Building a Cinderella for the college football playoffs
How could a smaller program build a National Champion in the era of the expanded playoffs?
In my last column I tackled the question of National Championship contention in the era of an expanded playoff.
The main gist was this, including more games in the path to a title makes the task more difficult and rewards teams who can stockpile talent, particularly rare talent in the trenches. You increase the variance in outcomes from injuries, which necessarily benefits teams who are better equipped to handle injuries.
I didn’t even include two other challenges. First, as pointed out by Mike H in the comments, an expanded playoff rewards programs who can pay staffers to breakdown opponents for game planning. If you’re a smaller school with fewer staffers, your coaches start to get stretched thin navigating coaching, game planning, managing the transfer portal, and recruiting your next class.
Secondly, the expanded playoff rewards a strategy which used to be a bit risky. Namely, building your offense around complicated pro-style passing. The 2022 Crimson Tide were a pretty formidable team by the bowl game, but their inexperience at wide receiver and offensive line diminished their chances of putting together a playoff resume. No one would have wanted to face that team in the playoffs as their younger receivers improved in syncing up with Bryce Young.
For all those challenges, I do think there are potential paths to a non-blueblood program winning a National Championship as a result of increased access to the title game via the expanded playoff.
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