Death, taxes, and more playoff expansion. These feel like inevitables at this time. While expanding the College Football Playoff field from four teams to 12 has done the sport a world of good, it has been so painfully hard to just leave well enough alone... Texas A&M made the playoff for the first time last season as the No. 7 seed in an expanded field. Mike Elko should be in favor of more expansion, right?
Not so fast... He explained his thoughts on more expansion to USA TODAY Sports' Blake Toppmeyer.
“The head coach who wants to keep his job, (he’ll say) the right size is 45 teams or however many we can possibly fit in it because (making the playoff) is becoming such a marker for the premier programs, which is, either you’re in, or you’re out. And if you’re out, you failed.”
Elko understands why others are clammoring for more bids, but he wants this to be more controlled.
“As a college football fan and maybe a little bit of a guy who has studied the game, you just want to be careful that we don’t get too big, too fast."
Finally, he compared the rapidly expanding field to college basketball in an incredibly negative light.
“You have to keep the regular season meaningful. We cannot turn this into college basketball. We’ll lose everything that college football has ever been about.”
Elko is so right in that you do not want to ruin the regular season, college football's best attribute...
Mike Elko wants to slow down College Football Playoff expansion just a bit
The very interesting part in Elko's commentary on the matter is it is not about Texas A&M, and more about the state of college football. Even in years prior to 2025-26, Texas A&M had been in and around the playoff on a handful of occasions. Texas A&M recruits at a top-tier level, and regularly finds itself firmly inside the top 25 in most way-too-early offseason rankings. This is not about Texas A&M at all...
If the playoff is going to continue to be the end-all, be-all more so than it already has, that is bad news for the rest of college football, and especially the Power Two leagues of the Big Ten and SEC. These two leagues have separated from the pack because they can garner more revenue by having more good games on tap on fall Saturdays. Expanding the playoff to 24 or so teams completely dilutes this.
Again, making the College Football Playoff should still be a huge deal for every team that punches its ticket in. We want to celebrate great in college football, and not just good... Even with the playoff field tripling, we are letting too many good, but not great teams into the mix. Texas A&M should have been in the playoff field a year ago, as illustrated by its No. 7 seed. However, it is not a participation trophy.
Right now, more college head coaches should have the confidence to say what Elko said about this.
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