Expansion thoughts

 You knew this was coming. Elephants aren't real good at sneaking up on folks, and the expansion of the College Football Playoff was, if not the elephant in the room, then the elephant that was making the walls shake as it clumped down the hallway.

Of course they were going to expand the thing, just like they expanded the NCAA Tournament back in the day. An Only Four wasn't enough. There needed to be a Final Four, and you can't have a Final Four unless you have a Preceding Four, or Eight, or whatever.

The CFP committee decided on a Preceding Eight. Which seems right, at least four now.

For now, beginning in 2026 if not sooner, it'll be a 12-team playoff that will include the six highest-ranked conference champions and six at-large teams. So, you figure it'll be the champions of the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12, Whatever's-Left-Of-The-Pac-12 and the odd Mountain West, AAC or C-USA champ.

The at-large teams will be Notre Dame and five more SEC schools.

And, OK, so the Blob is being snide here. But how can you not be when it comes to college football these days?

Because, listen, by 2026 (or before) there may not be six conference champs to put in this show. The Big 12 and the Whatever's-Left-Of-The-Pac-12 may have merged by then. The ACC (including Notre Dame) may have been swallowed up by either the Big Ten or the SEC or both. It may get to a point where the 12-team playoff includes two conference champs and 10 more SEC, er, at-large teams.

Or maybe the MAC champ gets in. How sweet would that be?

("No," says all the Big Ten schools who routinely get upset by MAC schools every year)

The situation, in other words, is still fluid. What's not is how a 12-team playoff will shake out in the end, which won't look much different than the current Only Four playoff.

I mean, you can expand the whole deal to 32 teams, and it's still gonna be Alabama, Georgia, Ohio State (or Michigan) and your random Texas A&M, Clemson, Oregon or a 10-2 Notre Dame in the Final Four.

"So what's the point of expanding, Mr. Blob?" you're asking now.

 Yeesh. After all this time, do I really need to explain that?

Perhaps a musical interlude would help.