Paul Finebaum debates whether 12-team College Football Playoff was good decision

Paul Finebaum has been among the most vocal critics of the expanded College Football Playoff, especially as it related to how the first-ever 12-team field was ultimately put together.

Still, as the ESPN and SEC Network personality evaluated the CFP in general ahead of this week’s national semifinals Thursday and Friday, Finebaum acknowlegded the first expanded Playoff has been “entertaining” and a significant improvement on the original four-team format that began in 2014.

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“It’s hard to tell because this week was so screwy to understand how this Playoff is resonating, how we’re connecting, because the New Orleans experience really cast a (cloud) over everything,” Finebaum said Friday on The Matt Barrie Show podcast. “But it’s been entertaining, it’s a lot better than it was. It’s certainly better than where we were 10 years ago. And next week is really the great week.

“I know everybody – stop me if you’ve heard this 18 million times about the Saturday of the Final Four – but Thursday and Friday are going to be dramatic,” Finebaum continued. “And these are four bluebloods, there’s no outliers in this thing, everyone of these programs have a long resume. We haven’t talked as much about Notre Dame and Penn State, but they are reams of tradition and bad blood over the many, many years between those too.”

The College Football Playoff national semifinal round kicks off with Thursday’s Orange Bowl between sixth-seeded Penn State and seventh-seeded Notre Dame at 7:30 pm ET (ESPN) from Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium. That will be followed by Friday night’s Cotton Bowl between fifth-seeded Texas and eighth-seeded Ohio State (12-2) at 7:30 pm ET (ESPN) from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Matt Barrie acknowledged the semifinalists are four of “best teams in the country.”

“And Texas, I realize Texas has not been great lately – well, I realize they’ve been to the Playoffs the last two years – they had that long dry stretch,” Finebaum continued, “but Texas traditionally is still one of the big-time programs in college football. And Ohio State, the fact that they’re going to play the first game of next year is even more amazing.”

The Buckeyes open the 2025 season hosting the Longhorns on Aug. 30, meaning whoever loses Friday night will get a chance at revenge to kick off next season.

Paul Finebaum: ‘Check your SEC ego at the door,’ Ohio State is better than Texas

Paul Finebaum is ready to check his SEC ego at the door. The ESPN commentator previously waved the white flag regarding the SEC and Alabama, but he took it a step further.

With Ohio State taking on Texas in the Cotton Bowl, one might naturally expect Finebaum would have an argument for the Longhorns to win in the College Football Playoff semifinal. Well, it wasn’t that simple.

Especially with the way Ohio State dismantled Tennessee and Oregon in back to back playoff games.

“I had somebody ask me yesterday, I guess you’ll pick Texas,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show. “And I said, I guess. You’re wrong because, I mean, you can check your SEC ego at the door. I don’t understand how you could pick Texas right now, Matt.

“You’re just simply fighting a headwind and saying, ‘okay, that (Ohio State), that if they had lost to Oregon, that would not have surprised me as much, right? Because maybe they had that one blowout game, (a win over Tennessee). But now this isn’t just an outlier. This is a trend that’s hard to fight.”

Nick Kosko contributed to this report.