Buckeyes to Benefit from Potentially Detrimental College Football Playoff Expansion

Buckeyes to Benefit from Potentially Detrimental College Football Playoff Expansion

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Buckeyes to Benefit from Potentially Detrimental College Football Playoff Expansion

The College Football Playoff is on the verge of expansion, and for the Buckeyes, I guess that it is a positive for Ohio State. 

Effective in 2027, the College Football Playoff will likely expand from 12 teams to 24 teams, basically guaranteeing that Ohio State may never miss the Playoffs again. Ohio State is one of the teams in the top-tier category of college football that will truly never be in danger of missing the postseason.

The Playoff expanded from 4 teams to 12 in 2024, and for the Buckeyes, thank God that it did. It was that year that the Buckeyes had a one-point loss out in Eugene to the Oregon Ducks that put them in a really tough spot for the season. Then, they fell to the Michigan Wolverines in the final game of the season, which in the past would have kicked them out of the postseason.

They ended up getting the benefit of expansion, and they made the tournament as the 8 seed, and the rest was history.

One of the positives about the 12 team playoff is that teams get a little bit of room for era which didn't exist in the BCS era and didn't exist in the four team playoff. 

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Now, they may have gone one step too far with this most recent change. ESPN's Pete Thamel reported on Thursday that College Football is on the verge of expanding the Playoffs to a 24-team group, which would basically eliminate any concern for teams like the Buckeyes and their peers about ever missing the Playoff.

On3's Pete Nakos released what the current bracket would look like based on the Week 6 AP Poll, and to be honest, it is actually a decent-looking bracket.

However, that isn't the point, and that isn't what anyone is arguing against. I think people could enjoy the expanded bracket while also realizing the detriment it does to the sport as a whole.

The regular season becomes largely pointless for many of the top programs. To miss a 24-team playoff, a team would likely need to have four or five losses. For context, if you remove the 2011 Buckeyes season, Ohio State has had three four-loss seasons since 2000. 

They would quite literally never be in jeopardy of missing the Playoff, so if you thought it was hard to get up for a Buckeye regular-season game now, just imagine if it meant nothing at all.

That's the world that the College Football Playoff has created, and it is a bad one. Yes, we'll enjoy the Playoff, and yes, there will be some cool matchups. But who is going to step in and realize that the point of college football might not be the postseason; maybe it is the Saturdays in the regular season, which are basically being taken away from the game.

The formal announcement is expected to be announced soon.

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