Paul Finebaum predicts College Football Playoff will be 'stuck' at 12-team format after meetings

ESPN’s Paul Finebaum predicted the College Football Playoff will be stuck at 12 teams when all meetings are concluded. That includes the December deadline later this year.

There’s a disconnect between 12 teams and the expansion talks, with some conferences supporting the 24-team model while a conference like the SEC doesn’t want to push past 16 at this time, although same ADs are changing that tune. So as far as what comes next, there’s enough pushback to hold the College Football Playoff at 12 teams at this time.

“I think we’ll be stuck on 12 at the end of this meeting, and when we get closer to the deadline,” Finebaum said on Get Up. “And at some point this is really a television decision because ESPN holds the CFP right now. 

“I’ll say this 1,000 times, but nobody … in network television wants to see the regular season devalued. And if you go to 24 you devalue that, and you let a bunch of 8-4 teams in the playoffs that have no business being in.”

Greg Sankey already took a shot at the College Football Playoff format, as On3’s Pete Nakos wrote. The CFP will stay at 12, as Finebaum said, because those like Sankey discuss playoff expansion in the 16 team realm more than 24. But the Big Ten has already cooled off on the 16-team model, per Sankey.

“I was surprised by that since they brought 16 to the table,” the SEC commissioner said Monday night. “When we were meeting last year, all those 16 ideas weren’t ours, and probably some of the outcomes. There’s probably clarity that they have looked at 16, just not much of late. He’d [Tony] have to explain their positioning.

“Our responsibility, I speak to the Southeastern Conference, is to look at a lot of alternatives. … Our responsibility, and we’ll spend some time with our membership on that, is just to kind of look at the spectrum of possibilities and kind of the rationale behind certain alternatives.”

If there’s another big college football figurehead in Finebaum’s corner, at least with the playoff staying at 12, it might be Urban Meyer. The former coach is currently opposed to a 24-team College Football Playoff.

“Yeah, I think 24 is too much,” Meyer said on The Script. “But I was wrong about 12. I thought 12 was a little bit too much. Miami gets in there, they would have never gotten in, and they should have won the national title. So, I think 24 is too much. You start dipping down, like you said, (into) the teams that have very mediocre years (and they) should not be in the playoffs, so I think 24 is too much.”