Spencer Wagen / 1600 ESPN
After a long season, in fact the longest season in college football history, the journey came to an end Monday night with Ohio State hoisting the trophy after holding off Notre Dame 34-23 in Atlanta.
The Buckeyes’ win capped off a dominant postseason run, which in large part was sparked by a stunning upset loss to Michigan in the final week of the regular season that created plenty of angst among Ohio State fans and plenty of questions from around the country, not only about Ryan Day’s future as head coach, but also about whether or not the Buckeyes would be motivated enough to go on a run in the expanded playoff.
The answers to those questions after winning the championship? Ryan Day has little to worry about in terms of job security, and the team clearly had plenty of motivation after the loss to “That Team Up North.”
Yes, Ohio State deserves a ton of credit for a legendary postseason run to a championship — nobody is taking that away or questioning it — but a reality that cannot be ignored is the fact that this run likely doesn’t happen without an expanded College Football Playoff field.
If the CFP field had stayed at four teams, my educated guess is that we would have seen Oregon (the unbeaten Big Ten champ and No. 1 team in the country), Georgia (the SEC champion), Notre Dame (11-1, even with their loss to Northern Illinois), and either Texas, Penn State, Ohio State or Boise State get in. Personally, my last spot would have gone to Boise, because they were the only one-loss team out of that bunch and a conference champion — but who knows what the selection committee would have decided.
The change to a 12-team format for the College Football Playoff was undoubtedly a welcome sight for a sport that had been stuck on finding the four best teams for a decade. Now, more access to the playoff means more opportunity — and when you have a two-loss team like Ohio State, chances are that they will be in the field more often than they aren’t and will get a chance to reel off four straight wins to win a title like they did this season.
Overall, I think the first year of the new playoff format was a success. More access for more teams is never a bad thing, and I certainly won’t complain about having more college football games to watch at the end of the year. I also think having the opening round of games at campus sites was a fun element and gave those teams seeded fifth through eighth in the bracket the added advantage of playing at home. It would definitely be a plus if the committee explored putting the quarterfinal games on-campus, too.
One minor change that can be made going into year two of the 12-team format is how the teams are seeded in the bracket. I would like to see the seeding more closely match the final rankings put out by the CFP Committee on that final Sunday, even if it’s just merely a cosmetic thing.
For example, Monday’s championship game was played between the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds in the field. When you take into account that in the final CFP rankings Notre Dame was ranked fifth and Ohio State sixth, well behind Boise State and Arizona State who were the three-seed and four-seed, it feels just a little bit off. The seeding system and which teams get first round byes can be examined and possibly changed.
Quite a few in the college football world have also suggested moving up the timeline for the playoff and changing the regular season schedule to accommodate it. There were 43 days between the final rankings and bracket reveal and Monday’s championship game, and some adjustments may be warranted to keep the timeline on a logical path and avoid conflicts with the NFL, which has ruled the roost on the weekends in December and January for countless years.
The 2024 college football season was a memorable one. Now, it’s only seven months or so until we kick off in 2025, but who’s counting?
Spencer Wagen is the host of “Spencer on Sports” weekdays from 4-6 p.m. on 1600ESPN. You can follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @SWOnTheRadio and Bluesky.
