You can't go to the fridge these days without missing the latest news of a COVID-19 postponement or cancellation in college football.
Saturday's Ohio State-Maryland game was canceled Wednesday after eight Maryland players tested positive for the coronavirus, while the SEC postponed the Georgia-Missouri game after previously postponing Auburn-Mississippi State, Alabama-LSU and Texas A&M-Tennessee for reasons related to the spread of the virus. Last weekend's Pac-12 openers had two cancellations, and Wisconsin has played only one game with two cancellations.
Everyone knew this would be a difficult season to get through, which is why the Big Ten and Pac-12 were among the conferences that originally postponed the season until sometime in 2021, only to jump back in after the SEC, Big 12 and ACC ignored the risks and started anyway.
The recent rise in COVID-19 cases across the country has only added to the mess and threatens to postpone or cancel even more games over the next six weeks. Some conferences have shifted postponed games until later in the season, while the Big Ten decided from the get-go to simply cancel games that couldn't be played, leaving schools with uneven schedules.
Trying to determine whether second-ranked Notre Dame is more playoff-worthy at 7-0 than 13th-ranked Wisconsin at 1-0 is mere guesswork, making the race for the four playoff spots more subjective than ever.
The solution, of course, is to expand the College Football Playoff from four to 16 teams in 2020.
Baseball expanded its postseason from 10 to 16 teams this year, and the NFL has approved a contingency plan to expand its postseason from 14 to 16 teams if the it can't complete a full regular season in 17 or 18 weeks. Both decisions were made after the season had begun, so it shouldn't be impossible for college football to make changes on the fly.
Here are four steps to make it happen.
