CFP expansion can actually be good for Oklahoma and the rest of college football

An expanded College Football Playoff is now inevitable whether you like it or not, so Oklahoma fans might as well embrace the silver lining. 

ESPN’s Pete Thamel broke the news on Thursday that the CFP is on the cusp of expanding from 12 to 24 teams. Nothing is final yet, but all signs point to the CFP bracket doubling in size by next football season in 2027. 

The immediate downfall of this move would be the extinction of Power 4 conference championship games, as they would become obsolete and the regular season would decide a champion. Fans also worry that a playoff expansion would take value away from regular-season games, but as the cons are being magnified, just like anything, there are also pros to a bigger CFP, and this doesn’t doom the sport we love. 

CFP expansion saves OU fans from meaningless bowl games

Nearly everyone’s immediate reaction to an expanded CFP was negative, but one simple question could change the perception. For OU fans, which would you rather watch in December: the Sooners host a Group of 6 team at Memorial Stadium in a meaningful game with maybe even more ahead, or half of the Sooners’ roster decimated by the transfer portal and the NFL Draft, playing another Power 4 team, also with a gutted roster, in a meaningless bowl game in a different state? 

The new 24-team bracket would include 19 at-large bids, Power 4 conference champions, and the highest-ranked Group of 6 team. 

The top-8 seeds would get first-round byes, while the 9-16 seeds get home games. Those top-8 seeds would then host the winners of the first-round games on campus. New Year’s Six bowls would still host the quarterfinals and semifinals, with the site of the championship game rotating. 

Sooner Nation got to experience a home playoff game just last year, and even though it was a disappointing loss to Alabama, there’s still no denying it was an unmatched atmosphere. That could become tradition in Norman. 

If there were a 24-team bracket last year, No. 9 Alabama would have hosted No. 24 North Texas in Tuscaloosa, as the Sooners watched and hoped for an upset. No matter the logos on the helmets, there’s no doubt every OU fan would have tuned into that game, at least until it possibly got out of hand. I doubt anyone reading this, unless a true college football sicko, watched the Mean Green instead play San Diego State in the New Mexico Bowl last year.

The college football postseason has been on life support, so an expanded playoff could be its elixir. There’s also no reason to believe that this change would murder the regular season, especially in Oklahoma. 

The Sooners right now in 2026 are a prime example of the regular season mattering more with an expanded playoff than without. At 3-2, if the Sooners lose this week, then their CFP chances disappear already, just halfway through the season. With nothing to play for other than a meaningless bowl game that won’t even include OU’s best players, even some of the most loyal members of Sooner Nation will eventually check out. 

However, even with three losses, the Sooners could still keep fighting for a spot in the top 24 by the end of the season. Even an 8-4 OU team could finish the year ranked. 

Whether or not an 8-4 OU team deserves a shot at a national title is a different argument, but there will still at least always be hope of a miracle run. Isn't that what we love so much about March Madness?

Any worse than 8-4, though, and OU wins would be fed up no matter what the postseason had in store for everyone else, but again, they’re still likely to watch a meaningful game with complete rosters rather than junior varsity games with sponsors disguised as bowl games. 

Still, it wouldn’t be too often that Sooner Nation would enjoy a postseason with no dog in the fight. Since the CFP Rankings debuted in 2014, the Sooners have finished the season ranked in nine of 12 seasons. That means OU would have been in playoff contention 75% of the time. OU fans will almost always have a reason to care until the very end.

This might not actually be the death of college football, but new life.

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