For decades, college football’s playoff lobbyists screamed that they just wanted an undisputed national champion determined on the field. The College Football Playoff is about to do that once again, while mostly preserving the integrity of the best regular season in sports. Naturally, the CFP will expand to 12 teams next year anyway, to chase two American obsessions: massive playoffs and revenue.
You would think that after roughly a century of people screaming for a nice big playoff, college football would be ready. It is not. Next year’s format is going to cause a lot more screaming than people realize, because the system is built around the money grab known as conference championship games.
Let’s start here with an obvious point: With a 12-team Playoff, last week’s Michigan–Ohio State game and this weekend’s Oregon-Washington Pac-12 title game would be for Playoff positioning rather than likely Playoff elimination. That would dilute the meaning of rivalry games; the only question is by how much.
