Stop pretending the college football four-team playoff was about justice. It was a country club. Same cast, same endings, same excuses when outsiders knocked on the door. If your school did not have the logo or the history, you needed to be perfect and then some. One loss and your season was erased because the committee could always find an excuse to invite a brand instead. Indiana sitting at 10-0 right now destroys that nonsense. This is not a cute story. This is proof the expansion fixed a rigged setup.
Indiana is not a meme. They just survived a hostile trip to Penn State on a last-minute drive and a clutch catch by Fernando Mendoza. That kind of finish does not happen by accident. It happens when a team has discipline, coaching, and players who finish. Under the old four-team system, they could do everything right and still be left out because they were not a household brand. That era valued reputation over results. The 12-team playoff values seasons.
This Isn’t Hypothetical. This Is a Correction
Look at UCF in 2017. Thirteen and zero, conference champion, beat Auburn in a bowl game, and the committee ranked them in the teens. Perfect season, and they barely got respect. Under a 12-team setup, they would have been an automatic qualifier, likely hosting a first-round game. That is fairness. That is what expansion does. It does not create fantasy winners. It makes sure actual performance gets tangible reward.
Look at TCU in 2014. Eleven and one. They went through a brutal schedule and produced a resume worthy of the top tier. Yet week-to-week committee moves and brand optics shuffled teams more by name than by results. A single late swing could vaporize your season. That is what the old system allowed. The 12-team model cuts that volatility down for conference champions and gives teams a defined path.
Even big names got snubbed or shuffled in ways that exposed the bias. When conferences and reputations matter more than wins, seasons become theater for brand maintenance, not sport.
Blowouts Were Already a Thing in the Four-Team Era
People will throw two complaints at you every time you bring up expansion. The first is that it will produce blowouts. The second is that it devalues the regular season. Both arguments are lazy and wrong.
First, blowouts. The four-team era already produced blowouts. Those games were not competitive theater. They were mismatches, often by three or more touchdowns. If critics want to act shocked that more teams might get stomped occasionally, they need to remember history. Here is the list of clear blowouts in the four-team era. These are semifinal or final games decided by large margins. They show that restricting the field did not stop blowouts. It just concentrated the blowouts in the same predictable matchups.
2014 Rose Bowl, Oregon 59, Florida State 20, margin 39
2014 National Championship, Ohio State 42, Oregon 20, margin 22
2015 Cotton Bowl semifinal, Alabama 38, Michigan State 0, margin 38
2016 Fiesta Bowl semifinal, Clemson 31, Ohio State 0, margin 31
2018 Cotton Bowl semifinal, Clemson 30, Notre Dame 3, margin 27
2019 Peach Bowl semifinal, LSU 63, Oklahoma 28, margin 35
2020 Sugar or semifinal, Ohio State 49, Clemson 28, margin 21
2020 National Championship, Alabama 52, Ohio State 24, margin 28
2021 Cotton Bowl semifinal, Alabama 27, Cincinnati 6, margin 21
2018 National Championship, Clemson 44, Alabama 16, margin 28
2023 National Championship, Michigan 34, Washington 13, margin 21
2022 National Championship, Georgia 65, TCU 7, margin 58
Those are not fringe outcomes. That is a pattern. The four-team era promised the best of the best and then served up demolition jobs half the time. If the argument against expansion is that more games equal more potential blowouts, then you have to explain why limiting the games prevented blowouts before. It did not. The games were lopsided under the old system as often as not. The difference now is that the right to play in those games is tied to season-long achievement, not to brand reputation.
The Regular Season Still Matters
Second, about the regular season being devalued. That is flat wrong. The regular season is still the battlefield. The only thing that changed is what you are fighting for. Before, big November games were often elimination nights by reputation. Lose and you were usually out because the committee favored brand names. Now those same games decide seeding, byes, and who gets home playoff games. Those stakes are enormous.
A bye earns rest, recovery, and the luxury of avoiding an extra do-or-die game. Home games mean hostile environments for opponents, shorter travel, and national TV exposure for your program. Those practical advantages matter. Winning in November now decides placement and pathway, not just whether you survive committee whim. That is more meaningful football. If you cared about the regular season before, you should love it now. More teams have something real to play for, deeper into the calendar.
Home Playoff Games Change Everything
This is where the whole recruitment and resources piece ties in. A home playoff game in Bloomington matters. It is not window dressing. It is national television on your campus for a weekend. It is recruits seeing a playoff environment live. It is TV cameras, recruits in the stands, donors dialing in, and local businesses cashing in on hotel bookings and restaurants. All of that converts to real dollars for the athletic department. That money funds coaches, facilities, and the long term plan. Those are the tools that turn a single good season into a program on the rise.
NIL and Recruiting Are Game Changers
NIL is not magic dust. It will not instantly turn Indiana into Alabama. But NIL, when combined with playoff visibility, gives programs leverage they never had. Smart collectives and targeted local deals keep key players and attract transfers who want to be seen. Pair that with an expanded playoff and suddenly schools that used to be off the national radar can offer recruits genuine visibility and postseason access. That will shift recruiting flows and make upsets less fluky and more sustainable.
Indiana Isn’t a Fluke
If you still want to call Indiana a Cinderella, be my guest. There is a difference between a fluke and a program that finds a way to win. Indiana is not a viral clip. They are 10-0 because they have been disciplined, physical, and clutch. They have wins that matter. They have shown late game execution and defensive toughness. That is not luck. That is construction.
What Happens If They Lose to Ohio State
Let us walk through the practical counterfactual. Suppose Indiana plays Ohio State in the Big Ten title and loses. Under the old four-team model, that loss could have ended their season. A 12-1 Indiana would likely get squeezed out by brand power. Under the 12-team model, that loss hurts seeding and might cost a bye, but it does not necessarily remove them from contention. They still have a resume. They still have quality wins. They still get the chance to prove themselves on the field in the postseason. That nuance is the whole point. The system recognizes the difference between a bad night and a bad season.
History Proves the Need for Expansion
UCF 2017 is the textbook example. Perfect season, high profile bowl win, and the committee left them out of the meaningful discussion. TCU in 2014 ran into committee probability games that shuffled them down the list despite strong performance. Even Ohio State in certain years got treated like a bargaining chip depending on how the committee felt. That was not merit. That was reputation theater.
You want numbers and receipts. Here are the facts that matter for the argument.
UCF 2017 finished 13-0, won the American, beat Auburn in the Peach Bowl. Final committee ranking in the teens. Perfect season and marginalization. That is exactly what expansion fixes.
TCU 2014 was 11-1 and got shuffled in the final weeks because committee optics rewarded brand movement over resume clarity. That volatility punished teams who did the work.
Four-team semifinal margins averaged north of multiple touchdowns in several years. That is proof that limiting the field did not equal competitive balance. It equalized television convenience for major brands while denying pathways to deserving conference champs.
Let us be blunt. Keeping the system small protected power. Expansion subjects the old elite to proof on the field without letting brand alone do the work. That is fair. That is sport.
More Teams, More Meaning, More Chaos
The 12-team model also restores real November meaning for more fanbases. Look at the typical fan argument. They say expansion waters down the late season. That is a misunderstanding. The season is not watered down. The number of meaningful games increases. Instead of a handful of teams playing for everything and everybody else playing for pride, you now have dozens of fanbases with something real to fight for. That is engagement, that is passion, that is chaos. Chaos is what college football is supposed to be.
And let us stop pretending the old system produced consistently better semifinals. Many of the marquee games were one sided. The “we kept it pure” line always came with the fine print that purity meant the same handful of programs got the publicity and the rest of the country got bowls. That was not fairness. That was curation.
If you want to argue logistics and television revenue, go ahead. The new system brings more games, which means more TV product. It also means more stages for programs to show themselves. More games does not have to mean less meaning. It means more opportunities. You would rather the sport be owned by a four team selection committee than be messy and earned on the field? That is a conservative argument, not a sportsmanlike one.
Indiana Is Walking Through the Door
Indiana’s run is the demo case. They are a household example of the new reality. If they fall to Ohio State, they are still in the narrative. If they win, they are in the ascendancy and they did it on their own terms. That is how college football should work. Great seasons get rewarded. Not based on history. Based on work.
If you still want the four-team country club, fine. Go find a rerun and enjoy the predictability. The rest of us will watch November matter for more programs, more stadiums, and more rivalries. The new model rewards seasons, gives mid-level programs pathways to resources, and brings actual stakes to games that used to be window dressing.
Indiana walking through that now open door is the point. They are not a viral fluke. They are validation. The 12-team playoff has not ruined college football. It has given it a spine. It has reattached meaning to the long grind of a season and given more fans a reason to stay tuned past October.
The math of the postseason now favors earned placement, not brand lobbying. Top seeds get byes, mid seeds host first round games, and conference champions are guaranteed a shot. That structure balances reward and opportunity. It takes the knives out of committee whimsy and puts results back on the field.
This is a sport. It is supposed to be messy. It is supposed to have nights where the underdog shocks the country. It is supposed to have seasons where lesser known programs force the narrative and end up on the national stage. The 12-team playoff delivers that more than the old system ever did.
Indiana at 10-0 is not a punchline. It is a headline. It is data. It is evidence that expanding the field was the right move. Watch the rest of the season. See how the path plays out. If the system produces a national champion who would not have had a shot in the old model, we will call that progress. If it produces more nights that matter for more fanbases, we will call that a success.
This is how the game grows. This is how programs climb. This is how fans live through every week in November knowing the dream is still alive. Indiana is living that dream. The playoff expansion gave them the map. Now they have to walk it.
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