Ryan Day believes a 24-team College Football Playoff would be good for college football, but “it’s debatable whether it’s best for Ohio State.”
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Ryan Day Says 24-Team CFP Would Be Great for College Football But “Debatable Whether It’s Best for Ohio State”
Ryan Day knows a 24-team College Football Playoff would be great for the 137 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision. But there’s a 138th team that may not stand to gain much, if anything.
“It’s debatable whether it’s best for Ohio State — you can go back and forth on that — but it’s certainly best for the conference and great for college football in general,” Day told ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg on Monday. “It engages more fan bases late in the season.”
If a 24-team CFP had existed since the start of the BCS era in 1998, Ohio State would have made the playoff in 26 of 28 seasons. The only other program in the same ballpark was Georgia, which would have made 23 appearances. Alabama, Oklahoma and LSU each would have made 21 appearances, while Florida (20), Penn State (19), Oregon (19), Michigan (19), Clemson (18), Texas (18) and Wisconsin (17) also would have been frequent participants.
Dan Lanning, who has led Oregon to back-to-back CFP appearances (including one as the No. 1 overall seed in 2024), agreed with Day that the Ducks don’t necessarily benefit from a larger postseason field. Still, he compared the 24-team format to March Madness and said it would be “good for our sport.”
“Ryan’s in the same similar situation, (Indiana coach) Curt (Cignetti) as well, similar situation,” Lanning told Rittenberg. “Is it necessarily best for the programs that have been in to say, ‘Hey, let’s invite more?’ No, but is it better? What happened because of the College Football Playoff is every bowl game has been devalued, the end of the season looks completely different. You’re a failure as a coach if you don’t make it to the College Football Playoff. … It’s going to create more opportunity. Just like March Madness is great in the spring for basketball, it’ll be good for our sport.”
As Day continues to chew on the proposed format, he wonders how much more difficult it could become for Ohio State to win its 10th national championship somewhere down the road.
“When there was four (teams), you just had to win two games,” Day said. “Now there’s more games to be played, there’s a bigger pool, a bigger field. But when you take a step away from it, you’re always going to be late in the season, playing for an opportunity to be the highest seed that you can be.”
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Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and the conference's 18 member schools unanimously support a 24-team CFP: "Inside our league, there is a deep commitment to 24 and the access.”
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Big Ten’s 18 Schools, Commissioner Tony Petitti Unanimously Support 24-Team CFP: “We Feel Strongly About It”
The Big Ten has made its stance clear: Bigger is better when it comes to the College Football Playoff.
During an hour-long meeting with reporters at the Big Ten meetings in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, commissioner Tony Petitti said all 18 conference schools unanimously support expanding the CFP to 24 teams — a format that would dramatically reshape the postseason and further cement the Big Ten’s influence over the future of college football.
“That’s having been incredibly successful in the 12-team format,” Petitti said, per The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman. “The willingness to make a change and consider giving up our championship game to get to the right postseason, I think our coaches and our administrators understand that tradeoff.”
The ACC and Big 12 also support a larger CFP; however, the SEC has yet to take an official stance, creating a roadblock to the Big Ten’s plans. The two conferences will need to agree on a new structure, or the CFP will remain at its current 12-team format.
“We feel strongly about it, and we’re working really hard with our colleagues and the other conferences,” Petitti said. “Obviously, the way this is structured, we understand that the SEC and the Big Ten have to come to an agreement, and we’re working hard to figure out ways to get to a solution. But inside our league, there is a deep commitment to 24 and the access.”
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