What was once unthinkable is now official. The College Football Playoff — itself a long-imagined concept many believed would never come to fruition — will expand to 12 teams, beginning with the 2024 season. The four-highest ranked conference champions will receive byes, while the next four highest seeds will host first-round games. The quarterfinals and semifina🌞ls rotate among the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Peach Bowl.
The expanded playoff will give berths to the six highest-ranked conference champions, ensuring at least one team — and potentially more — outside the Power Five will be included. The most unjust and elitist major American sport has never been closer to achieving some semblance of egalitarianism.
Finally, college football can fulfi🅺ll its potential.
Cincinnati (2021) is the only Group of Five team to crack the field in the playoff’🍃s first eight years. In that time, only 13 different teams have reached the semifinals. There will no longer be situations in which undefeated teams such as UCF (2017-18) will be left out, forever wondering whether it could have pulled a March Madness-like upset, an incredible ingredient long absent from college football’s championship picture and the biggest part of what makes the NCAA Tournament the most beloved postseason in sports. It was always ridiculous to assume we knew how each mismatch would have ended. Did you see Buster Douglas coming? Or the ’68 Jets? Or the Miracle on Ice? Since BYU’s 1984 national title, nine teams outside of power conferences have completed undefeated seasons. Who knows how many incredible moments we missed out on?
