How the New College Football Playoff Format Affects Michigan State

One of the most heated topics in sports has always been the way college football determines its national champion and structures its playoff.

For the longest time, there was no playoff. Instead, the top two teams, as determined by voters at the end of the season, battled for the right to call themselves national champions. As expected, that ruffled the feathers of plenty of fan bases every single year.

Then college football adapted a four-team playoff. That was better. It gave more teams an opportunity to show that, even if they had a down week or two, they could still be the best team in college football. Unfortunately, that still ruffled feathers from teams ranked No. 5 through No. 12 that believed they deserved a chance to prove themselves.

So, the playoff expanded to 12 teams. That seemed to be just right. Fans and teams were happy until the first playoff, when teams ranked No. 13 through No. 25 all believed they deserved a chance.

Now, we enter Monday, November 9.

The College Football Playoff Management Committee announced that it had unanimously approved another expansion, opening the playoff up to 24 teams beginning with the 2027-28 season.

The rumblings started a few weeks ago, and the criticism hasn't gone anywhere. However, one man has stood up for the new format, and that man is me.

Now, 24 teams will have a chance to shock the world. Do I think many No. 24 seeds will win it all? I do not. However, I do believe we will see more upsets than people realize, and it will make for some amazing games.

Many people argue that the expansion will ruin top-10 matchups and that eliminating Power Four conference championship games will take away some of the best football games of the season.

That may be true. It will certainly change the importance of some of the bigger matchups. However, it will also make the games involving teams ranked in the teens and twenties, or even teams on the verge of being ranked, mean that much more.

Those games will carry enormous weight, with fan bases treating them like national championship games because they could represent their team's only chance to make the playoff.

So, yes, the new format may diminish some of the bigger games, but it will elevate many of the matchups that previously flew under the radar.

That falls right into Michigan State's hands.

The Spartans earned their first conference victory last weekend against Michigan. Although they won't be battling for a playoff spot this season, they may very well be fighting to become a top-25 team next year.

Under the new format, 24 teams will make the playoff, giving programs ranked outside the traditional top 12 a much better opportunity to compete for a national championship.

This gives the Spartans a much closer timeframe for reaching the playoff than they would have under a four- or 12-team format. Michigan State is still a long way from being a top-12 team, but it isn't nearly as far away from becoming a top-24 team.

It's an exciting development for lower-tier programs, and I can understand why fans of the bigger schools are upset. There will be more opportunities for teams like Georgia and Ohio State to get upset, rather than having a relatively clear path to the national championship.

But that's exactly what makes this expansion exciting. More teams have a chance, more fan bases have something to play for deeper into the season, and programs like Michigan State have a much more realistic path to competing for a national championship.