College Football Playoff shouldn’t be canceled, it should be expanded

The College Football Playoff shouldn’t be canceled, it should be expanded

There are many national college football analysts, as well as fans, coming for the CFB Playoff currently.

While the College Football Playoff just recently sent out a statement saying that it would move its selection date back to allow conferences to play their title games, the overarching words from the committee is that it will be ready, assuming a season is played.

Well, things have changed just a little bit since that last statement.

Both the Big Ten and the Pac-12 canceled their fall football seasons– with eyes on potentially playing in the spring- and that has led some to the conclusion that the College Football Playoff needs to be canceled.

Why? They say with two Power-5 conferences out, it makes the outcomes of this fall season illegitimate.

We beg to differ.

The College Football Playoff should, in fact, be expanded for one season and shouldn’t even be considered for cancellation, assuming a fall season happens

You can say all day that the CFB Playoff doesn’t matter if two conferences are out, but you’ll have a hard time selling that argument to the teams that are currently still competing.

If, for example, let’s say Clemson wins the National Championship.

Ohio State fans- and others from the two conferences that opted out- can argue to they’re blue in the face that the Tigers “wouldn’t have won that if the Buckeyes competed.” But that’s not going to change the fact that the trophy is sitting happily in the Reeves Football Complex. And that won’t stop Clemson football fans from buying merchandise, flying flags and wearing their favorite championship apparel.

That same line of thinking can be said about Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas, Notre Dame and any other team that could win this year. If the shoe were on the other foot, no one would stop Ohio State or Penn State from celebrating a title no matter how much you want to “asterisk-cize” the season. Teams that move to the spring opted out and that shouldn’t stop the others who chose to play from competing.

Now, onto the other point: The College Football Playoff shouldn’t just be played, it should be expanded for this season.

With the SEC, ACC and Big 12 all playing, this is a way that the committee can finally get the Group of 5 involved and promote some major television revenue.

If we went to six or eight teams, you’d be talking about room for teams to compete and have a shot at the National Championship like never before. You could finally get that Alabama-UCF match-up. No team would enter the season without a true opportunity because there could automatic berths for the first time.

This would also make up for some of the losses that are expected to come from lack-of-bowl revenue. There aren’t even enough teams in the FBS to fill every bowl game slot at this point and that makes me think we may only have major bowl games- or none at all- when it’s all said and done.

An extended playoff in what most will consider to be the craziest season of College Football history would be a great test for the future and provide conferences with another form of revenue in a year where that’s surely going to be hard to come by even if all games are played as regularly scheduled.