Why ESPN's 24-Team College Football Playoff May Fail

The 2014 playoff is now going to be a thing. This is not a shock. We knew it was happening. And unfortunately, it does end in a lot of ways. It ends the controversy, the conversations, and all of the drama that we had last weekend on Saturday, where so many of those games mattered a ton because of the 12-team playoff. I mean, heck, you could make a pretty good case. That Ohio State next year, if what happened to Ohio State this year happens next year, that Ohio State would still be in the playoffs. Ohio State does not belong in the playoffs, period. That football team's not good. I mean, you can say that Julian saying went down and that derailed everything. And that is kind of the problem. But that defense for the Buckeyes got killed by Oregon at home last week. So like, if we're going to talk about resume and who beat whom, I mean, a three loss Ohio state team is going to be in a 2014 playoff every year, like every single year. So that's the problem. That's why, and I do think they're going to regret this. I really do. I think ESPN, there's just certain things, you know, I'm not trying to get political, but there are certain things when the federal government does something that everybody knows is really unpopular, that eventually it's going to come back and bite them in the ass. And that's what happened last Tuesday, right? Well, that's kind of what ESPN is doing here. ESPN is going against the entire fan base. There's nobody. There's no fan that I know that I've seen in the chat. There's nobody that wants a 2014 playoff. So ESPN is doing this because they want the money and the eyeballs and they want the ratings that will come from a 2014 playoff because of the contract they have with the SEC. They need to monetize that as much as possible. And that means they must have a national championship. And the more games in a playoff, they own it all. So let's just keep on expanding and expanding and expanding because people are going to watch. But there is a saturation point. And there is a point where fans say, eh, you know what? I'm good. Wake me up in the semifinal. And I think that's a real possibility for what the 2014 playoff is going to look like. The 12-team playoff in week one last year absolutely sucked. It may suck again this year. And then we're going to expand this? It's a massive mistake. It's dumb. It doesn't make any sense other than money. And I think when your main goal is money, That's not the right place to be from a heart perspective. Your motives are wrong. ESPN's motives are wrong. And I think eventually they're going to come back to earth and go, yeah, that was wrong. We shouldn't have done that. Let's pull this back. I mean, it's bigger than the NFL and the NFL playoffs. I mean, I get it. It's the NFL, but even the NFL playoffs feel long. 2014 playoff. Yeah. Good luck building that bracket to make it interesting. It's going to stink. It really is. And fine, so be it. We knew it was coming, but it really is an unfortunate situation for sure. Again, nobody asked for this. No one's wanting it. No one's clamoring for it. And yet they gave it to us.