It’s been too long, but I decided to troll of few of my Trophyz and Medalz castmates with the current status and evolution of my prediction of a College Football 32-team playoff. Since that blog post from nearly 3 years ago, TideKing is still against that substantial increase of December football. Jimmy has conceded that this is where the sport is headed, but doesn’t like the optics of this much football.
Let’s go over what has happened in the last three years shall we. Texas and Oklahoma have officially joined the SEC. Texas, coming off a 2023 playoff appearance, have made a strong showing in 2024 holding a Top 5 ranking across all polls. They’re coming off of a victory against Miss. State for their SEC opener, but Miss. State is a perennial middle of the pack to bottom feeder team in SEC football. A Texas victory was to be expected. Oklahoma got humbled in their SEC opener against Tennessee. They’re in the middle of their rebuild, but they are proving to be competitive as the season goes on.
As I expected, NIL has exploded to beyond belief. My original assumption of this money grab is that athletes will capitalize on every opportunity to make money off of their Name, Image, and Likeness. While some high profile athletes have done just that, NIL has been used as a recruiting tool for the transfer portal and for incoming high school recruits practically eliminating the NIL aspect of making money.
This part I don’t agree with at all. By taking money from the school, you are at the school’s behest, not to mention if you are successful while you attend the school. An athlete can be begrudgingly tied to the school, good or bad, if the school is dishing out money exclusively. Now I don’t want to comment on the hustle of this generation of athlete, but there is something to be said about them if they’re unable to get their own money independently of the school.
The biggest shape-up in the past 3 years is the fall of the PAC-12. USC, UCLA, Washington and Oregon have all joined the Big 10 Conference. California, Stanford, and SMU have joined the ACC. Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and Arizona St. have joined the Big 12. Washington State and Oregon State are the 2 remaining teams left in the PAC-12, but this conference is actively recruiting new schools with Gonzaga announcing that they will be joining there conference.
It was the smart move for these former PAC-12 schools seeing how geographically the majority of these big schools are in the eastern US and play in a Eastern and Central Time Zone. By the time these west coast schools would play, they wouldn’t get the TV audience that there level of competition should command. With the East Coast exposure, these former PAC-12 schools, along with NIL, will have a stronger presence when recruiting 5-star talents from East Coast high schools.
What’s New
This 2024 CFB season marks the beginning of the 12-team playoff at its end. This will go on for the 2 seasons where the prediction is that in 2026 it will increase to a 14-team playoff. A baby step to my eventual 32-team vision. However, now that both the SEC and Big 10 have increased in size and added some top tier competition to their conferences along with passionate fan bases, the athletic directors from both conferences had what we call on the Trophyz and Medalz podcast a Let Me Holla Atcha session recently to discuss the pending increase of playoff teams.
It is agreed that these 2 conferences are the best in college football. Between the two of them they have a rich historic sports history with the most championships across the board. So when it comes to the next playoff recommendation, be it 12 or 14, these 2 conferences will propose that they should have 4 automatic bids for each of them. 8 teams will automatically get a playoff spot and the other conferences can figure out the rest on their own.
After 5 weeks of CFB, the top 12 teams in the rankings consist of 6 SEC teams, 5 Big 10 teams and 1 ACC team. If the playoffs started today, only one of these teams won’t get in due to 4 conference champions getting an automatic bid. Unfortunately, this is where we stand, a Big 10 versus SEC playoff. These other conferences will definitely demand a fair chance at making the playoffs and y’all know what I will suggest to solve this issue.
Tony Love
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