During an episode of ESPN’s College Football Live this week, the show played a clip of Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney sharing his thoughts on the 12-team College Football Playoff format that is set to begin this season – and what Swinney sees as “unintended consequences” of the expanded CFP.
“I think there’s probably unintended consequences for that, too, just like everything, in that probably as we see guys opting out of bowl games and things like that, you’ll probably see some guys if you’re 4-4 and probably out of the playoffs, you’ll probably see some guys head off to Arizona and train (for the NFL Draft). That’s probably an unintended consequence,” Swinney said .
“You’ll probably see some situations where, like you see in the NFL — the Ravens are in the playoffs, they’ve got it locked up, they’ve got the bye or whatever, and well, they’ve got one more game that really means nothing because it’s all about the playoffs. So, do you play Lamar in that game? That’s probably an unintended consequence in college from a tradition standpoint is maybe you’re 11-0 and you’ve got that rivalry game, but you play your biggest foe next week in the conference championship, and if you win that game, you’re going to get a bye. So, those are decisions you’ll probably see play out all throughout college football.”
After Swinney’s comments were played on College Football Live , legendary Alabama head coach Nick Saban – who joined ESPN as a college football analyst after retiring from coaching this past January – was asked for his thoughts on Swinney’s comments and the impact of the 12-team playoff on college football.
“Well first of all, I hope that we can take into consideration strength of schedule. … There’s a lot of great teams in the SEC, so strength of schedule is really important,” Saban said. “I do think that the expanded playoff is going to be great for fans. When we had a four-team playoff, you only had maybe seven or eight teams that their fan base was really excited at the end of the season to see if they got in the playoffs. Now you’re going to have 25 or 30 fan bases that are excited to see who gets in the playoffs.
“The downside of it is, I just wish we could put the 12 best teams in the playoffs – not worry about conference champions and all that kind of stuff. And if you do get beat in the conference championship game and you’re one of the best teams, you still should get in there because you played really quality opponents and you played good football. So, that’s my only concern about it. I just want to see the best 12 teams in it, and I think most people want to see the best 12 teams in.”
Under the 12-team format, the four highest-ranked conference champions will be seeded one through four and each will receive a first-round bye, while teams seeded five through 12 will play each other in the first round on the home field of the higher-ranked team.
The quarterfinals and semifinals will be played in the New Year’s Six bowl games, and the national championship game will continue to be at a neutral site. No conference will qualify automatically and there will be no limit on the number of participants from a conference.
Saban, who led the Crimson Tide to six national championships and also won a national title at LSU, believes it will be harder than ever to win a national title with the playoff field now expanding to 12 teams.
“I think it’s going to be much more difficult,” Saban said. “You’re going to have to play more games. We won some championships when there was only a one-game playoff. It was harder when there were two games in the playoff, plus the SEC Championship game, to get in. So, it’s going to be much more difficult now. You potentially could play 17 games. We played 15 games several times and that’s a lot of games for players to sustain the level of intensity they need to be successful and play at a high level.
“So, depth of your team is going to be important, sustainability of your team is going to be important, which comes from maturity. So, it’s going to be more difficult than it ever has been to win a national championship.”
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