How the B1G would benefit greatly from an 8-team Playoff

Since the new sports version of FMK is to build a hypothetical eight-team College Football Playoff, the Twittersphere is abuzz with a lot of the same teams slotted in the same rankings on evenly drawn lines in geometrically-competent brackets.

The possible move to include four more teams is overall good for the sport. Yes, it diminishes the regular season, but so do games when Ohio State welcomes Tulane to the Horseshoe. The extra weeks of playoff action creates more of a sustainable buzz at the end of the season that no survivor or confidence bowl league does. Oh the people it would satiate.

First and foremost, the yelps and squawks from the UCF fan base would cease to exist until the Knights lost in the first round. Fans of the program could nicely transition their griping from being ignored to receiving an unjustified seed. Still noise, but different noise, one we would need a bit of time to grow tired of hearing.

Next in line after the Group of Five teams as an immediate benefactor is the B1G conference. Having a seat at the table might be enough after the last few years. The guaranteed spot pairs well with the national peacocking it does in the name of self-importance.  

The B1G sure likes to put itself out there front and center. Why else does the conference play the last championship game out of all the major conferences in football and basketball? A chance to preen and parade on a national stage, the most egregious case last season when it believed people from one of the five boroughs cared about Illinois versus Iowa and they held the tournament an entire week earlier at Madison Square Garden. Forget John Thompson and Lou Carnesecca, nothing gets a Queens natives’ blood boiling faster than Brad Underwood and Fran McCaffery matching wits on dueling whiteboards.  The conference positions and markets itself as the most popular and dominant conference in college sports. To hell with success, they have a team in Piscataway, N.J. Oh the geographic reach!

It’s fair to confuse the conference’s exposure with better execution. The B1G markets, operates, and exists in the world of college athletics as king. But the conference’s self-harm makes even a strong program like Ohio State susceptible to miss the playoff. An automatic seed at least grants one B1G team a chance to participate.That should be enough for the conference in the short-term.

Being left out in the dark for the last two seasons and not scoring a point in the playoff since the 2014-2015 season should make the conference grateful for the invitation. The opportunity pairs well with commissioner Jim Delany’s comment that conference realignment may be in the works, a fair idea if the commissioner didn’t square it by telling reporters the goal of the conference is not first and foremost to make the college football playoff. And he’s right. The immediate goal is to deliver a more immediate rematch between Ohio State and Michigan without the startup Northwestern Wildcats who entered the title game with the stench of a loss to Akron attached to them.

It will mean more for every team to just get make it. We can exclude Ohio State from the conversation because they exist as a rarity from the rest of the group. No other program deserves the heightened expectation. To make it is enough.

And for the B1G that’s good enough for its network and the entirety of the conference. Prominence before production. National exposure before national dominance.