A 24-team playoff is coming in college football, and it’s never been clearer that one playoff isn’t enough.
College football needs another playoff.
I’m serious.
Look, I loathe a 24-team playoff as much as the next guy, but it’s coming next season, whether we like it or not. The super-sized playoff will shove bowl games into a blender of uncertainty, and that unlocks an opportunity to rethink the postseason and consider some blue-sky possibilities.
Like … a Group of Six playoff.
This isn’t just a sports columnist thinking out loud.
Inside the G6 ranks, they’re at least informally discussing the subject.
Memphis athletic director Ed Scott recently spoke with USA TODAY Sports about
a broad range of college athletics topics. Among them: a potential G6 playoff.
To sum up Scott’s stance, he wouldn’t want to surrender Memphis’ chance to compete in the 24-team CFP. But, that point aside, he’s got some interest in a G6 playoff. He’s not alone.
“I’ve talked to some other ADs about it," Scott told USA TODAY Sports. "The folks I’ve talked to, they don’t want to eliminate the opportunity of competing in a 24-team playoff. That’s first and foremost, right? There could be an option of getting more than one Group of Six team (into a 24-team playoff).”
But, what if this wasn't a binary choice? What if the G6 didn’t have to choose between inclusion in the CFP or a G6 playoff? Why couldn't it retain its one automatic bid to the CFP, while also creating a G6 playoff as a postseason destination for its top teams that don't qualify for the CFP?
Think of it almost like college basketball. The NCAA Tournament reserves some automatic bids for mid-majors, while additional mid-majors that don't make March Madness head into the NIT.
A similar system might work for football. The G6 could retain an automatic bid into the CFP, and after the CFP field is set, then an eight-team G6 playoff could assign its bids, almost like bowl games do now.
Murky future for bowl games creates runway for Group of Six playoff
An eight-team G6 playoff could set up parameters so that the best available team from each of the six conferences would earn a bid, plus two additional at-large spots for G6 teams.
Think of it less as a rival playoff and more as a companion to the CFP.
Wouldn’t a spot in the G6 playoff trump a bid to a dying bowl game?
“Bowl games are getting harder to get buy-in from your players, especially after the holidays,” Scott, the Memphis AD, acknowledged.
“I think if you’re playing for a championship at that level, I think it might mean more, eventually, but I don’t know enough (yet). I don’t have enough data until we get to a 24-team playoff to feel strongly one way or the other.”
Yes, a TV market would exist for a Group of Six football playoff
You think nobody would watch a lower-tier playoff? You’d be surprised.
“Yes, there would be a market” for a G6 playoff, said West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker. Before Baker took his post at a Big 12 school, he was the AD at North Texas, and he also worked at Memphis, examples of two schools that would be contenders for a G6 playoff spot, if it existed this season.
“There’s a market for all these bowl games, because people are home that time of year, and there’s a lot of clean air space,” Baker told USA TODAY Sports, “and for whatever reason, people don’t get that interested in basketball until about February.”
Let’s apply some numbers to this thinking.
Last year’s FCS championship game between Montana State and Illinois State averaged 2.3 million viewers on ESPN. One of the FCS semifinal games, between rivals Montana and Montana State, averaged 2.8 million viewers on ABC, five days before Christmas. Multiple FCS quarterfinal games hit at least 1.5 million viewers.
For context, a Louisville-Indiana basketball game last December attracted a Saturday CBS audience of 1.4 million viewers.
The vast majority of December college basketball games attract fewer than a million viewers.
Americans like football, they like betting on football, and they’re already trained to watch postseason college football in December.
What else are you going to watch in December when you’re taking off work and stuffing your face with Christmas cookies? If your December viewing options are a G6 playoff game or a Hallmark movie in which you can predict the ending — after a series of twists, they end up married and happy in a remote, snowy town — I can predict which one you’ll pick. It’s the one you’ve placed a $50 FanDuel wager on and not the Lacey Chabert flick.
If you watched North Texas vs. San Diego State in a bowl game last December (it averaged 1.4 million viewers), you’d watch that same matchup in the G6 playoff — only this time, the stakes would be elevated.
Sure, legitimate questions arise about the functionality of a G6 playoff.
Could a coach keep players who might be thinking about transferring engaged in a three-round G6 playoff? Could you wrap up the playoff before the portal opens in early January? How frequently would G6 playoff teams have to compete in these playoff games with interim coaches, after their coach vamooses for a Power Four job?
Some of these questions already exist, to some degree, within the bowl landscape.
Here's another question G6 stakeholders must consider: Which sounds better, a spot in the New Mexico Bowl or a bid to a G6 playoff?
“I see why the conversation (about a G6 playoff) has happened,” said Scott, the Memphis AD, “and I’ve engaged in some of those conversations myself.”
Keep talking, and consider the possibility that two playoffs are better than one, and a G6 championship trophy would mean more than the clay pot awarded to the winner of the New Mexico Bowl.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College football needs a second playoff. Yes, schools are considering it
