and hopefully players, but who’s talking to the fans? Because most of the fans I know love college football, at least in part, because of the stakes of the regular season.

Over the past few seasons with the 12-team CFP, we’ve still had glimpses of what makes college football great. Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois. Ohio State lost at home to Michigan as a three-touchdown favorite. Yet, those teams still made it to the National Championship. Maybe college football’s regular season didn’t need to stay as unforgiving as it once was, but if those games don’t have any significance, why even play them at all? Just autofill the CFP based on rosters, NIL deals and past coaching records.

I’ve been told that having more CFP games is good because it’s more football, but is that really better than a valuable regular season in college football?

What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments below!

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