Joel Klatt proposes big changes to College Football Playoff

In a year with one dominant team and several others fighting for the three remaining College Football Playoff spots, calls for change to the current model are becoming louder by the week. 

Fox analyst Joel Klatt added his voice to the conversation on Wednesday in his “Breaking the Huddle” segment. He presented four revisions, including two playoff formats, to fix the only non-NCAA-organized postseason in college sports.

‘Remove divisions from every conference’

First, Klatt would like to remove divisions from all conferences. Currently, the only FBS conferences without divisions are the American and the Big 12. Doing so it ensures the top-two teams in each conference face off to determine the conference champion. In many years, one division is far better than the other, leading to blowout conference title games. 

“I think the Big Ten this year is a great example of that,” Klatt said.

There are six Big Ten teams currently ranked in the CFP rankings, and three of them are in the top 10. All three of those teams are in the East, while Wisconsin, Purdue and Iowa out of the West sit in the No. 18 through 20 spots.

‘Dilute the CFP Committee Rankings’

Next, Klatt addressed a timely gripe the nation has with the current system: the apparent bias from the 13-person CFP committee. To remedy this issue, Klatt suggests adding more factors into the equation to diversify the data set.

“You can create more committees,” Klatt said. “You can add a computer poll, which I don’t think would be the worst thing in the world. You can add a human poll. Any number of those things would dilute the committee’s rankings and give us a system with less bias.”

Klatt cited the shakeup in the rankings from Tuesday night. Michigan State fell behind Michigan after falling to Purdue last weekend despite having beaten Michigan on Oct. 30. 

The BCS, which preceded the CFP from 1998-2013, used both computer rankings and human rankings to decide which two teams would square off for a national championship. Klatt’s proposal has glimpses of that system.

‘Diversify TV partnership’

At its core, the CFP is currently a television contract owned exclusively by ESPN. According to Klatt, that needs to change. 

The Fox analyst acknowledged he has a bias toward adding additional networks to the pot given his employment status. But he also cited several reasons why having multiple networks involved in the culmination of every college football season grows the entire sport. 

“The NFL model is absolutely the case, Klatt said. “You’ve got different voices talking about the sport. You also can drive revenue with more networks paying premium dollars for the premium section in the postseason. You can also have every single network building towards the postseason, which is what you have in the NFL.”

The NFL redid their TV rights deals in March 2021, and five companies plus the league-owned NFL Network are involved. CBS, ESPN/ABC, NBC, Fox all have a piece of the new pie, including future Super Bowls. Amazon is also part of the deal. The new contracts are worth roughly $110 billion over 11 years, nearly doubling the value of the old contracts.

‘Establish more objective criteria’

“We can’t keep going along with this absolutely ridiculous notion that we’re just going to select the four best teams in college football and play them off,” Klatt added as his final proposed changes. 

Klatt’s proposed objectivity can be found in the two models he then presents: 12 and 14-team options.

The Fox analyst’s 12-team proposal honors the top-six conference champions, awarding them automatic berths in the playoff. The top-four champions would play at home and receive a first-round bye. The fifth and sixth-best champions and the top-two at-large bids would host first round games. 

The 14-team option would look like the NFL playoff structure with two teams receiving a bye to start the postseason. The top-six conference champions would receive automatic bids. The four remaining champions and top-two at-large bids would play on their campuses in the first round. 

At the center of Klatt’s idea is the need to ensure the regular season, particularly the end of the regular season, remains important. 

“You need to incentivize the games at the top-end late in the season by offering byes in the first couple of rounds.”

He believes both of these options, which have opportunities for bye weeks and home-field advantage, will make November and December far more fun and be better for college football.