My Take on a 24 team College Football Playoff

The College Football Playoff gets closer and closer every day to fully realizing its evil scheme of expanding to a 24-team format.

News flash for anyone like me who is optimistic about finally getting equal representation for G6 programs in the CFP: That is NEVER going to happen.

According to a recent report, a 24-team format would be broken down as follows: four Power Four conference champion bids (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, and ACC champions), followed by a single bid for the highest-ranked G6 conference champion, then 19 at-large bids.

Here's my take. The dumbest thing about this expanded format is not the single G6 conference champion slot; it's the 19 at-large bids.

Are we serious? That's maybe the most idiotic thing I've ever heard of, and I used to listen to Colin Cowherd daily. I heard "Hey LeBron...we're good. Ben Simmons is here" LIVE!

We all know that this directly stems from a few mouths that refused to close after the CFP selection committee "snubbed" them last year. Mainly, Notre Dame.

You can make the argument that they deserved that final slot in the CFP last year, and if you can make that case, I would sit down with you and explain why you were wrong.

I think the easiest way to prove that is simply by taking a look at the bracket from last year and seeing who made it to the National Championship. If Notre Dame truly feels that they were snubbed from the CFP last year, then maybe they should've beaten Miami in Week 1, or maybe, just maybe, should have done something in their power to prevent Miami from reaching the Natty.

As the old saying goes, ball don't lie.

In a 12-team format, the argument will always be about the first team out, the same way it was when the CFP was in its infancy and arguments were always about the first team out. Expanding the format to 24 is only going to generate arguments about the first team out, but these arguments are going to be easier and easier to make.

As it currently stands, the Notre Dame vs. Miami argument last year was close, but ultimately failed based on a head-to-head matchup, which is exactly how selection committees should choose which teams make it and which don't in those circumstances.

In a 24-team format, it's going to be a lot harder to determine the first-team-out and last-team-in distinction simply because the playing field is going to be leveled. An 8-4 Washington is going to have a relatively equal claim to a 7-5 Arkansas, and ultimately, it's going to be decided by some arbitrary and made-up advanced stat combining two or more stats to create a decimal that needs to be converted into a whole number using the aggregate of something, but only if we carry the one and blah blah blah blah blah.

I hate to be a purist, but where exactly in this fake scenario I just made up does a football argument exist?

I'm not even mad about the expansion. I think the expansion to a 24-team playoff format is ultimately the correct choice for the college football landscape, so long as equal access is created.

This is where my bias and unconditional love for G6 conferences are going to be ever-so-present.

In the midst of this week-long to month-long toddler tirade from Notre Dame, both as an athletic program and among its fans, during last year's CFP, another topic was brought up.

Tulane.

Now, Tulane was one of the highest-ranked G6 conference champions in football last year and earned its spot in the CFP, where it opened against Ole Miss. And they got crushed, which honestly was to be expected. That Ole Miss team last year was incredible.

But the arguments that rose out of the ashes of that game were that G6 inclusion in the CFP was an incorrect solution. Of course, this was used to say that the G6 shouldn't be included and that Notre Dame should have made the playoffs in its place.

Whatever.

My response to that situation then is the same as it is now.

Join a conference.

I know the history of the football program, trust me. The anti-Catholic sentiment of the conferences in the prehistoric ages surely hasn't stopped Notre Dame from joining conferences in all other sports, so let's just join a conference, or at least admit that you're just greedy because joining means you lose that beautiful media deal you have.

Whatever, I digress. This isn't a Notre Dame hit piece.

Equal Access.

At the core of the Tulane loss last year was the idea that G6 inclusion hurts the CFP because it prevents a worthy team from participating, even though Tulane's loss in the CFP should absolutely not invalidate its regular season and deserved playoff slot.

That's the crux, and it's exactly what 19 at-large bids are missing.

We all know exactly what is going to happen if there are more G6 programs in the CFP. We see it every year with March Madness. A 14-seed MVC team gets absolutely throttled by a 3-seed Big 12 or Big Ten team almost every single year.

Actually, we know that since the basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, 14-seeds are only 23-141 against 3-seeds.

This is a fact of life.

Despite this, I genuinely believe that G6 inclusion is absolutely necessary to the betterment of the CFP era. I would go as far as to say that all 10 FBS conference champions deserve an automatic bid.

Small-conference teams are never going to be consistent upset machines within the CFP landscape, the same way that small-conference teams are categorized as "Cinderella teams" within the college basketball landscape.

Here is where I think the bottom line exists.

If you cruise through the FBS standings right now and look at what is currently unfolding in the G6, it is going to be harder and harder to rationalize the idea of a nine-win Iowa team earning the 17th seed in the CFP if they can get the 24-team format approved.

As it stands currently, there are nine undefeated teams: James Madison, Georgia, Notre Dame, UCLA, Indiana, Texas Tech, BYU, Utah, and Miami.

Right off the bat, that's a very beautiful CFP spread alone. But I don't anticipate any of these teams finishing the season undefeated except for James Madison, possibly Georgia, and, at a rare possibility, BYU.

So selection this year is going to be very tricky when determining who makes the cut.

Even choosing the G6 winner is going to be a difficult challenge to undertake when the FPI is analyzed and strength of schedule and other bizarre metrics are considered to determine the highest-ranked G6 program.

I currently believe that this fight is going to be between Boise State and James Madison, and when strength of schedule and strength of record are ultimately factored into the rankings (JMU having an SOS of 133 and BSU having an SOS of 51), I think it's going to be hard to truly qualify JMU over Boise when looking at records alone.

Expanded to a 24-team format, I genuinely believe the CFP is going to swing in the opposite direction.

Both this Boise State team and this JMU team have a strong case for participation within a 24-team format, as do a couple of other G6 teams: the eventual MAC champion, North Dakota State, and Memphis.

There are legitimate conversations that could be had about qualifying many 11-win or even 10-win G6 teams over a lot of nine-win P4 programs.

I don't think that is going to end up being the case, though.

The expanded CFP will ultimately become what I would like to coin the "P4 Playoff."

Incredible seasons that occur at the G6 level are going to be overridden en masse by mid-tier SEC teams that had a rough start to the season. I think that's a step back for the integrity of the CFP as a whole.

The beautiful thing about March Madness is that every conference receives an automatic bid for its champion. From the Big 12 to the Big Sky, every single conference game matters, and it provides a tangible value to conference wins and losses.

Those values exist within college football as well, but the harm in how the CFP selection committee works is that a G6 team trying to make a push for the elevated goal of getting to the CFP suddenly needs to lower its expectations to a conference championship win and preparing for a bowl game after one loss, meanwhile Virginia Tech can finish the year 9-4 and still be in the hunt.

It's large-market favoritism, and it's a categorical error in the unbiased selection of a playoff field.

Put simply, I don't think that James Madison is Georgia, but James Madison, without question, deserves the opportunity to prove that it can beat Georgia.

A long time ago, Appalachian State walked into Ann Arbor, Michigan, against a #5-ranked team, blocked a game-winning field goal, and stole a game nobody thought it should've ever won.

Earlier that year, a WAC team earned a bid to a New Year's Day bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, and won the game in overtime against Oklahoma, 43-42.

Just a few years later, that same team, now a member of the Mountain West, beat Georgia 35-21 in the 2011 Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game.

Upsets do happen, and they're the most beautiful part of sports at any level. The underdog story is one of the oldest in human history, and one that we can't help but love.

The possibility of upsets is always going to bring people from far and wide to tune in, and it's something that the CFP could truly benefit from.

Unfortunately, the CFP is not going to rectify this anytime soon.

They would rather expand the field to 64 teams than admit that more than one G6 program deserves a Cinderella run, but anything for Notre Dame right? Don't you know their helmets are gold?