Georgia president Jere Morehead doesn’t think expanding the College Football Playoff to 24 teams is a good idea.
In fact, he said this to The Athletic: “A 24-team playoff is a mistake.”
With the Southeastern Conference meetings set for next week in Destin, Fla., Morehead doesn’t feel the Big Ten has thought out the long-term implications of going from a 12-game playoff to 24.
“It’s going to devalue big games during the regular season,” Morehead, the Georgia president since July 2013, said on Thursday. “I think it (would) devalue Georgia-Alabama or Georgia-Oklahoma (this) year. So I don’t think that’s a good idea.
“I was OK with going to 16. I thought that was a good number. But 24 scares me, particularly jumping from 12 to 24. If we went to 16 and tried that for a few years, see how it goes, and then we can evaluate whether we should go to 24. And from my standpoint, I would just stay at 12 then, if we can’t get an agreement on 16.”
Morehead said the opinion of SEC commissioner Greg Sankey matters the most to him.
Whatever Sankey suggests, Morehead will likely be on board.
“As long as commissioner Sankey is at 16, I think we’ll be at 16,” said Morehead, “because I think there’s great respect for his position on any issue.”
Currently, the Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 are in favor of the Big Ten’s 24-team playoff plan. Independent program Notre Dame also is on board.
One of the big problems in Morehead’s eyes is how a large playoff might impact the regular season.
“I think there’s a lot of concern about what 24 is going to do to the regular season,” Morehead said. “You know, we depend on these sellout home games, the high ratings that we get for our football games during the season. If those become devalued and if those ratings drop because people see it like the NBA, that these games don’t matter anymore, then that affects our situation, in terms of being able to negotiate the next television contract. That’s concerning to me.
“And I’m not sure that the Big Ten has really thought through the long-term implications of what this is going to do to the regular season.”
–Field Level Media
