Gary Patterson's 2014 Horned Frogs went 11-1, claimed the Big 12 co-championship, and sat in the College Football Playoff's all-important top-four slots heading into the final week of the season ... only, of course, to be left out of those all-important top-four slots when the playoff field was announced.
Patterson's response to that snub hasn't had the same ornery edge to it as his fellow CFP snubee Art Briles', but that doesn't mean -- duh -- he's just about to shrug his shoulders and move on. The reigning AP Coach of the Year told ESPN Friday that after the Big 12's 2014 experience, the CFP should expand to six teams -- and ensure all five Power 5 conferences are represented.
"To me, it makes no sense to have four playoff spots and then have five conferences,” Patterson said. "This way gives everybody a chance to have their champion or their best team be a part of the playoff, and a sixth team that could be from any conference, and then you get down to that final four pretty quickly and still not change the way we do things."
To make a six-team playoff work with the existing bowl calendar, Patterson said that the four other Power 5 leagues would have to join the Big 12 in abandoning their respective conference championship games, instead agreeing to play the 3-vs.-6 and 4-vs.-5 playoff games on December's first weekend.
"I think you would probably make more money on the playoff games in December than you would with the conference championship games,” Patterson said. “Other than the SEC, there were a lot of empty seats that I saw at those conference championship games. The teams playing on New Year’s would have basically the same amount of time to get ready, and you wouldn’t take away from everybody’s recruiting or interfere with final exams.”
Sorry, Gary, but the SEC will give up its conference championship game no sooner than five minutes before the heat death of the universe, this particular expansion idea is a nonstarter (as is your suggestion the committee's search to find the "four best teams" shouldn't include data from said championship games).
But that doesn't mean a slightly different six-team calendar might not work. Given that the gap between the semifinals and finals is only 10 days, would it really be logistically impossible to play a six-team playoff's first round in mid-December, two weekends after the league title games, and still have enough time for them to prepare for the bowl-hosted semifinals? It wouldn't be easy on either the players' academic duties or committed fans' travel budgets ... but when has modern college football cared about that?
So laugh at Gary Patterson's idea today, John Q. College Football Observer. Just know he might get the last one one of these years.
