A 24-Team Playoff, a Phantom Second, and the SEC Ready to Expel LSU

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Three things crossed my desk in one day, and by the end of it I realized they were all the same story.

The College Football Playoff opened negotiations on a 24-team playoff. The MAC formally appealed to have Michigan’s win over Western Michigan erased. And the SEC scheduled a Thursday vote on whether to throw LSU out of the conference.

Money, money, and money. Let’s take them in order of how much they actually matter, which is the reverse of how much attention they got.

The second that never existed

Michigan won 13-12 after officials put one second back on the clock and Bryce Underwood threw a second Hail Mary. On Tuesday the MAC filed formal appeals with the NCAA and the CFP, arguing that replay protocol requires the game clock on the program feed to be used, and that the Big Ten’s crew instead used a clock embedded in its own replay system. Had protocol been followed, MAC commissioner Jon Steinbrecher said, Western Michigan wins 12-7.

The Big Ten’s entire response was two sentences. We stand by the replay officials. No further comment.

That’s the end of it. There is no mechanism in the NCAA bylaws to overturn a final score, and the NCAA said as much Tuesday night. What did happen is that the NCAA quietly sent every conference a memo establishing the standard going forward: on a replay review of expired time, use the embedded clock in the program feed, and if the broadcaster can’t supply one, use the broadcast graphic.

So the rule got fixed and the game didn’t. There was a secret clock, Michigan got an extra second, and everybody moves on. Wild.

Why I’m going to defend the 24-team playoff

The CFP triggered a 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN. That is not a decision to expand — there’s a December 1 deadline for anything to take effect in 2027, and if nobody agrees the field stays at 12.

But we know how this goes. Four became twelve. Twelve becomes twenty-four. It’s happening because there suddenly isn’t enough money for everybody, and there isn’t enough money because schools now have to pay players, pay coaches, pay buyouts, and survive an enrollment cliff that’s hitting universities harder than most fans understand.

I’m guessing 90% of you hate it. Probably 80% of the media people I know hate it. I’m going to make the case for it anyway, and I want to start somewhere other than the bracket.

Take a look at the college football playoff selection committee. It’s a room of people in suits who look respectable, and that’s the whole qualification. There is no selection criteria for the playoff. It’s just a bunch of old people sitting in a room deciding who gets to go.

There’s no strength-of-schedule requirement to make the field. None. And when there’s no reward for playing anybody good, nobody plays anybody good.

Look at what that produced. Notre Dame and USC just paused a rivalry that started in 1926, and both sides acknowledged playoff considerations were part of why they couldn’t agree on a date. That is a game that should decide who gets in, and it isn’t being played.

And before Nebraska fans get comfortable: we did the exact same thing. Nebraska had a home-and-home with Tennessee scheduled for 2026 and 2027. It got canceled. Troy Dannen cited the Memorial Stadium renovation and wanting eight home games in 2027, which is a legitimate business reason — and Bowling Green went on the schedule instead. Our non-conference slate this year is Ohio, Bowling Green and North Dakota.

I’m not calling anybody a coward. (Well….)

I’m saying the system pays you to duck, so everybody ducks. That’s a design problem, and it’s the one nobody complains about nearly enough.

The bowls are already gone

Here’s the second half of my case.

The bowl system exists because in 1902 the Tournament of Roses wanted people from cold places to come see how beautiful Pasadena was and spend money doing it. That was the whole idea. And for a century the bowls did something genuinely valuable — they put two teams on a field who would otherwise never meet.

That’s over. Players opt out. Rosters aren’t full. You cannot ask a quarterback who’s an eight-figure asset to risk his knee in a game that decides nothing, and everyone in the sport has spent three years telling the public those games are meaningless. Mission accomplished.

So where do unfamiliar matchups happen now? One place. The playoff. Twenty-four teams is more of those games, not fewer.

Is it a change from what college football has always been? Yes.

Does it make us look more like the NFL? Also yes.

I’ve been through enough changes in my life that this one doesn’t horrify me the way it would have three or four years ago, because the state of the sport is not changing back. There’s too much money involved.

Fix the criteria and I’ll take the 24 teams. Expand without criteria and we’ve just built a bigger tournament that still rewards nobody for scheduling Tennessee.

The SEC might actually do it

Now the item that matters most.

The SEC meets Thursday to decide whether to terminate LSU’s membership. A founding member since 1933. It takes a two-thirds vote — 11 of 16 presidents.

This is about the lawsuits. You’ve watched them pile up for three years. Diego Pavia gets another year at Vanderbilt. Brendan Sorsby gets an injunction from a Lubbock judge after betting on his own team. A Baton Rouge judge hands out fifth years and tells the SEC it can’t enforce its own rule against rostering players who signed NFL contracts. Every one of these is a team gaining an advantage in a courtroom instead of on a field, and you should be sick of it, because that is bad change.

The NCAA has been rendered neutral. It loses every case it touches. So the conferences have to govern themselves, and self-governance means somebody eventually has to be made an example of. The bigger the name, the louder the example. Commissioner Greg Sankey’s own declaration says SEC presidents believe LSU’s president and athletic director have no meaningful control over their football coach.

I like LSU. I worked in Louisiana for years, before Katrina and after, and I love that state. I don’t want them out. And any LSU fan telling you they’d just go independent like Notre Dame is dreaming. Notre Dame spent a hundred years building a national audience, and they only built it because nobody around them would schedule a Catholic school. LSU has passionate fans everywhere and no Notre Dame-style national scheduling identity. If the SEC and Big Ten forbid members from scheduling them, and the Big 12 follows, LSU is destroyed. Not inconvenienced. Destroyed.

My guess is Thursday produces fines and probation rather than expulsion. LSU already closed its 105-man roster without the two players in question, which was the right call about a week late.

But somebody needs to explain to Lane Kiffin that he doesn’t have to say every thought he has. He beat Clemson 51-10 and made a halftime comment that the margin would’ve been bigger with the pro players — and the SEC put that line in a legal filing as evidence of institutional dysfunction. You hired him to win football games. Win the football games.

So tell me: is a 24-team playoff a bad change, or just a change? I genuinely want to know where you land.

One last thing, since you’re probably wondering

Some of you have asked why I’m suddenly making a lot more of the Youtube videos.

My IT work is winding down. It’s not ending in one dramatic moment, it’s flickering off toward retirement. I lost a client because of my stroke. I’ve got a year left of paying for my own health insurance, and I can tell you that every visit to the doctor turns up some tiny thing that sends me to an ER or a new specialist, and the bills follow. It’s a lot of fun. (It’s not, I’m just trying to cope.)

So I’m trying to turn this into the retirement. I can’t picture myself doing nothing — that was never going to be me. If you get anything out of these, watch them, share them with somebody, and consider becoming a member on either channel. Go watch the college football history stuff too while you’re at it.

That’s it for this one. Hope you have a good day.

Go Big Red.

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