Paul Finebaum says Georgia blowout of TCU doesn't damper incoming 12-team playoff

The national championship blowout win by Georgia over TCU caused a lot of questions of the playoff format in college football.

Despite the Bulldogs beating the Horned Frogs 65-7 Monday night, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum said the expansion to a 12-team playoff will only increase the popularity and quality of the college football postseason. In fact, the blowout in the national title game was pretty rare compared to what the rest of the playoff and bowl season saw with many quality teams.

Heck, Finebaum even defended the committee when there were cries for Alabama being more deserving than TCU to be in the playoff following the game, a form of Monday morning quarterbacking.

“I think it was an outlier,” Finebaum said on ESPN’s Get Up. “Really. We had two great semifinal games. We had a horrible, horrible doesn’t describe what we saw last night, it couldn’t have been worse. By the way, Georgia missed an extra point at the end. The point being that the 12-team playoff, I think it is going to be the most exciting thing we’ve seen in college football. 

“So everyone wants to blast TCU and blast the committee and dunk on poor Heather (Dinich). The bottom line is that Alabama lost two games. If Alabama hadn’t lost to LSU, they would have been in the playoffs. It’s not the committee’s fault. It’s Alabama’s fault.”

The College Football Playoff is set to expand to 12 teams for the 2024-25 season, giving the six highest ranked conference champions a bid, followed by the six highest at-large teams. The top four teams receive a bye, while teams No. 5 through 12 duke it out in the first round, setting up for an eight-team quarterfinal round.

It’s then a traditional playoff format through the national championship.

“We’re delighted to be moving forward,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock said in December. “When the board expanded the playoff beginning in 2026 and asked the CFP Management Committee to examine the feasibility of starting the new format earlier, the Management Committee went right to work. More teams and more access mean more excitement for fans, alumni, students and student-athletes.

“We appreciate the leaders of the six bowl games and the two future national championship game host cities for their cooperation. Everyone realized that this change is in the best interest of college football and pulled together to make it happen.”

In September, the CFP announced its decision to expand from four teams to 12 by 2026. But after the decision came out, rumors swirled about potential early expansion depending on whether the CFP could work it out with its contract with ESPN. The initial deal ran through 2025.

A vote to expand before 2026 had to be unanimous, meaning the 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick all had to be in favor of it.