One way or another, this much is clear: the College Football Playoff is going to expand. And while Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork clearly supports such growth, he’s also interested in taking a unique path to get there.
Speaking with Front Office Sports Today, Bjork addressed the current discussion surrounding college football’s impending postseason expansion. And in doing so, he floated the possibility of the sport making its conference championship weekend a part of the playoff.
“I’m a believer for the good of the game, for the health of the game, for content, for high-level matchups, we should expand,” Bjork said. “Could we go to 16? Could we go to 20? Could we go to 24? There’s proposals out there to go to 28. There’s been a couple of other proposals to go to 32… nobody can argue with this: what’s wrong with more high-level football? What’s wrong with more postseason content? What’s wrong with keeping the postseason alive for as many teams as possible?
“So to me, nobody can argue with that piece. Now how do you get there? Automatic-qualifying spots. How many should the Big Ten have and the SEC? That’s where everybody kind of gets hung up. But if you just take high-level content, meaningful content for football. If you take maybe the conference championship weekend and morph that into the playoffs. If you take bowl games that are already a part of the system and you call them playoff games, what’s wrong with that?”
While there are certainly some arguments against some of the points Bjork believes to be inarguable, his comments are noteworthy nonetheless. Especially when considering that they’re coming from the athletic director of one of the most power programs in the entire sport, which is a part of a conference whose commissioner has already pitched a 28-team playoff format.
Bjork was also plenty transparent that all of this is about money and how the sport can make the most of it moving forward. And if that’s the case, then he’s certainly not wrong that expanding the playoff is one of the likeliest ways to get there, regardless of what it looks like in the end.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.