Miami AD Dan Radakovich predicts future of bowl games, CFP expansion

The issue of College Football Playoff expansion has been overshadowed by other pressing topics in college football over the past several months, but the clock continues to tick down on the current deal. With disagreement on an eight- or 12-team field in the future, Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich weighed in recently.

During an appearance at the University of Miami business school, Dan Radakovich shared what he knows about the possibility of CFP expansion and what his vision includes.

“I would’ve been wrong, because I thought the College Football Playoff would’ve expanded with two years left on its contract and it didn’t,” said Radakovich. “So we’re going to run through the contract the last couple of years, but in 2026 we’ll move forward with an expanded College Football Playoff. There’s interest there. The television networks want it. By that point in time, I think that we will have answered any of the questions that have come forward over the last five or six months from conference commissioners as to health and safety, and calendar, and all those things that were put forward.

“But I think that the College Football Playoff has been great with four teams. If you look back in history, you had the Bowl Alliance, you had the Bowl Coalition, you had the BCS, now you have the CFP at four. The next iteration is going to be the CFP at probably 12. So I think that will give more student-athletes the opportunity to participate in a playoff environment. There’s still some calendar issues that we have to work through, but we’ll definitely get there and college football will continue to grow.”

Greg Sankey on CFP expansion

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was answering questions on the topic while in Destin, Florida last week during the conference meeting. He also spent time talking about the pros and cons when comparing an eight and 12-team playoff in the upcoming CFP expansion.

While he disagrees with Dan Radakovich’s vision for a 12-team CFP format, Greg Sankey provided an interest comparison to March Madness in making his point.

“I’ve been open in public that eight teams without automatic qualifiers is something we have an interest in exploring,” Sankey said. “But that didn’t seem to have the support, the notion that we have to grant automatic bids. So what’s ironic is the day after baseball selection, where people are concerned about really good teams not being selected, we give away a whole lot of automatic bids you wonder about. At some point, there’s a balance here of who wants automatic bids and who doesn’t want it.

“In football, we select the four best teams and an eight-team playoff with six automatic qualifiers — you’re replacing the eighth-best teams with the 20th best team,” Sankey said. “Which would have happened after the ’24 season. I don’t think that playoff is sustainable and that’s not really about protecting our interest. That’s just saying ‘from a college football standpoint, you’re going to put No. 20 in and leave No. 8 home? And you’re going to do that over and over?’ That’s just never seemed to work.”