Eli Drinkwitz on CFP expansion: ‘I don’t really understand what the big fight is about’
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Eli Drinkwitz has always had a way with words and because of that the Missouri head coach’s words always carry a lot of weight.
During his session with reporters on Thursday at SEC Media Days in Atlanta, Drinkwitz addressed a touchy subject around SEC circles: the College Football Playoff.
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The SEC and Big Ten have been volleying varying potential systems back and forth for the CFP going forward. Right now, there is a 12-team format that had a bit of a rough debut in the 2024 season. There were several calls to tweak the format, or even fully revamp it, and that will probably happen soon. But Drinkwitz had a wealth of thoughts on Thursday when asked about a potential 5-plus-11 Playoff format.
“I’ll start with the 12-, 14-, 16-team Playoff, whatever. This is not going to do me any favors with our commissioner,” said Eli Drinkwitz off the top, already peaking interest with the Greg Sankey reference. “When I think about college football right now and think about what do we need to do, I think it really comes down to 2 things: what is best for our players and what is best for our fans. The rest of us are really only important because of the players and the fans.”
Drinkwitz continued with an emphasis on pleasing the fans when the dust settles on Playoff expansion.
“When you think about whether it’s 12, 14 or 16 (teams), to me, if we decided to go into this expansion of Playoffs, we’re trying to follow an NFL model. The NFL takes 44% of their teams into the playoffs to increase the passion or keep the fan bases engaged. If we’re talking about 12, that’s 9%. If we’re talking about 14, that’s 11%. If we’re talking about 16, that’s 12%. That’s not really changing the math for the fan base. I don’t really understand what the big fight is about.”
His point was, increasing the Playoff to 14 or 16 isn’t going to do much for the entirety of college football’s fan base.
“The problem is we have a human committee that has no standard set of structure, of how they’re going to select. They’re all human beings. They all have implicit bias,” explained Drinkwitz. “In my viewpoint of it, I think we should go back and try to find more ways to include teams. How do we get more people involved? Because that’s better for the players, that’s better for the player experience to have more people involved in of the potential to play for a championship. It’s better for the fan bases.”
In the end, tweaks will be made and maybe a full revamp, but Drinkwitz doesn’t want college football to forget who the game is really about: the players and the fans.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
