Washington State football coach Jake Dickert shared something he’s been thinking about with me this week.
“We need to go to a 28-team playoff,” Dickert told me. “The kids have proven they only want to play in the playoffs, so why not? Let’s give the people what they want. There are no conference champions. The conferences are so big. So let’s open it up and have a real playoff like Division II and Division III. They find a way to do 28 teams. That would create a lot of excitement.”
The Cougars are 7-1 with four games left on the schedule. The first College Football Playoff rankings will be released next Tuesday. WSU isn’t eligible for a conference championship berth this season. Dickert knows his team, even at 11-1, would need help to reach the 12-team playoff field with an at-large berth.
Scrub Conference Title Games?
Dickert said he’d like to see college football move the start of the season to mid-August, do away with conference championship games, and start that 28-team playoff a week after the end of the season.
Would TV go for it?
The conference championship games are included as part of the media-rights package. The networks paid for them and won’t give them up. The current rights deals would need to sunset. That pushes this conversation out to at least 2028 or so. The CFP and ESPN also signed a six-year, $7.8 billion contract last spring. ESPN holds the rights to the event through the 2031-32 season.
Would the Big Ten and SEC be on board?
It’s like Gordon Gekko said: “Money never sleeps.” If there’s more revenue in it, they’d be all ears. But those conferences have their ideas about the future. There’s also the question of what would happen with bowl games.
“These kids want to play in meaningful games,” Dickert said. “The bowl system has had its turn. It’s time to evolve into a bigger playoff system. It took us so long to get a two-team playoff, then a four-team playoff, and now we’re at 12.
“It will get there.”