A 16-team College Football Playoff wouldn’t be catastrophic

Many of these same people said the 12-team playoff ruined college football. The 16-team version would get rid of first-round byes. It would also come with more automatic bids.

According to Dellenger, the Big Ten and SEC would get four bids each. The ACC and Big 12 would be guaranteed two. The G6 would get one, followed by three at-large berths. 

The major conferences will always want their championship games to be important, and now, the Big Ten and SEC, at least, are looking to create championship weekends.

According to what Dellenger reports, the Big Ten and SEC would conduct play-in games for the College Football Playoff.

For instance, the Big Ten’s top two teams would meet for the Big Ten title, with both teams guaranteed to make the playoff. Then, the third-place team would face the sixth-place team, plus No. 4 vs. No. 5. 

The winners of those games would advance to the College Football Playoff. It’s important to note that the losers of those games would be eligible for at-large selection.

With unbalanced schedules, even within conferences that have 16 or 18 teams, the play-in system makes perfect sense.

It takes the opinion out of it. Finish in the top six of the Big Ten or SEC, and you’ll control your destiny. 

The ACC and Big 12 would likely send their conference title game participants to the playoff, so these championships would be about seeding as much as winning a trophy.

Polls and conference comparisons wouldn’t matter anymore, at least not nearly as much. That would help college football. So would a clean playoff bracket.

The worst part of the 12-team playoff is the automatic byes for the top four conference champions. Teams should be seeded based on merit after they earn qualification, just as the NCAA Tournament does.

Teams can get a No. 1 seed whether they win their conference tournament for the automatic bid or are added to the field as an at-large.

In a 16-team playoff, every team would play in the first round. The top eight teams would have home playoff games, and the winners would meet in the quarterfinals (bowl games).

Automatic berths bother fans. It’s understandable, but it’s not worth acting like the Big Ten and SEC don’t run college football. That’s just reality. 

The 16-team College Football Playoff format isn’t perfect. None of the proposals, including the current system, are. 

But this would be an improvement. It would settle more debates on the field and take even more subjectivity out of college football, something every fan should want.