ARLINGTON, Texas — The good news for TCU is that Gary Patterson still “wants it,” but the considerably better news is the collateral effect of the expansion of the college football playoff.
One of the quiet fears for TCU, and schools just like it, for years has been that when college football’s major TV contract expires it would cause another round of conference realignment, and consolidation, among the Power 5 schools.
As much as TCU wants to win a national title in football, its main priority is simply to remain a Power 5 institution. TCU is not what it is today without its affiliation in the Big 12 Conference.
Smaller schools in the Power 5 not named Notre Dame, like TCU, Northwestern, Wake Forest, Duke and a few others, all sweat their standing in college football’s most lucrative bracket.
Their appeal and value as an institution is aided exponentially by their association with schools like Texas, Alabama, USC, North Carolina, Southern Cal, Ohio State and the rest.
The way it sounds, at least right now, the way the major conferences look today will endure beyond the expiration of the current TV contract, which expires after the 2025-26 season.
On Day 1 of the Big 12 Media Days on Wednesday at AT&T Stadium, I asked Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby if the playoff expansion ensures that the state of the conferences remains status quo.
“It’s really moot on that question. Conference alignment is always at the discretion of the conferences,” he said. “But you have to remember, the last time around, the last round of conference realignments was all driven by cable households, and we find ourselves now in a rapidly shrinking cable environment.”
When the Big 10, SEC, ACC, then Pac-10 and Big 12 all started to either expand, or downsize, about 10 years ago, it was all driven by the need to create a wider TV footprint for their respective leagues.
That’s how Rutgers and Maryland ran to the Big 10, Texas A&M to the SEC, etc.
“That motivation is essentially gone. The cable universe has shrunk [by] 20 million households already. It’s going to continue to shrink as we migrate to digital consumption and streaming,” Bowlsby said. “And so a lot of the motivation for realignment is no longer there.
“Is that to say it couldn’t happen? No, it could possibly happen for other reasons. But it doesn’t appear to me that the motivation is there at this point in time. Not to say it couldn’t happen, but it’s not one of the things that keeps me up at night.”
“Other reasons” would be a few presidents of the bigger colleges create a new plan to build their own super conference that consist of the giant power teams, to keep the money amongst themselves so they don’t have to share a dime with the smaller schools that have the smaller fan bases.
This sort of plan was in the proposal stages among the largest soccer teams in Europe in the spring to form a “Super League.” It died after considerable backlash all over the continent.
College football’s conferences remaining status quo for the foreseeable future would be just as big of a win for TCU as its win over Wisconsin in the 2011 Rose Bowl.
Officially, college football has not approved a plan to expand the playoff system from four teams to the proposed 12. Those in charge must have more meetings, and reasons to run up that expense account, before announcing the particulars.
“I think [playoff expansion] is great,” Patterson said. “I just don’t think we need to forget the bowl games. I think there a lot of kids [and] it’s a great reward. I think [bowls] are kinda getting pushed to the side a little bit, too. I think [playoff expansion] will create more energy.
“I think 12 teams gives more opportunity, but I’ll be just as interested to see how it all plays out.”
Playoff expansion is now inevitable. The question is when, where, and if the conference championship games remain on the schedule. (They shouldn’t.)
The expansion of the playoffs ultimately won’t do much to alter who wins the national title. College football has always been the most top heavy of America’s major sports, and a few extra playoff games won’t change that.
If you are not Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson and a few others, your “national championship” will be just reaching the playoffs.
“I put it in a playoff perspective. I think that in the eight years we’ve been in the Big 12, ‘14, ‘15, and ‘17 I think we would have in the playoffs if we would have been 12 teams,” Patterson said.
If you do that, you’ve had a great season. You are a nationally-relevant team — and that makes you a nationally-relevant university.
That is TCU’s priority, and the expansion of the college football playoffs should only give them all the security they desire to continue to be just that.
