Michigan and Ohio State in the greatest rivalry in sports. Nothing will ever change that, not even expanding the College Football Playoff to 24 teams.
That's the next step as Pete Thamel of ESPN reported on Thursday.
Many fans are disappointed, including Michigan football and Ohio State fans who feel like the expansion will hurt the rivalry.
To me that feels like a bit of an overreaction. These two programs will always be defined, in part, by how they play against each other.
10-1 Michigan vs 10-1 Ohio State is gonna be sick to watch when both teams have locked up home field and are benching their starters.
— Tomaso Oz (@JohnSmi44312174) October 15, 2026
Sounds like Week 18 of the NFL or better yet players opting out just like they do for the Union Home Mortgage Gasparilla Bowl!
Michigan-Ohio State will still be Michigan-Ohio State even in a 24-team playoff
If you think those 2024 Ohio State national champions don't regret the loss to Michigan, you are lying to yourself. The national championship was great for Ohio State and its fans, but no season, for either fanbase, is perfect without a win in "The Game."
You could put 100 teams make the College Football Playoff and that still wouldn't change.
Let's not give them any ideas, though.
Going to 24 is excessive. You can see why the TV networks want it, though. Nobody cares about conference championships anymore, so just turn that into the first playoff weekend. That's one part of the proposal that makes sense.
Some have suggested that this is going to ruin the rivalry. There could be instances when Ohio State or Michigan won't have much to gain from a win. But it's hard for me to see a world where the Buckeyes or Wolverines are resting their starters against each other. Where a win in that game doesn't mean success or failure for a season.
Treating it like a preseason game would be sacrilegious. You would hope that no Michigan or Ohio State head coach would ever stoop that low.
For one, playoff seeding will matter. Those details are still being determined, but there will be home-field advantage at stake. Plus, being a top-8 team will be a massive advantage. For one, you get to skip the opening round. Two, you get a home playoff game.
That gives you a much better chance of reaching the quarterfinals and having a realistic chance of making a deep run in the playoffs. If they stick with 24 teams, it probably won't take long to realize that winning five games to win the national title is really hard.
Michigan would probably make the playoff this season at 8-4. It would have made it last season at 9-3.
It's true, though, that we will never have Michigan-Ohio State games like we saw in 1997, 2006, 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022 and 2023, when the winner stayed alive in the national title race or the Big Ten race, and the loser was out.
Those kinds of games will be gone for the most part. That's what made Michigan-Ohio State the best rivalry in sports. It will still be that though, even if the stakes will never quite be the same.
Some things transcend the College Football Playoff. The Michigan-Ohio State game is one of them.
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