There's absolutely no need for a 14-team College Football Playoff field
The College Football Playoff has been at four teams since its induction in 2014 and while there haven't been a ton of complaints about the small field, it's going to see an expansion to 12 teams for the upcoming 2024 season.
Yes, this is likely about money. The more big games, the more money the sport generates and a 12-team playoff will capture everyone's attention for about a month.
We have yet to see just how effective a 12-team field will be and if it will yield major upsets like everyone is hoping. Will we see a 12-seed beat a 1-seed after winning its first-round game? The top four seeds get an auto bye. So if you win a Power Four conference title, you're guaranteed to be one of the top four seeds. Yes, that also means Notre Dame can't earn a bye and the best it can ever do is the No. 5 seed -- sorry, Irish fans.
While we haven't seen this new format in action yet, there are already talks of expanding the field yet again, this time to 14 teams.
Sources: The idea of a 14-team College Football Playoff was discussed by the CFP management committee at meetings in the Dallas area today. If that happened, it would begin in 2026. Nothing is imminent, but it’s significant this idea was discussed.
— Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) February 21, 2024
Let's just see how the 12-team playoff does, shall we? I mean, we have yet to see any controversy take place in the selection of a 12-team field so why would we even consider expanding to 14 teams? Are we already expecting two teams to feel like they were left out a-la Georgia and Florida State this past year? If it gets to that point, the 13th and 14th teams shouldn't feel that slighted if they couldn't make a cut of 12 teams.
Honestly, there's just no need for another expansion -- yet.
Are we assuming that there are 14 teams capable of winning a national title every year? That just doesn't seem right. Realistically, there are about 7-8 that can legitimately win it all and another 4-5 that could compete for a spot in the playoff (at most).
The playoff doesn't need to be expanded every two years.
Pretty soon, the College Football Playoff field is going to look like the NCAA Tournament field for basketball with 64 teams (all bowl eligible teams) having a shot to win it all.