Why Rich Does NOT Want to See a 24-Team College Football Playoff Field

Rich owes Tony Petitti a favor. The Big Ten commissioner gave him his first on-air gig after ESPN handed him a cardboard box in 2003, calling him up about the late night US Open show on CBS. Rich says he is forever indebted.

He also thinks Petitti's idea of a 24-team College Football Playoff is terrible.

"I don't like it at all," Rich said. "Of course it's too many. 24? Come on, man."

The objection is not aesthetic. It is structural, and it comes down to what a playoff that big does to the twelve Saturdays that precede it.

"The last thing I want is the playoffs to be so wide open that regular season games suddenly don't matter as much."

Rich gave the counterargument its due. Petitti's position is that a bigger field creates meaning for the teams fighting for seeds 20 through 24, and that the expansion generates the revenue that could finally kill off the conference championship games. Rich actually wants those gone. He called them wasteful, argued they already do not matter much with a 12-team field, and pointed out the asymmetry: teams that skip the championship game can still get in, the loser gets penalized, and somebody can get hurt for nothing.

So the trade-off is understood. He still will not take it, because of one specific nightmare.

"I just don't want a situation where Michigan and Ohio State play each other in the last regular season game for both and both of them are resting starters like it's a week 17 game in the NFL, because both teams are already in the playoffs."

Not just resting bodies. Hiding schemes. We could face each other in 2 weeks. I'm not going to show you the best of my game plan.

"Suddenly, the game just doesn't mean that much."

The desk offered a fix that is either brilliant or a war crime depending on your zip code. Play the game first. Week one. Week two. Why wait.

Rich liked it as a solution and hated that it would be necessary, which is the correct reaction.

The other half of his argument is about quality control, and here the numbers back him. With 12 teams there are 11 games. Over the last couple of years, five of them were decided by three scores or more.

"A lot of them stink."

Which brings up the uncomfortable part. Rich apologized in advance to the James Madisons of the world and then said the quiet thing anyway. They have no chance to win. The committee is hoping against hope for a UMBC-style moment, some Cinderella crashing off the edge.

"That just isn't football, man."

In basketball it happens. In football it is a blue moon. A unicorn nobody has actually seen.

His preferred repair is to fix the field before growing it, so a team like Notre Dame gets in instead of James Madison. He acknowledged the lawsuits and the reasons the playoff was built to include those teams in the first place. He also thinks that might be the egg you have to crack.

The math argument closed it. With 12 teams, how many can actually win the national championship? Four or five. Expand to 24 and the answer is still four or five. All you have added is fifteen more teams that cannot win it.

Rich also gave a nod to Steve Sarkisian, who has been arguing for patience. Let 12 breathe for a while. See how it works.

"Because if we're seeing it now in 12, then what's going to happen when it's 24 versus six or 24 versus seven?"

Someone on the desk pushed further and said 12 is still too many. Rich would not go there.

"I don't know about that, pal. But 24 is just nuts."