College Football Playoff expansion delights Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher

College Football Playoff expansion is coming soon, with news breaking late last week that the Board of Managers reached a decision to expand the sport’s postseason to include 12 playoff teams.

The changes are expected to be in place by 2026, if not sooner, which will afford even more teams access to the most thrilling part of the national championship chase.

Since the College Football Playoff began in 2014, only 12 of 69 Power Five teams have earned a berth (about 17%), while only one Group of Five team has been selected. That should change as soon as the playoff expands. At least one major Power Five coach is a big fan of the recently approved change.

“I am,” Texas A&M coach Jimbo Fisher said. “I think it’s great for college football.”

Some of the most common complaints about the current four-team playoff format are that it has devalued the relevance of the rest of bowl season, while simultaneously strengthening a growing trend of players opting out of bowl games, many wanting to protect their health as NFL aspirations come into focus.

Jimbo Fisher hopes a playoff restructuring alleviates both issues.

“Hopefully it will enhance the bowl picture and get more of those guys back in it,” he said. “It’s a shame because, again, whoever won the Sugar, Orange, I’m a historian and I always say that I love that and they’re extremely important. But it was almost like it was the playoff and then everybody went, ‘Well, I took a nice bowl game but it’s not a big deal.’ I think it can help enhance some of those back into the playoff picture, when you build those into those games.”

Jimbo Fisher wants to see more bowl games involved

As much as anything, Jimbo Fisher thinks an expansion of the playoff and a possible incorporation of more bowl games into the playoff mix could cure some of the malaise that has set in on the sport’s postseason in recent years.

“We’re getting so caught up on the top end of things that we’re forgetting about what allowed these teams to develop with bowl games and going and doing those things and reward for players and the whole history of things,” he noted. “That’s originally what bowl games were. They were a reward for players having a good year, going somewhere, getting to spend time with their teammates, getting some more practice and playing a game. And we’ve kind of changed that in college football and gotten up there.

“I think hopefully this will do it, and I think it will keep excitement. At the end of the year, like now, there may be six, seven teams that legitimately can get in the playoff at the end when you’re talking about those last three weeks. Maybe eight at the most.

“Now you’re talking about 12 teams. You may have 25 teams (in the hunt). So the excitement in the college game of 12, 15, 18 games across the country that can still get in the playoff and what goes on I think will be good for college football. I think it will create the excitement.”

There’s also another potential benefit for programs who might be able to sneak in once the College Football Playoff expansion takes place that realistically weren’t likely to before: a shot in the arm to recruiting.

That benefit is not likely to benefit Fisher’s program, which finished the 2022 cycle atop the On3 2022 Consensus Football Team Recruiting Rankings. Still, Fisher thinks it’s a good thing for the game.

“I think it’ll help recruiting for different schools, in different places, in different leagues, when they’re in the playoff more and expanding,” he concluded. “You don’t have to go to certain schools to be there. I think it will just be good for college football overall.”