College football is considering a 24-team playoff, and the Mountain West champion still might have to spend December explaining why it deserves a place. That is a ridiculous outcome for a tournament large enough to accommodate ten conference champions and still have fourteen spots left over.
I support a bigger playoff. More meaningful games on campuses would be good for the sport. More teams with something to chase in November would be good for their fans. But if the field doubles while the Group of Six still shares one guaranteed berth, its schools should be asking what they actually gained.
For UNLV, the standard ought to be clear before the season begins: win the Mountain West, and earn a place in the national playoff. The committee can decide the seed. Winning the league should settle qualification.
The proposed expansion remains unfinished. The Associated Press reported Oct. 16 that the CFP and ESPN had reached a preliminary handshake agreement on a framework for a 24-team field beginning in 2027, with contract details still unresolved. The discussed format includes four Power Four conference champions, the highest-ranked Group of Six team and 19 at-large selections.
That would leave open the possibility of multiple G6 teams qualifying. One guaranteed berth is not a one-team limit. But an invitation that depends on the committee’s judgment offers a very different degree of certainty from a berth earned by winning a conference.
Every eligible FBS conference champion should qualify. Under a ten-conference structure, that leaves fourteen at-large bids for everyone else, including independents. There would still be ample room for excellent teams that finished behind another contender in their own league.
Automatic qualification would not require treating every champion as equally strong. A champion with the twenty-third-best résumé can be seeded twenty-third. A nonchampion with the second-best résumé can be seeded second. Give the top eight byes, let the next eight host first-round games, and reward the strongest seasons with rest and home field.
There would be consequences for losing. A team could lose a bye, lose a home game or miss an at-large berth entirely. Conference races would carry national stakes for schools whose fans otherwise spend November hoping someone on a committee takes them seriously.
I have little patience for the assumption that the middle of the SEC or Big Ten is automatically better than a G6 champion. The same applies to the ACC and Big 12. Identify the teams and compare what they accomplished. A difficult schedule deserves consideration, but losing to excellent opponents does not establish that a team would beat a conference champion somewhere else.
Too often, that comparison jumps straight to whether UNLV could beat the national championship favorite. That is not the relevant question when discussing the final places in a 24-team field. Compare the Rebels with the other teams asking for those invitations.
The possibility of a blowout does not settle it, either. Some playoff teams will lose badly. A loss should prompt an examination of that team’s performance, rather than become an excuse to dismiss every program in its conference category. If a tournament is large enough to give a twentieth-ranked team a chance, it can make room for conference champions.
Scheduling makes guaranteed access particularly important. My concern is that expansion could reward a power conference program for avoiding a dangerous G6 opponent. If it can reach the field through its conference schedule, why accept the additional risk? Beating a good Mountain West team might receive less credit than the difficulty of the game deserves. Losing could become a prominent mark against its résumé.
That will not dictate every scheduling decision. Existing contracts, geography, money and individual athletic directors all matter. But the incentive deserves scrutiny before anyone tells a G6 school its only problem is that it should have scheduled better opponents. Arranging those games requires somebody else to agree.
An automatic berth would let UNLV pursue challenging nonconference games without making its entire national opportunity depend on securing them. Those matchups would still offer exposure, revenue and valuable competition. Winning the Mountain West would provide a qualification route the program could control.
That also matters when UNLV asks supporters to invest in football. Buy tickets. Support the roster. Help the program compete. Those are reasonable requests, and supporters deserve a clear answer about where a championship season can lead.
Guaranteed access would not eliminate the financial gap or prevent players from transferring. It would give UNLV a concrete competitive argument: stay here, win this conference, and play for a national championship. The rules can provide that opportunity even when the athletic departments cannot offer equal resources.
A separate G6 playoff worries me for the same reason. American commissioner Tim Pernetti has discussed a complementary tournament for the five G6 champions outside the CFP while preserving the existing shared berth. There could be worthwhile games and revenue in that arrangement. I understand the appeal to schools left out of the national tournament.
But why should a 24-team national playoff leave most of those champions looking for another competition? My concern is that establishing a separate tournament would make the next request for CFP access easier to dismiss. The smaller conferences would already have something else to sell, even though their highest-ranked representative could be competing elsewhere.
Conference leaders should have to explain that tradeoff. More television revenue would not, by itself, make the competitive arrangement good for their schools.
If conference championship games disappear, leagues will need clear rules for determining champions and breaking ties, published before the season. Recovery time, travel and the postseason calendar also need serious attention. Those are real problems to solve. None explains why one conference’s champion deserves guaranteed entry while another’s must wait for a ranking.
I want UNLV to earn its place. Win the Mountain West, accept the seed its season deserves, and go play. If that means traveling to a stadium where nobody expects the Rebels to win, let them take that opportunity.
A conference championship should secure more than the right to ask for consideration.
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