Personally, I find this to be phenomenal and believe that it will supercharge the interest in the sport beyond the handful of top brands (e.g. The newly expanded CFP will start in 2026 for sure and it’s possible that it could come sooner. We have finally reached the state where that constant gnawing and frustration can stop: the College Football Playoff Board of Managers (AKA the designated university president representative from each FBS conference and Notre Dame) has approved a 12-team playoff with the top 6 conference champions receiving bids along with 6 at-large slots. It was a bizarro world in how it’s the one instance where the powers that be failed the fans for not acting rationally in their own economic self-interests. Yet, when it came to the one money-chasing item on the agenda that fans actually wanted – a full college football playoff – the powers that be continued to fail to deliver over the years. What made it particularly frustrating is that we have witnessed universities and conferences chase every single dollar under the sun, whether it’s via conference realignment, TV contracts that require odd start times and travel for athletes, and pushing donors to fund everything from state-of-the-art locker rooms to the current zeal for NIL collectives. The best that we could say about the college football postseason is that it has gradually become less asinine over the years. If there’s one structural item in all of sports (whether college or pro) that has gnawed at me ever since I was a kid, it’s that the way that college football determines is champion is asinine. However, long before realignment became a year-in and year-out news story, I’ve been writing about and advocating for a legitimate full-scale college football playoff. Most of the readers here came to this blog because of my writings on conference realignment. USC-Wisconsin seems to be the most attractive “western” annual matchup from a national perspective, so that’s in both scenarios.Note that this is only realistically possible if Nebraska has both USC and UCLA as annual rivals (as Nebraska-Iowa would be preserved but Nebraska-Minnesota would be eliminated). The Trophy Games option would preserve or reinstate all trophy games from the “original Big Ten” era prior to Penn State joining the league.For instance, each Illinois school plays one California and one Indiana school annually. The Geography option took the 2 locked rivals for each school from the 11-team Big Ten era except for PSU-MSU and largely zippered matchups for multi-school states.No one has 3 marquee games or, on the flip side, 3 games destined for Peacock. In both scenarios, each school has at least one annual game with a larger brand (assuming that we can consider UCLA to be a brand name) for TV and competitive balance purposes.It is a good game, but always felt a bit forced as a rivalry for both sides and the TV networks absolutely 100% need Ohio State-Penn State to continue annually. Notably, that means Penn State-Michigan State goes away as an annual trophy game under both setups. Ohio State-Penn State is now generally the most-watched Big Ten game after Michigan-Ohio State, while the league’s East Coast strategy is based on tying Penn State with Rutgers and Maryland. The one school that has 3 clear rivals in all scenarios is Penn State with Ohio State, Rutgers and Maryland.Purdue – Indiana, Northwestern, Michigan State Michigan – Ohio State, Michigan State, Rutgers Michigan State – Michigan, Purdue, Maryland Ohio State – Michigan, Penn State, Indiana Maryland – Penn State, Rutgers, Michigan State Penn State – Rutgers, Maryland, Ohio State Assuming that the Big Ten will have 3 annual protected rivals for each school when USC and UCLA join, I’ve mapped out a couple of different potential matchup lineups: one more heavily based on pure geography and one with more priority to trophy games. With Big Ten expansion seemingly on pause for the moment, let’s take a look at how the scheduling might work in a 16-team Big Ten.
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