What was once unthinkable is now official. The College Football Playoff — itself a long-imagined concept many believed would never come to fruition — will expand to 12 teams, beginning with the 2024 season. The four-highest ranked conference champions will receive byes, while the next four highest seeds will host first-round games. The quarterfinals and semifinals rotate among the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Fiesta Bowl, Orange Bowl, Cotton Bowl and Peach Bowl.
The expanded playoff will give berths to the six highest-ranked conference champions, ensuring at least one team — and potentially more — outside the Power Five will be included. The most unjust and elitist major American sport has never been closer to achieving some semblance of egalitarianism.
Finally, college football can fulfill its potential.
Cincinnati (2021) is the only Group of Five team to crack the field in the playoff’s first eight years. In that time, only 13 different teams have reached the semifinals. There will no longer be situations in which undefeated teams such as UCF (2017-18) will be left out, forever wondering whether it could have pulled a March Madness-like upset, an incredible ingredient long absent from college football’s championship picture and the biggest part of what makes the NCAA Tournament the most beloved postseason in sports. It was always ridiculous to assume we knew how each mismatch would have ended. Did you see Buster Douglas coming? Or the ’68 Jets? Or the Miracle on Ice? Since BYU’s 1984 national title, nine teams outside of power conferences have completed undefeated seasons. Who knows how many incredible moments we missed out on?
For a sport that is less than a decade removed from only two teams having the opportunity to fight for a national championship — a sport that still awarded split titles as recently as 2003 — tripling the number of playoff participants may sound like too many to some.
But even with 12 playoff teams, the FBS — with inherently imbalanced schedules that scream for a larger postseason — still would invite a far smaller share of its teams (9.2 percent) than other leagues. More than half of NBA and NHL teams make the postseason. The NFL lets in over 43 percent. MLB has 40 percent. The men’s NCAA Tournament makes room for more than 20 percent.
The potential for unpredictable outcomes is only part of what will heighten the chase for a national championship. The appeal of playoff games being played on campuses cannot be overstated. I covered seven national championship games and six semifinal games. Some of them rank among the most thrilling games of all time. But the atmospheres inside NFL stadiums located far from both schools could never compete with the feel of a big game in a college town. Even on TV, the difference will be striking.
If anyone still longs for the days when a bowl game carried as much importance as a playoff game, I get it. I understand the romanticism attached to writing a letter, too. But I’d rather see a loved one immediately via FaceTime. This year, 43 bowl games will be played, which will feature multiple teams with losing records playing in front of half-empty stadiums. All luster was lost from the antiquated system long ago.
Others are concerned that expanding the playoff field will devalue the regular season and reduce the stakes in games like last week’s affair between undefeated Michigan and Ohio State. In truth, more games will matter. More teams will be fighting for a playoff spot. More fan bases will be engaged deeper into each season. More weeks will feature de facto playoff games.
On Friday night, USC and Utah face off in the Pac-12 Championship, likely the only game of the weekend with playoff stakes. If the 12-team field was in place this season, most conference championship games would be must-see affairs, including the AAC title game between Tulane and UCF.
It is absurd that a sport first played in 1869 won’t hold its first true playoff until 2024, that politics and greed, school presidents and TV executives and bowl commissioners stood in the way of what millions of us have always longed to see.
But it is now official. The dream is real.
Today’s back page
Read more:
🏈 How Mike White is adjusting to second chance to be Jets’ savior
⚽ USMNT goalie’s long, strange journey from New Jersey to Qatar
⚾ HEYMAN: Predicting where top MLB free agents will land
What do you have on drought?
The Jets’ league-worst 11-year playoff drought is nearly twice as long as the team (Broncos) directly behind them on the list. The Giants’ five-year drought places them among five teams with streaks of futility at least as long.
Sunday will give us a much better idea if either drought will soon end.
The Giants (7-4) play a borderline must-win game, hosting the Commanders (7-5) — who have won six of their past seven games and claimed both matchups with the Giants last season — in a meeting of teams currently occupying the final two playoff spots in the NFC.
As a 2.5-point underdog, it is the Giants’ second-most winnable game remaining on their schedule, which ranks as the most difficult of any NFL team in the final six weeks. A third straight Giants loss — and fourth in five games — would put eighth-place Seattle (6-5) in a far more favorable position because the Seahawks will be favored in four of their final six games of the regular season.
If the Jets (7-4) lose at Minnesota (9-2), it won’t reveal as much about their playoff chances as the performance of Mike White will.
After taking over for Zach Wilson and lighting up the Bears for 315 yards and three touchdowns in a 31-10 win last week, the former fifth-round pick could again be set up for success against the Vikings’ 32nd-ranked pass defense, which allows 276 passing yards per game. Should White follow last season’s arc — throwing for four interceptions two weeks after his historic first NFL start — Robert Saleh won’t feel good about Wilson or White taking the reins next week against Buffalo — or in the final month.
World Cup power rankings
On Saturday, the U.S Men’s National Team will have a chance to advance to a World Cup quarterfinal for the first time since 2002, the only time the American squad has advanced in the knockout stage since reaching the semifinals of the sparsely attended inaugural World Cup in 1930.
The U.S. (+180) will be underdogs against the Netherlands (-225) then potentially face a bigger mismatch against Argentina — a -1600 favorite against Australia — in the quarterfinals.
But good luck guessing what happens now.
This World Cup has already seen three of the top 10 favorites (Germany, Belgium, Denmark) eliminated. It has given us an all-time upset in Saudi Arabia’s triumph over Argentina and a pair of unlikely group winners (Japan, Morocco). It has given all you could ask — besides a few more goals.
With the group stage ending today, here is a ranking of the 20 teams that remain in Qatar.
20. Cameroon: Advancing requires a win today against Brazil. It was fun while it lasted.
19. South Korea
18. Australia
17. Poland
16. Ghana
15. Morocco
14. Serbia
13. Senegal
12. Japan: No one should want to play them, following upsets of Germany and Spain.
11. United States: Christian Pulisic is responsible for scoring and setting up the team’s only two goals through three games. They don’t want to find out what their attack would look like without Captain America, who is still recovering from the pelvic injury suffered in the win against Iran.
10. Switzerland
9. Uruguay
8. Croatia
7. Portugal: Cristiano Ronaldo, the first men’s player in history to score in five different World Cups, hasn’t taken his country past the Round of 16 since 2006. At 37, he’ll need help to do it again.
6. Netherlands: The favorite in an underwhelming group did what it was supposed to do, but this isn’t the power of tournaments past. The three-time finalist is susceptible to an upset from the Americans.
5. England: Few countries carry as much World Cup baggage, but Harry Kane led the Three Lions to a semifinal appearance four years ago.
4. Spain: The young and talented Spanish squad struggled to score against its two most challenging opponents. They can’t out-possess their way to a title.
3. Argentina: Following its tournament-opening loss, Argentina stared down an epic embarrassment. The team came through in back-to-back must-win games, keeping Lionel Messi’s first World Cup triumph within reach.
2. France: Kylian Mbappe and the defending champs looked the part in the group stage. The French also earned the bonus of being able to rest its stars in its final game this week.
1. Brazil: The tournament favorite won’t be quite as feared if Neymar misses the rest of the World Cup because of an ankle injury.