The College Football Playoff just expanded to 12 teams, and we saw the first edition of the new playoff this past season. Now, there are already discussions happening about the CFP expanding further and including auto-bids for the SEC and the Big Ten. The SEC and the Big Ten are the two best conferences in college football right now, and there are talks about each conference automatically getting a certain number of teams in the playoff.
If the College Football Playoff does expand and implement these auto-bids, it could end up being bad for the sport. The expansion was originally done to be more inclusive, but this model might be doing the opposite.
“A lot of people were shouting at the top of their lungs for an expanded playoff, and what was their reasoning? Inclusion opportunity, a chance to compete with the big boys, all those things, and us on this show pushed back and said, Are we sure we want to do that? Because as this playoff expands, tell you what, it's not going to benefit the little guy,” JD Pickell said, according to a post from On3. “Not that we don't want it to, but it's not going to benefit the little guy.”
There are definitely some people that aren't in favor of including “the little guy.” We saw a lot of blowouts in the College Football Playoff this year, and no one wants to see that. It's tough to know where to go from here.
“We said that many times on this show, when we were back doing this show in a lobby in Waco, Texas, we said that now those same people that were calling for inclusion and calling for a chance at the throne are now at the mercy of the Big 10 and the SEC,” Pickell continued. “Not saying I like it, not saying I'm here for it, again if it were me, I'd go no auto-bids, and I would reward teams non-conferences, but this is the world we're living in.”
Who knows what will happen with the College Football Playoff, but it was clear during this year's CFP that something needs to change. The best teams in the playoff didn't get to play a game in front of their home fans. Additionally, there were teams ranked higher in the actual polls than teams that got a better seed. A lot of it didn't make any sense, and something needs to change. However, it's hard to tell what the best option is going forward.