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The College Football Playoff will be expanding from 4 teams to 12 starting in the 2024 season, and ESPN college football analyst Greg McElroy believes it will have a massive effect on how the regular season is played out.
Plainly put, the former Alabama quarterback who knew a thing or 2 about high-stakes regular-season games before the Playoff was even launched in 2014, believes the expansion of college football’s showcase event by 3 times will decrease the significance of regular-season games.
“Now you have more opportunities to shoot yourself in the foot and yet still have an opportunity to make the College Football Playoff,” said McElroy on the Always College Football podcast. “Absolutely, it weakens the regular season.”
Does the expanded playoff weaken the significance of the regular season? @GregMcElroy breaks it down ⤵️#AlwaysCFB pic.twitter.com/aZYE2RuQqm
— Always College Football (@AlwaysCFB) March 10, 2023
But McElroy was quick to point to a caveat in that theory.
“Now, it doesn’t weaken the regular season for everybody. Here me when I say that,” McElroy said. “Because now, if you’re a team that perennially is looking at a 9-3 or maybe a 10-2, then you’re within striking distance of the College Football Playoff. A Playoff berth for some teams will be a massive achievement. Frankly, that entry point into the Playoff has always existed, but it felt like it was impossible for so many different programs. Now, it feels possible.”
McElroy’s point about the Playoff expanding to 12 teams weakening the regular season had everything to do with the blueblood programs, like his alma mater Alabama. In the end, McElroy believes it will benefit college football.
“It’s not the end of the world, because more teams now have a chance,” said McElroy.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
