Michigan Football: Jim Harbaugh is right about playoff expansion

At Big Ten media days, Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh called for a 16-team playoff. Here’s why he is spot on with his assessment.

When it comes to the College Football Playoff, most everyone is a fan. The system, however flawed it may be, is better than it used to be. But it’s still not good enough for Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh.

During the Big Ten media days earlier this week, Harbaugh expressed that he likes the playoff. But he also stressed that he would like to see it expand to eight or eventually 16 teams. Not everyone shares the position of the head man for Michigan football. Yet, Scott Frost, the new head coach at Nebraska does.

Frost, who coached Central Florida last season, felt the sting of being left out of the playoff, despite an undefeated record. UCF also beat Auburn, a team that beat both Georgia and Alabama, the two national title game participants, in the Peach Bowl, proving it could play with the big boys.

Had there been an eight-team playoff, the Knights may have gotten their shot. Frost proposed eight teams, with five automatic berths going to the champions of each power five conferences.

That would leave three at-large berths for other worthy teams, potentially mid-major schools like UCF that go undefeated. It would at least give them an avenue because let’s face it, UCF will never crack the top four. Not with the schedule its forced to play — there just aren’t enough chances for quality wins.

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While eight teams would be good, 16 would be even better. Harbaugh, who once coached in the FCS, used that model as an example. And if the regular season was reduced back to 11 games, the most a team could play is 16 games, including a conference title game. Georgia played 15 last season, so there really is no difference.

Obviously, people will argue that a 16-team playoff weakens the regular season. Well, that is just absurd. Imagine how many more teams would be duking it out over playoff berths in November. Hell, Michigan would have still been alive heading into the last two weeks.

Certainly, every game matters now, but only to a few teams. Does a late-season game between 8-3 teams fighting it out for bowl position really matter to most of the country? No. So let’s stop pretending it does and realize that the majority of games in November are pretty much meaningless.

A 16-team playoff would change all that. Think about Michigan State last season, they probably deserved consideration and in a 16 team scenario, would have gotten it. Wisconsin would have gotten in too, along with Penn State.

All those teams were really good, along with Ohio State and not a single one of them played in a bowl game that mattered. But how much bigger do some of those late-season games become when playoff berths are potentially on the line? That’s one good reason.

The other reason is simple. 16 teams would be the best way to decided the best team in college football. Mid-majors would finally have a seat at the table and debates out the true national champion, would be a thing of the past, forever.