Welcome back, oh great and wonderful sports fans, to episode 711 which was going to be called “G’s Expectation or Isn’t It Convenient?” as a pun for the episode number. Thankfully, rumors have been spreading about the expansion of the FBS 12-team playoff to 24 teams all day long. Assuming the conferences can hash out the final details (deadline of December 1st, 2026) it will add 12 games from the current 11 required to determine the Natty now to 23 (simple math: number of teams minus one since every team, but one, loses their final game). More than likely, the top 8 seeds will get byes (this is how the FCS handles their 24-team playoff now) and the next top 8 seeds will host first-round games on their respective campuses. The winner of those games will, in some way unknown now, be allocated to the bye teams and play the second round on their campuses. There could be an absolute bracket so that two teams that “upset” their way to the quarter finals play each other or reset for each round so that the highest seed plays the lowest remaining seed every game. After two rounds, in this format, we are down to 8 teams for the quarters. Those 4 games will likely be existing bowl games. The semis would be part of the New Year’s Six games (probably) followed by the National Championship. The winner would have won 4 (or 5, if outside the original top 8) games. Most of this is speculation because something this simple is not…common…for the NCAA to figure out. The format that we are seeing the most is similar to our current 12-team playoff in that there will be 5 automatic bids: the champions of the ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, and the highest ranked Group of 6 team. The other 19 teams would be at large (most likely) selected by committee.
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We love this concept but there are a few concerns. In order to boost the conference, the SEC broke into divisions that led to the first conference championship game. Other conferences followed until they didn’t. Divisions went away in all of Division I except for the SWAC in the FCS and the Sun Belt in the FBS. The Championship games continued. During that time, teams went from playing 11 games a season to twelve – plus the championship game for the most fortunate. The BCS pitted the two “best” teams (still very controversial) which meant the maximum number of games for a team was 14. The 4-team playoff moved that to 15. The 12-team playoff of the last few seasons moved that to 17 or (potentially) 18. The new structure has the champion playing either 18 or 19 games. For comparison, the NFL plays a 17-game schedule. Not to pile on, most of the Core 4 conferences (all but the Big Ten and Notre Dame which has its own rules) are pushing for a minimum of 10 Core 4 opponents, including conference games. Would we go back in time (or within the entire FCS except for the SWAC) and simply have a complex set of tiebreakers to determine conference champions to limit the overall number of games played? How would that play if one of the teams was on the bubble for the playoffs and an upset would give them a spot (see 2010 South Carolina who played eventual national champion Auburn in the SEC championship game despite winning the East with a 9-3 record). Would the seeds be based solely on the committee’s ranking or would the auto-bid champions get a boost for the conference title? What about Notre Dame? Would a 12-0 Irish team be placed above an auto-bid or is 6th the best they can aspire to? Would there be a cap on the number of teams from a conference or could we see 8 SEC and/or Big Ten teams? How transparent would the committee be on these choices (we sincerely hope for more than there is today)? Time will tell. We will continue to follow the story and keep our readers up to date.
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With all of that, there are three games today that kick off in just a couple of minutes so, in light of our lack of ability to get this post out earlier, we will apologize to our readers and the six teams as we just post the summary. Last night, we had another 3-point game as Missouri St (2-4/132) surprised us and Kennesaw St (1-5/137). The GCR missed that prediction. W Kentucky (3-4/97) took down Sam Houston (1-5/144) 16-3 as we predicted. So far this week we are a paltry 2-2 straight up and 2-2 against the spread. Enjoy the games tonight (which start in 3 minutes from this word):
| Time (ET) | Games of October 15th | Conference | Vegas | GCR | Cover | TV |
| 7:30 | East Carolina (3-2/90) at UAB (3-3/106) | AAC | ECAR -4.5 | ECAR | UAB | ESPN |
| 7:30 | Ga Southern (2-4/116) at Old Dominion (2-4/127) | SUN | GASO -3.5 | GASO | OD | ESPN2 |
| 8:00 | Colorado St (2-3/123) at Texas St (2-3/111) | PAC | TXST -14.5 | TXST | COST | CBS Sports |
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That’s it for today. Tune in tomorrow for a 4-game set of Collegiate Friday Night Lights (probably tomorrow’s title). Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing with others. We really cannot do this without you, JoJo and G.
