We already know that this year’s College Football Playoff will be unlike any we have ever seen. There’s going to potentially be teams that get in that do not have near the usual amount of games that are seen during a traditional 12-game regular season.

On ESPN’s College Football Playoff Top 25 preview show Tuesday, the analysts on the panel were asked if the CFP Committee should set a minimum games requirement.

Joey Gallaway started things off:

“I really hope they don’t. We’ve seen enough,” said Galloway. “And I know that we’re not on the Committee and we don’t get a vote, but I would say it’s a consensus amongst this group that through two games, we’ve seen enough of Ohio State to think they’re one of the top four teams in the country. Now, we don’t know how many more games they’ll get to play. So when you think of minimum games you think of how it affects the Big Ten, how it affects the Pac-12 once they start playing, I would hate to see the Committee do that.”

Sports Betting in Big Ten Country

There is big news coming to the upcoming 2022-23 Big Ten football season (and NFL season). Ohio online sports betting and Maryland sports betting are on the way.

21+ and present in OH. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

Kirk Herbstreit was next to chime in. For Herbstreit, he put Ohio State in a separate class with Alabama and Clemson, but he also agreed that a minimum requirement for games just doesn’t make sense:

“But I think we all agree: Ohio State’s a different animal,” said Herbstreit. “You’re looking at Clemson, Ohio State, and Alabama. You can watch them play a game and be like ‘Yep! They’re in.’ It doesn’t take a lot…if you’re just looking at them based on being the best four, those three right now have stood out to everybody after just a week or two.

“If they want to behind closed doors affect team’s ratings based on (how many games they’ve played), then that’s okay, but there shouldn’t be a cap. 2020’s too wild, there are just too many unpredictable corners that we’re turning around.”

For Jesse Palmer, he believes it would simply look really bad for the CFP to set a game’s requirement during a pandemic:

“I just think for college football that would be really bad optics, to punish teams for either getting sick or their opponent getting sick in the midst of a pandemic,” explained Palmer.

This is going to play out in a pretty interesting way, especially with Wisconsin’s game against Purdue being called off due to coronavirus cases. With two canceled games, the Badgers are in danger of falling short of the number of games needed to qualify for the B1G Championship Game.

Whatever the case, this is going to be a highly debated topic as we get closer to December and January.