The Hotline mailbag publishes weekly. Send questions to [email protected] and include ‘mailbag’ in the subject line. Or hit me on the social media platform X: @WilnerHotline
Some questions have been edited for clarity and brevity.
With a 12-team College Football Playoff, does ranking 25 teams each week make sense? Instead, why not rank 14 teams and, at least through 2025-26, include the top five conference leaders and the Group of Five representative if they aren’t in the top 14? — Jon Joseph
In our view, playoff expansion is the most impactful competitive change in the history of the sport. It has made more teams, and more games, relevant than ever before. The move from four teams to 12 was essential and overdue, and college football is exponentially more compelling because of it.
But flaws remain, and they probably won’t get corrected in the next 12 months.
The current CFP system runs through next season. There is no format for the playoff beginning in the fall of 2026, when a new contract cycle with ESPN begins. But the SEC and Big Ten are watching the 2024 version carefully and could force major changes in 2026 if they don’t like what they see.
We aren’t sure it matters whether the committee ranks 14, 20 or 25 teams each week. The issue isn’t the number of teams; it’s the rankings themselves. They are an ESPN creation to fill airtime, generate viewers and spark debate (in a sport that already has plenty of debate).
The committee doesn’t benefit from the weekly rankings. Instead, the exercise undermines confidence by exposing inconsistencies in the logic and setting up the committee chair to look dazed and evasive.
But ESPN is paying for the playoff, ESPN wants the rankings show each Tuesday and, in college sports, ESPN gets what ESPN wants. (Same for Fox.)
That said, the situation is far worse this season than ever before because the committee seemingly has no clue how to handle the expansion elements — expansion of the playoff and expansion of the conferences.
Realignment has created bigger leagues with unbalanced schedules and, especially in the case of the SEC and Big Ten, more good teams.
Depending on the schedule rotation, some playoff contenders will naturally have more losses than others within the same conference — and certainly more than other contenders in different conferences.
The SEC is loaded with good teams and, in our view, is somewhat akin to the NFL, where even the best teams have an inexplicable loss every so often.
But the committee is using the same approach to evaluating and ranking the teams, with a heavy emphasis placed on the number of losses.
Warde Manuel, the committee chair, admitted earlier this week that strength of schedule isn’t highly valued even though it’s the first listed criteria in the selection process and should be the most important component given the bigger conferences and unbalanced schedules.
“Teams can only play the schedule that’s in front of them,” Manuel explained on a media teleconference Tuesday evening. “They can only play the opponents that they have …
“From our perspective, if it was just about strength of schedule, we wouldn’t be needed.”
And therein lies the irony apparently lost on Manuel and Co.: By minimizing strength of schedule, the committee is expediting its own demise.
Which conference stands to benefit the most in the selection process from an emphasis of schedule strength? The SEC.
Which conference stands to suffer the greatest harm if the committee devalues schedule strength? The SEC.
Which conference has the most influence over the postseason and could, if desired, force a complete overhaul of the CFP selection process, with computers replacing people for the 2026 version and beyond?
And that’s not all.
The SEC (and Big Ten) could simply eliminate the at-large pool and establish a process by which each conference receives a predetermined number of automatic bids.
We’ll close the circle with this:
So much of the frustration that could spur the SEC to insist on format changes will have taken root not on selection day (Dec. 8) but during these weekly ranking shows that expose the flaws in the committee’s process.
Every utterance by Manuel about minimizing schedule strength pushes his committee closer to extinction.
Gut feeling: Is Alabama in the College Football Playoff with a 9-3 record? — @WorkishFromHome
The likelihood is greater than 50 percent, in our view.
The 13th-ranked Crimson Tide was on the CFP bubble this week and positioned to climb into the field if a few teams above them lose, which seems more likely than not.
The Hotline noted on the social media platform X several weeks ago that this whole exercise pointed toward the SEC placing a three-loss team into the field. That outcome remains in play despite the intra-conference carnage last weekend.
Should Alabama make the field with three total losses, two losses to unranked teams and one ghastly performance (at Oklahoma)? That’s an entirely different question.
However, the opinion above still stands: The SEC’s weekly grind increasingly resembles that of the NFL’s regular season, meaning bad losses will become more commonplace. (To a lesser extent, the same is true in the Big Ten.)
But again, the committee has shown no ability to adjust its process to account for the wide disparity in schedules.
If anything, it doesn’t seem to care about the opposition and is treating every win the same — a very head coach-driven approach to the evaluation process.
You wrote on X last weekend that, “Indiana has no business making the playoff as an at-large team. None.” Please explain: Indiana has one loss to a top-five team; Alabama has two losses to unranked teams. — @nickbeatty72
The explanation is fairly straightforward: I am a strong proponent of quality wins — in both the CFP selection process and my own AP Top 25 ballot — and Indiana has none.
The Hoosiers have played one team currently ranked by the committee, Ohio State, and they lost by multiple touchdowns.
I don’t care that they beat Nebraska by 49 points and Washington by 14. The Hoosiers whiffed in their only test of the season. (Maybe they shouldn’t have canceled a game against Louisville and replaced it with Western Illinois.)
And to be clear: The Hotline would take the same view with any team possessing Indiana’s resume.
Give us a 9-3 playoff participant with a handful of quality wins over an 11-1 team with zero quality wins. We’d make that trade every time.
If Cal and UCLA can schedule a non-conference series now that the Bears are in the ACC and the Bruins are in the Big Ten, why can’t Stanford and USC? — @lindamar112
Those are completely different situations in this regard: Cal and UCLA share the same governing board.
Our understanding, based on conversations with sources, is that scheduling matchups in football and other sports was part of the agreement when the University of California Board of Regents allowed the Bruins to join the Big Ten.
Stanford and USC have no such connective tissue despite a football series that dates to the early 1900s.
My sense is that both schools would be open to renewing the series if it made sense but are skeptical about the practicality, especially for USC.
The Trojans are committed to 10 dates each season with power conference opponents: nine Big Ten games plus Notre Dame.
Unless ESPN or Fox offers a truckload of money for a neutral site matchup similar to the LSU showdown in September, the Trojans likely will fill out their non-conference lineup with Group of Five opponents.
Is the Pac-12 putting any stock in a possible break-up of the ACC, which would make Cal, Stanford and SMU available as candidates for addition to the conference? — @MarcSheehan006
We have heard nothing to suggest the Pac-12 and its consultants foresee an immediate breakup of the ACC despite the lawsuits filed by Clemson and Florida State.
But are they considering that outcome in the longer-term plans for the conference? Absolutely. (And by longer term, we mean the early 2030s, when the entire major conference structure could come tumbling down.)
Providing a safety net for the Cardinal and Bears — and perhaps the Mustangs — is part of the strategic calculation.
The Pac-12 won’t expand to the point that it would not be able to easily absorb the Bay Area teams.
Will the Pac-12 have a football championship game? — @KoolEconomics
Like so much else about the rebuilt conference, including the number of football-playing schools, the championship game piece has not been determined.
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However, it’s worth wondering if any conference would stage a title game with eight teams playing just seven league games.
(If the Pac-12 ends up with nine or 10 football teams, the calculation changes.)
Everything depends on the trajectory of the media rights negotiations and what works best for sending a team to the College Football Playoff.
In the next version of the event, which begins in 2026, the criteria for access might make the Pac-12’s strategy clear with regard to staging a title game.
We should know more sometime this spring.
After discussions with their fans online, I believe that Washington State could attract a number of SEC teams to play a game over Labor Day weekend in Seattle. Regardless of the visitor fan count, do you think this would help give WSU a benefit in things such as future playoff allocations or even ending up in a Power Four league? — Dave B
Respectfully, we would disagree. WSU’s support for the game might be strong, but why would SEC teams agree to travel all that way for a game they could play closer to home?
SEC coaches and athletic directors assuredly would view the Cougars as a high-level Group of Five opponent playing what is essentially a home game. That’s a no-win situation for the visitors.
Also, would one of the TV networks pay the cash guarantee needed to make it worthwhile for the SEC team to give up a home game? Unlikely.
Add the taxing travel and the limited recruiting benefits and we struggle to picture any SEC school agreeing to the concept.
That said, we like the underlying concept: The Cougars should explore playing a game each season in Seattle. It makes sense on several fronts, just with the SEC on the opposite sideline.
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