By Mark Blaudschun
FWAA Columnist
In the next few months--perhaps the next few weeks--the powers that be in college football will take the next step in modifying the playoff system that decides the FBS national champion.
Let's be clear on this.
The commissioners need to get it RIGHT to maintain their credibility with an uneasy fan base which basically watches college football in a full sprint across the goal line to become a lowercase version of the nfl.
Name Image and Likeness (NIL) money, transfer portal transactions worth millions of dollars to players, and a constantly changing configuration of conferences have created an atmosphere of chaos.
Not having an acknowledged leader of college football taking control adds to the confusion.
But that will play itself out over the next few years.
College football has to tweak its FBS playoff system system now with rigid ground rules.
Here's what looks inevitable:
1. An expansion from 12 to 16 teams, starting in the 2026 season.
2. Guaranteed slots for the top five conference champions in the expanded playoff.
Coming very close---which means it could be approved at the next CFB Playoff Board meeting in Asheville, N.C. soon--is a no-bye system with NO byes for any teams in the first round, which will be played on campus sites in mid-December.
But it needs to be a true-seed-based first round--1 vs.16, 2 vs.15 etc.
And then we come to the key issue which will be resolved between the SEC and Big Ten.
What needs to be eliminated are the multiple guaranteed slots for the conferences.
Right now the proposal being considered is this.
4 (SEC)
4 (Big 10)
2 (ACC)
2 (Big 12)
1 (Group of Five)
3 (At-large)
But the SEC has proposed that after the first five slots for conference champions have 11 at-larges.
Let the games be played and the Top 16 teams make the field with no pre-set guarantees.
That makes sense, but it puts more pressure on the ever-changing CFP Selection Committee members to make sure they get the Top 16 teams right.
If it works out in any given year that the SEC or Big Ten has six teams in the Top 16, put them in. If it works the other way, they have only three--that's the luck of the draw. They get three.
There are compromises which can be made, of course, and there will be casualties, most likely the importance of the money-making conference championship games.
Their time in the spotlight has passed.
When the Big Ten and SEC hold their championship games in December, maybe all four participants in those game will be in the playoff.
So be it.
"We want to keep our options open,'' said Florida Ahleltic Director Scott Stricklin at the SEC meetings in Florida last month.
Yes, they do, and they should.
There must be changes, which could eventually mean trimming a regular season game from the schedule and adding another bye week. It also means starting the season in the last week in August and extending it to the last week in January.
Deal with it.
Welcome to the NFL.
That's the future.
But as long as they continue to have the names of the schools on the uniforms, college football can retain its identity and not be an NFL-lite version.
The fans will come, the bands will play, and the students will party on, cheering for their team, even though they may not know all the players on their roster.
The 2025 season is rapidly approaching and there are intriguing storylines which will develop.
But the future system that is set up has to work.
So far they have taken the right things to fix what has been broken, but now we have reached crunch time.
If there is chaos in the way the system is run, then the product doesn' really matter.
The public won't buy it and not even television may be able to sell it.
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