Will 12-team College Football Playoff enhance non-conference scheduling?
Berry TramelOklahoman
Joe Castiglione likes the proposed 12-team College Football Playoff. Here’s what he really likes about it.
Non-conference scheduling. The OU athletic director says a 12-team playoff should motivate athletic departments to play better schedules.
Joe C. is bullish on protecting the regular season.
“It should incentivize programs in a way they would strengthen their out-of-conference schedule,” Castiglione said. “That should get greater value in the evaluation of a team’s profile, and it will most certainly be widely embraced by the fanbase, because now there should be reasons to have more meaningful games in the non-conference portion.”
Georgia coach Kirby Smart is in that camp, too.
"I think a lot of this is going to boil down to strength of schedule," Smart said on ESPN radio. “For a long time now, we have been trying to build up our future strength of schedule, because it's not the losses that are going to kill you; it's not playing the best teams.”
I hope those guys are right. I’ll raise that banner.
But put me down as skeptical.
Seven years’ worth of playoff selections show that the committee’s foremost criteria is the digit on the right side of the win-loss ledger.
Will programs be motivated to beef up their schedules, knowing that with a 12-team format, two-loss teams will fill the bracket and a quality win or two could stand out? Or will programs do the math, realize that the surest way to a two-loss season is avoidance of rattlesnakes, and keep their soft schedules?
I’m guessing the latter. College football’s spirit of fierce competition is in short supply.
“We've tried to go out and schedule major Power 5s across our scheduling system all the way out with the hopes that this would give us the opportunity to go play some really good teams,” Smart said. “And losses won't kill you when you start talking about top 12. You've got to have a powerful schedule and go play good teams."
Good on the Bulldogs, who indeed have led the way towards better schedules. In recent years, Georgia figured some playoff expansion was coming and has welcomed all comers. For example, Georgia from 2029-31 has scheduled Texas and Clemson, Ohio State and Clemson, and Oklahoma and Ohio State, in addition to its annual game against Georgia Tech.
Florida has hopped aboard that train. The Gators seem to be bucking for promotion to the NFC South — in 2031, Florida has scheduled Texas, Arizona State, Notre Dame and Florida State for its four non-conference games. Alabama, too, has begun scheduling better.
Yet most programs have not followed suit. OU has stayed with its traditional scheduling model — one marquee opponent out of three non-conference games — and that's also true of Southern Cal and Louisiana State, Penn State and Michigan, Texas and Oregon.
Time was, college football teams routinely played quality games. The idea of scheduling an overmatched opponent, much less two or three, was frowned upon.
But economic forces prompted athletic departments to seek more home games, which meant fewer two-game series between quality programs. And now we’ve got most of the SEC, the sport’s premier league, playing schedules that include just one of four games against fellow Power 5 opponents.
The advent of the four-team playoff didn’t help. Former Baylor coach Art Briles famously admitted that he saw no reason for the Bears to risk a defeat in the non-conference, saying if Baylor could go unbeaten in the Big 12, it would make the playoff.
That theory cost Baylor in 2014, when the 11-1 Bears were ranked fifth in the final committee rankings, just outside the bracket. But it was a prevailing theory.
“There’s been a long-standing perception that a team needs to go undefeated to make it into the playoff, even though that myth has been debunked, with several examples,” Castiglione said.
“It still sticks in the minds of some of the schedule-makers at various universities. They don’t want to schedule good out-of-conference games, because they feel if they can finish their non-conference undefeated, and can navigate their conference undefeated or with one loss, it makes them available for the playoffs. That’s not necessarily true.”
Has the committee valued strength of schedule over the years? Hard to tell. Committee chairmen have spent so much time defending their picks with discussions about offense and defense — who cares how teams win? — that strength of schedule hasn’t been a major topic. Though clearly, Baylor’s 2014 trio of SMU, Northwestern State of Louisiana and Buffalo cost the Bears.
But not counting the strange Covid season of 2020, when some teams played six games and others played 11, only once has the committee ranked a one-loss team ahead of a no-loss team. Alabama and Oregon were ranked ahead of 13-0 Florida State in 2014.
And using the top 12 of each final ranking, the committee has averaged about once a year having a team out of order in terms of losses.
2019: No. 8 Wisconsin, 10-3, was ahead of 10-2 Florida and Penn State and 11-2 Utah.
2018: No. 5 Georgia, 11-2, was ahead of 12-1 Ohio State, and 10-2 Washington State was behind three-loss teams Washington, Florida, LSU and Penn State.
2017: No. 5 Ohio State, 11-2, was ahead of 12-1 Wisconsin, and No. 7 Auburn, 10-3, was ahead of two-loss Southern Cal, Penn State, Miami and Washington.
2016: No teams were out of order.
2015: No. 6 Stanford, 11-2, was ahead of No. 7 Ohio State, 11-1.
The 12-team playoff “definitely opens up the opportunity for teams with two losses to continue to be considered for a playoff opportunity,” Castiglione said. “And that should send a signal that better schedules overall help teams create a more compelling profile.”
No Big 12 program has announced future games that change their current model.
A few others have, notably Louisville, Colorado, Georgia Tech and Purdue, in addition to those SEC powers.
Louisville, for example, in 2026 has scheduled Georgia, Kentucky and Notre Dame.
Oklahoma State so far has stayed with its scheduling model. Outgoing OSU athletic director Mike Holder is no fan of the games against Division I-AA opponents, but rather than replacing them with better opponents, he suggested reducing the season.
“I think the regular season’s too long,” Holder said. “It would be real easy to eliminate some of those games that are mismatches to begin with. Just victories masquerading as non-conference opponents.”
As Castiglione mentioned, better schedules would be an enhancement for season-ticket holders. But Holder countered with a different augmentation for tickets. The 12-team proposal includes first-round games on campus sites.
“It’s good for ticket sales on every campus,” Holder said. “You know you better be a season-ticket holder if you expect to get a ticket for a playoff game.”
What does seem clear is that the four-team playoff, announced in 2012 and instituted in 2014, had limited effect on scheduling. The SEC mandated at least one Power 5 opponent for each member, but that still was just one out of four games.
Could the 12-team playoff nudge schools to better scheduling? It’s too early to know.
Apparently, no one had an inkling that the 12-team proposal was coming – the four-man committee that produced the idea, including commissioners Bob Bowlsby of the Big 12 and Greg Sankey of the Southeastern Conference, protected the secret like it was Coca-Cola's recipe.
College football’s regular season has been a con game for years. Billed as the best regular season in sport. If so, that’s an indictment of other regular seasons.
The 64 Power 5 Conference teams will play a combined 180 non-conference games this season. Fifty-three of those games are against Division I-AA opponents, and 69 are against mid-majors outside the top tier of the Group of 5 conferences. In other words, outside the Brigham Young/Central Florida/Cincinnati/Houston/Boise State/Coastal Carolina crowd.
That’s 112 mismatches, out of 180 games.
Hurry up, 12-team playoff. Save the regular season, if you can.
