Washington Huskies Head Coach Voices Support For Expanded Playoff
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SEATTLE — The Washington Huskies football team could be one of many beneficiaries to one of the biggest potential changes in the college football landscape.
It was reported last week that the College Football Playoff committee is nearing a change from the current 12-team format to the 24-team format. The change needs to finalize revisions to its television deal with ESPN, but it will likely be implemented beginning in the 2027 season through the end of the deal in 2031.
It's not certain yet what the new format would be under the new format, but one of the ideas floated out would be five auto-bids — one for each Power Four champion and one for the highest-rated Group of Six champion. The rest of the playoff field would be sorted through 19 autobids.
Theoretically, with the Huskies having a higher strength of schedule due to their in-conference schedule in the Big Ten, they should be one of the team's that's likeliest to be in the mix for one of the 19 potential auto-bids available.
Washington's current head coach, Jedd Fisch, is a fan of the recent change.
"I think it would benefit Washington and college football going forward," Fisch said in a weekly news conference Monday at Husky Stadium. "We have 68 teams (in the Power Four). To only have 12 teams go to the playoffs, that would be like the NFL having six teams (go to the playoffs), and they have 14. So, you need to be able to play the percentages. … For Washington — I've said this a million times — we have asked (the) university, fans media, all these people to help subsidize athletes.
"To only allow that money to be spent 12 weeks a year, that's hard. You want to see these kids keep going and have opportunities to keep playing. When you're playing rosters like we're paying them, and like we're going to have to continue paying them and pay them more than what we're paying them as the years continue, there has to be some version of (return on investment) that's more than just a 12-game regular season."
Fisch is in his third season as head coach of the Huskies, but hasn't ranked 24th in the final Associated Press or College Football Playoff top 25 polls in his previous two full seasons.
However, Washington would have made a theoretical 24-team CFP under previous head coaches.
The Huskies have made the CFP twice in its program's history: once with Chris Petersen at the helm under the original four-team format in the 2016-17 season, and once under Kalen DeBoer in the final four-team CFP season in 2023-24.
Washington had several additional seasons under both head coaches where it would have made the playoffs under the 24-team format.
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