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Jim Harbaugh prefers a 16-team playoff format
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On Tuesday evening, the first College Football Playoff bracket was unveiled. But, Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh believes the format should be revamped from four teams to a 16-team field.
Harbaugh appeared on the “Jamie and Stoney” show with hosts Mike Stone and Jamie Samuelsen on 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit on Wednesday. He was asked if he would keep the field at four.
“I would change it to 16 teams,” Harbaugh said. “FCS, they’ve got a great system. It’s been in place for many years. My dad won the national championship at Western Kentucky when they were I-AA in 2002. I think that’s the best system.
“If you look at every other sport, they have a playoff at every level and every other college sport does as well. It’s not a four-team. Basketball goes from 64 to the Final Four. I think that’s the way it should be done to have a national champion like they do in gymnastics, like they do in basketball, men’s and women’s, lacrosse, every other sport you can think of. And you already have the format with the FCS.”
Harbaugh also doesn’t believe expanding the College Football Playoff system would hurt scheduling with additional games. He believes conference champions should earn spots in his ideal expanded system with the other spots being filled by teams that are voted on.
“If not 16, then 12. It makes all sense in the world,” Harbaugh said. “You’ve got the best way to do it, a playoff. The argument against is, well they would have to play 15 games. There’s teams playing 15, 16 games already and that’s only if you’re in the championship. Our regular season right now is 12 games. You go to the Big Ten championship, that’s 13 games. You go to the playoffs, semifinals, there’s 14. Play in the national championship, that’s 15.”
The College Football Playoff system, which has been in existence since 2014, strives to pick the top four teams to determine a national champion.
No B1G teams made the field in the first releasing of the College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday.