James Franklin says he believes that when the College Football Playoff expands from four to 12 teams in 2024, the Big Ten Conference could get as many as six teams invited.
That’s the 16-team Big Ten, which expands next season with the addition of USC and UCLA.
That’s right — six. 6. As in a half-dozen. And half of the entire expanded 12-team CFP postseason field.
The Penn State head coach said so on Wednesday, at the Big Ten media days. Twice. I thought he was stretching it a bit, when I first watched his 45-minute presser, his second of the day, when he made the remarks.
Then I did the math and the research. And CJF may be right.
“The Big Ten has made strategy decisions to give us the best chance to get six teams into the playoffs,” said Franklin, who is entering his 10th season as PSU’s head coach and is the second-longest tenured head coach in the conference, after Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz.
“I think everything we literally talk about as the Big Ten needs to be based on how we do get the most teams in the playoffs,” Franklin explained. “So you need to be thinking about six. And all of your strategy needs to be based off of that. And then if you end up with five teams or whatever it is, that’s fine.”
Five is not a stretch. At all. Not when you figure on the major conference re-alignments that will take place in 2024. The Big Ten will add USC and UCLA. The SEC will add Texas and Oklahoma. The Big 12 is adding Colorado, to go along with new additions and former top 12 CFP finishers Cincinnati and UCF.
Allowing for those shifts and counting the new members of their new conferences retroactively — i.e., USC to the Big Ten — in the nine years of the CFP (2015-2022), four times a conference has had five teams in the Top 12 on the CFP’s D-Day, when the four playoff teams are announced, along with teams ranked No. 5 to No. 12. The four seasons:
Big Ten in 2016 — Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State, USC, Wisconsin
SEC in 2018 — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma
SEC in 2019 — Auburn, Florida, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma
SEC in 2020 (COVID year) — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Add one more team each year, and you get six — as Franklin said.
If the new realignment had been in place in 2017, then eight of the top 12 teams — based on the CFP Top 12 rankings entering the postseason — would have been from either the Big Ten (four) or SEC (four).
That’s getting close to the AFC vs. the NFC.
Which is why James concluded his giant pitch on Wednesday that “you need to be statistically making decisions to get as many Big Ten teams into the playoffs as possible.”
Look for several two-loss teams from the Big Ten and the SEC to start making the CFP’s 12-team playoffs. Dual losers from the other Power 5 conferences or Group of 5 teams? Not so much.
Here’s a look at the year-by-year top 12 rankings at the end of the regular season, including conference championship games, as ranked by the CFP committee from 2014-2022. National champions are bold-faced:
THE CFP REGULAR SEASON TOP 12: 2014-2022
| 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 |
| 1. GA | Ala | Ala | LSU | Ala | Clem | Ala | Clem | Ala |
| 2. Mich | Mich | Clem | Ohio St. | Clem | Okla | Clem | Ala | Ore |
| 3. TCU | GA | Ohio St. | Clem | ND | GA | Ohio St. | Mich St. | Fla St. |
| 4. Ohio St. | Cin | ND | Okla | Okla | Ala | Wash | Okla | Ohio St. |
| 5. Ala. | ND | Tex A&M | GA | GA | Ohio St. | PENN ST. | Iowa | Baylor |
| 6. Tenn | Ohio St. | Okla | Ore | Ohio St. | Wis | Mich | Stanford | TCU |
| 7. Clem | Baylor | Fla | Baylor | Mich | Auburn | Okla | Ohio St. | Miss St. |
| 8. Utah | Miss | Cinn | Wis | UCF | USC | Wis | ND | Mich St. |
| 9. K State | Okla St. | GA | Fla | Wash | PENN ST. | USC | Fla St. | Miss |
| 10. USC | Mich St. | Iowa St. | PENN ST. | Fla | Miami | Colo | NC | Ariz |
| 11. PENN ST. | Utah | Indiana | Utah | LSU | Wash | Fla St. | TCU | Kan St. |
| 12. Wash | Pitt | Coastal Car | Auburn | PENN ST. | UCF | Okla St. | Miss | Ga Tech |
THE CFP HISTORY
Let’s not forget, if the 12-team playoff had been in existence since 2014, Franklin’s Penn State squad would have made it to the CFP tournament a total of five times — the Nittany Lions were ranked 11th in 2022, 10th in 2019, 12th in 2018, ninth in 2017 and a soul-crushing fifth in 2016.
In all, only five programs finished in the CFP’s top 12 final regular-season ranking more seasons than Penn State did in the CFP Era. It’s a list you know well. To use Franklin’s oft-repeated nomenclature, the five teams above Penn State could be classified as elite. Penn State and the three programs with four appearances could be classified as great; and the big pack at two and three CFP 12 appearances would be good. National title seasons, notwithstanding.
Ohio State is the only program to make the final regular season top 12 standings all nine seasons in the CFP Era, from 2014-2022. The rankings, based on number of seasons in the top 12 at the end of the regular season, follow.
9 – Ohio State
8 — Alabama
7 — Clemson
6 — Georgia, Oklahoma
5 — PENN STATE
4 —Michigan, Notre Dame, Washington
3 — Florida, Florida State, Michigan, ‘Ole Miss, TCU, USC, Utah, Wisconsin
2 — Auburn, Baylor, Cincinnati, Kansas, LSU, Oklahoma State, Oregon, UCF
Ironically, that works out to a neat Top 25 for the CFP four-team playoff era.
THE (REALIGNED) CONFERENCE BREAKDOWN: 2014-2022
Those are the top teams. But what about the conferences?
When we allow for realignment in arrears, Franklin’s call for a goal of six Big Ten qualifiers for the 12-team CFP playoffs in 2024 doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
In the chart below, which takes into account the movements of the USCs and Oklahomas of the college world and makes them retroactive to 2014, the power of the SEC and Big Ten is magnified.
A total of 10 SEC schools, as they will sit in 2024, made the CFP top 12 in 2014-2022, while eight Big Ten schools would have made it. The Big 12, which welcomes back Colorado and adds UCF and Cincinnati — the three combined for five CFP top 12 spots — would have had nine schools that made it to the top 12 at least once.
The eight Big Ten schools are: Ohio State (9), Penn State (5), Michigan (4), USC (3), Michigan State (3), Wisconsin (3), Indiana (1) and Iowa (1).
As the chart below shows, on an average year, the SEC and Big Ten will combine for over half of a 12-team playoff field.
| Conference | Teams in Top 12 | Total Berths | Berths/Yr. | National Champs |
| SEC | 10 | 33 | 3.7 | 6 |
| Big Ten | 8 | 29 | 3.2 | 1 |
| Big 12 | 9 | 16 | 1.8 | — |
| ACC | 6 | 14 | 1.6 | 2 |
| Pac-? | 5 | 11 | 1.2 | — |
| Notre Dame | 1 | 4 | .44 | — |
| Coastal Carolina | 1 | 1 | .11 | — |
| TOTAL | 40 | 108 | 12 | 9 |
