Poll results have shown that most college football fans dislike the 24-team Playoff format. That likely means most Alabama Crimson Tide fans have the same opinion. Mark me down as a naysayer. The expanded format is making conference championship games worse than useless.
In the current Playoff format, conference championship games have become more of an obstacle than being a boost to a high seed. Discarding them makes sense. There is considerable contention about whether the expanded format will enhance or devalue regular-season games. I guess that it will do both.
Instead of stubbornly complaining about the 24-team format, I've accepted that the Crimson Tide would possibly benefit if the expanded field size applied to the 2026 season.
In the 2027 Playoff format, there will be 19 at-large teams. In my opinion, the number should be 20, without automatically giving the highest-ranked G6 a bid. Oh, well, that is a mostly trivial complaint.
Alabama currently just below the top 12 teams
Pointing to the strength of the SEC is a current ranking for College Football News that has 12 SEC teams in college football's top 25 teams. Half are in the top 12 teams. Alabama is just outside the group at No. 13. The others (7-12) are Georgia, Kentucky, Texas, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and LSU.
Multiple credible sources project that if 2026 had a 24-team Playoff format, the SEC would have seven teams. This would likely mean that Alabama vs. LSU on Nov. 7 would not be a Playoff elimination game, but a game for Playoff seeding.
There is, however, a yes, but. Alabama fans won't have heartburn, but if Stewart Mandel is correct, fans of ACC and Big 12 teams will not enjoy a 24-team playoff reality: "I hate to break this to folks but once the committee has to pay more attention to 13-24, they’ll be ranking 8-4 B1G/SEC above 9-3 ACC/B12."
Following Mandel's logic, my opinion is how sweet it would be for one of those 9-3 Big 12 teams to be Texas Tech.
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