3 best ideas for College Football Playoff expansion

Fans want to see the College Football Playoff expanded and here are the three most logical ways to do that.

Earlier this week, a survey of college football fans was released by The Athletic and the topic was College Football Playoff expansion.

Few topics are hotter among fans, especially those who don’t follow the elite programs such as Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Oklahoma, Georgia, LSU, Notre Dame, and others.

The College Football Playoff has created a club of exclusivity in college football and unless something is done about it, the separation between the elite and everyone else will only grow.

As Andy Staples of The Athletic posted on Twitter, nearly 83 percent of the more than 3,000 college football fans who took the survey want expansion.

The survey also talked about potential options for the College Football Playoff. Like with the ranking of the top four teams, everyone has an opinion, and here’s mine for what needs to happen with expansion. At least here are the three best options.

8-team playoff

The College Football Playoff expanding to eight teams seems like the most likely scenario. It keeps the focus on the regular season and wouldn’t dramatically alter the bowl system.

From a scheduling perspective, the quarterfinals could be played a week or two after the conference championship games. The rest of the playoff could follow the current schedule.

There may need to be some tweaking to the regular season, either moving up the start a week or cutting a non-conference game, playing 11 total, and then adding the 12th game the week of conference championships. Have every team play similar to what the Big Ten did last year with crossover games.

The biggest debate with an 8-team playoff is who gets automatic bids? Right now, there are none in the College Football Playoff.

Many want a Group of Five champion to get an automatic berth, along with the other five leagues. That seems to be the biggest push behind the idea, otherwise, some fear there will be just 3-4 SEC teams out of the eight.

Notre Dame also throws a wrench in the mix. If you guarantee six conference champions a spot, the Irish would be left to compete for one of two at-large berths. But that’s the cost of doing business if you refuse to join a conference.

Ultimately, conference champions should get a bid, especially in the Power 5. A top-ranked Group of Five team also deserves a shot. Those programs deserve the chance to actually compete for a national championship, which they should get a shot to do if they win all their games.

However, there should be minimum requirements for all conference champs. An 8-4 team shouldn’t be able to luck its way in after winning a mediocre division and winning one championship game.

I’d suggest any team ranked in the top-15 of the final College Football Playoff rankings, that also wins its conference or is the top-ranked Group-of-Five team, get auto entry.

Personally, a play-in game between the No. 8 seed and the top-ranked Group-of-Five champion would be a lot of fun, but the scheduling doesn’t really make sense.

Something like this seems most likely if the playoff is expanded. But what about a 12-team format?