Leading into the 2024 season, there was a hype and excitement for the new 12-team College Football Playoff format. Bumping the field from four to 12 teams gives a lot more teams meaningful football they can be playing late in November despite suffering one or two losses.
The easiest way into the field was to win the conference Championship Game in one of the four power conferences and then the rest of field takes a chance at an at-large bid. Even though we just completed the first 12-team format with Ohio State beating Notre Dame for the National Championship, there is now a push for expanding the field.
CFP proposal would hose the ACC and ruin college football
The four power conference commissioners from the ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Big Ten met in New York to discuss a new playoff format, with the SEC and Big Ten controlling things. Under the new suggested format, the 16-team bracket, the SEC and Big Ten would get four teams, the ACC and Big 12 would get two teams, one Group of 6 berth would be awarded, and three at-large selections.
According to Ross Dellenger of Yahoo, the format would clear a path for the SEC to go to a nine-game regular season, something that has been floated about since some SEC schools felt shut out of this past season's field.
As expected, ACC Commissioner Jim Philips was in favor of the proposal, but expanding the field would lessen the excitement around some rivarly games at the end of the season, knowing that not as much would be riding on it in the national outlook, while also putting less of an emphasis on the regular season. How many 9-3 or 8-4 SEC teams would get in?
The 4-4-2-2-1-3 model as broken down above would only get two ACC teams, maybe an at-large one, but the model would not be good for college football. This is a move that gives the powers to be more money to make and in the end, that's what it appears they care about, add more teams, make more money and get more revenue. That's what the great game of college football is turning into.