Say this for the Big Ten's quest to expand theCollege Football Playoff: It doesn't become fixated with any particular idea.
While theSECremains stuck on a 5+11 playoff plan theBig Tenrefuses to accept, Tony Petitti's idea-du-jour playoff think tank has devised yet another proposal.
Thislatest idea from Big Ten landwould have made four-loss Iowa a playoff qualifier.
Before you laugh, remember what those four-loss Hawkeyesdid to 10-win Vanderbilt in the ReliaQuest Bowl.
More specifically, the Big Ten reportedly wants a 24-team playoff in place by the 2029 season. In this newest idea from the B1G think tank, 23 bids would be assigned via at-large selection, with one automatic bid for the Group of Five. ESPNfirst reportedon the plan last week.
How serious is the Big Ten about this plan? Hard telling, because its mood consistently shifts.
At one point last year, Petitti became obsessed with play-in games. He once liked the idea of a 16-team playoff — so long as he couldrig it with multiple automatic bids. Then, theBig Ten graduated to a 24-team playoff, but it maintained a preference for multiple AQs.
Now, in this proposal, it's to heck with AQs, to heck with conference championship games, and to heck with 16 teams.
One thing we know for sure: The Big Ten really, really doesn't want the 5+11 plan the SEC really, really does want.
This 24-team idea hatched by the Big Ten will be a test of the SEC's anguish. Just how desperate is the SEC for playoff expansion, after getting shut out of the national championship game for three straight years and getting stiff-armed in its quest to create a 16-team playoff? Desperate enough to accept a 24-team plan the Big Ten (and its television partner) wants?
The Big Ten is calling this latest 24-team plan a "compromise," but it's not really compromise. It's bait designed to lure the SEC off the idea of 16 and toward the idea of 24.
Here are three things I like, and three things I don't like, about this 24-team playoff proposal:
What I like about Big Ten's 24-team CFP plan
1. It would get rid of conference championship games.
Conference championships were built for 12-team conferences divided into divisions, in a landscape with no playoff. Years later, conference championships became an important data point in selection for the four-team playoff.
They've outlived their utility.
Consider last season. Georgia thumped Alabama in the SEC Championship. Neither team moved even one spot in the ensuing playoff rankings. Duke won the ACC championship but didn't represent the conference in the playoff.
Conference championships persist purely for dollars. Dumping them requires a new revenue stream. Insert a 24-team playoff, with new inventory that can be sold to TV partners. By eliminating antiquated conference championships, the playoff could start the first weekend of December.
2. It would nix past idea of multiple AQs per conference.
Unlike past Big Ten plans that included a bevy of automatic bids preassigned to conferences based on prestige and clout, this 24-team format would be more of a meritocracy.
Why should any conference be guaranteed four bids? Earn it on the field.
Putting so much responsibility on the playoff committee's shoulders would create extra controversy and the difficulty of determining between two 9-3 teams from different conferences. That's better than rigging the bracket before the season starts with a lopsided number of AQs.
3. More playoff games on college campuses.
College football belongs on college campuses. The debut of first-round playoff games played in college towns became an undeniable upside of the 12-team playoff.
The 24-team playoff would result in 16 playoff games on campus sites, with eight in the first round and eight more in the second round, before shifting to neutral sites for the quarterfinals and beyond.
A 24-team playoff could have served up Texas at Texas Tech in a second-round game in Lubbock. Holy tortilla shells, that would've been good theater.
What I don't like about 24-team CFP plan
1. In-season attention will shift away from best teams.
A smaller playoff keeps the focus on the best teams. In the 12-team playoff, attention fixes on the top 15 or 20 teams that are in the playoff hunt.
Double the playoff's size to 24 teams, and much of the spotlight will shift toward the cavalcade of three- and four-loss bubble teams battling for the final bids.
Regular-season results become less consequential, too, the bigger the bracket is. In 2024, Alabama would've coasted into a 24-team playoff despite a pair of losses to teams that finished 6-6.
In essence, the regular season would be devalued.
2. Playoff exclusivity is sacrificed for playoff revenue.
The 12-team playoff achieves a healthy balance between exclusivity and access. This past season, six conferences were represented. The 12-team bracket is exclusive enough that 10-2 Notre Dame, 10-2 Vanderbilt and 9-3 Texas did not earn entry, but accessible enough that Oregon, Mississippi and Texas A&M were not omitted just because they lost once to a good opponent.
The Ducks, Rebels and Aggies were the types of good teams that would not have earned playoff selection in the four-team CFP era. Four is too small.
But, in a 24-team playoff, the Michigan team that got creamed by Oklahoma, Southern Cal and Ohio State would become a playoff qualifier. Once you create an abundance of accessibility and degrade the playoff's exclusivity, the sport shifts to talking heads debating which 8-4 team got "snubbed" by the committee.
3. Playoff becomes overloaded with postseason roadkill.
In this past playoff, James Madison and Tulane had no shot to win it all and little chance of winning even one game. In a 24-team playoff, the playoff roadkill multiplies. Half the field would have little to no chance at winning the national championship.
Teams like Iowa and Houston that finished their seasons with celebratory bowl triumphs against SEC teams would get rerouted into a playoff from which they have no hope of emerging victorious.
Our verdict
This 24-team playoff has the benefit of being better than some of the Big Ten's worst ideas that preceded it. That doesn't make it a good plan, or one the SEC should embrace.
Blake Toppmeyeris the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Email him atBToppmeyer@gannett.comand follow him on X@btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:24-team College Football Playoff plan offers upsides — but not enough