[Cactus Jack]

Heather Dinich, ESPN’s college football playoff guru (and I like me some Heather Dinich) said it’s almost a given that the playoff will expand to at least 14 and possibly 16 teams in 2026. Too much $$$ involved not to have even more games, although that will mean teams will have to play either 16 or 17 games total to win the championship. That seems like a lot of games to me, it’ll probably turn into the NFL where the healthiest team left winds up on top.

  I wasn’t advocating for Clemson, I think they, and Dabo, suck, I was just surprised they put them behind SMU after they had just beaten them. And I think Plantman is right on the money, the four teams with byes should all get to host games on campus. In fact I’d be okay with the first two rounds all being on campus, you’d get eight different venues that way, then let the semis and finals be neutral site bowl games, rotate them each year between the Rose, Orange, Sugar, Cotton, Peach and Fiesta.

 
High School plays 15 games to a state title, so 16 or 17 in college isnt a big stretch.

Under the current format, think we're going to start seeing the "buy" games (e.g., Kentucky vs. Murray State and Ohio) turn into auditions for players who aren't burning their redshirts and some of the less meaningful conference games (e.g., 6-3 LSU at Florida with three weeks left in the season) turn into chances for back-ups to get film out and get their next NIL bag.

For the former, you want to play a Boley see what you'll have for next season. For the latter, you still need to win enough that you'll play the talented but disgruntled back-up and sell them on their next stop.

Probably going to end up with a combination of the above and a 14-team playoff where the top two (read: the SEC and Big Ten Champions) get a bye. Under that format, the regular season and conference championships are much more meaningful and they've alleviated the (possibly anticipated) problems that came with giving four conference champions a bye.