12 Is Too Many For College Football Playoffs (Hour 1)

I'm Snoop Dogg, and I'm giving up smoke.

I know what you're thinking. Snoop, smoke is kind of your whole thing. But I'm done with it.

I'm done with the coffin, and my clothes smelling all funky. I'm going smokeless. Solo Stove Fix 5. They took out the smoke. Now you can have a nice blaze without any clouds ruining your day. Go smokeless.

Go to solostove.com. Tell them big Snoop Dogg sent you. Hahaha. Hey, this is Richard Deitch, the host of the Sports Media Podcast. If you're interested in what's happening with all the places where you consume sports, the Sports Media Podcast has you covered.

Here's longtime NFL and NBA announcer, Ian Eagle. Would I find this entertaining if I was sitting on the couch watching the game? Or would this be a nuisance? Would this get in the way?

Does it enhance the enjoyment for the viewer? Or at some point, are you becoming an annoyance? Listen on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. That's his number to jump on in. 855-212-4227.

You can always get at me on Instagram where I'm straight flexing or via the good old cesspool of Twitter. That's Zach Geld. That's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. Got Moist Mike and Stuart Kovacs along the other way. We're rocking and rolling all the way up until 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific. Yogi Roth from the Pac-12 Network.

He will stop by an hour 20 from now at 4.20 p.m. Eastern, 1.20 p.m. Pacific. Big Pac-12 Championship game on Friday night between Oregon and Washington. That has been the best college football game of the season and we'll get to see it again on Friday.

So very much looking forward to that. Let's start off though where the conversation really left off yesterday as the show was dominated by the Carolina Panthers decision to say goodbye to Frank Reich. And Frank Reich gets fired. You're number one.

One and done. Doesn't even make it through the entire season. The aftermath of this conversation has turned into, and you'll hear from David Tepper later, that David Tepper is a meddling owner. David Tepper is an incompetent owner. And David Tepper is someone that can't be trusted because he thinks he's a football guy just because he owns a football team.

And I don't want an owner to just get out of the way and do nothing. But when you are constantly impacting and constantly determining the decisions and not trusting your football people, that is very problematic. And now the Panthers have a quarterback in Bryce Young who I still believe in Bryce Young, but I do believe because of David Tepper just being a really bad owner that I don't trust that they'll put him in a position to succeed to reach his apex and to reach that full potential. But you look at the Panthers roster outside of the quarterback, who some may not even view attractive because they don't like his size, but you look at the rest of the roster, what really jumps out to you? Like the Panthers have a solid defense. Burns is a good player, but you got to give him a new contract.

Probably should have traded him when he got offered reportedly two first round picks for him. But you go around the rest of the roster, they have a brutal offensive line. They have no one that really stands out for the foreseeable future at the wide receiving position. They got nothing at the running back position. So this team has a nice piece in Bryce Young, but for the most part, they got to build this thing from the ground up. And David Tepper isn't someone that exudes patience. And that's a difficult part.

When you're trying to take over and build something, it doesn't happen overnight. Sure, the Texans could go draft CJ Stroud, Will Anderson, and hire D'Amico Ryans, but to get into that position, the Texans had to go through a lot over the last two to three years. And for the Panthers, it'd be one thing, oh, they have the worst record in the league. Oh, they have the young quarterback in Bryce Young. Maybe you go take Marvin Harrison Jr. with the number one overall pick and you go get him a bona fide weapon, but they don't have their number one overall pick because they traded that to the Chicago Bears to move up to go get Bryce Young in that number one spot.

So the Panthers are one of 32. They're an NFL job where the owner will overpay you to maybe try to get his guy. And that's the only reason probably why you would accept it. But in all likelihood, with how many jobs are going to be made available, the Panthers are not going to be deemed an attractive destination because, yes, you'll get a big contract. Yes, you'll get the opportunity. But if you're a big name and you're someone that is a hot commodity like Johnson with the Lions who passed up on the Panthers job last year and didn't want to go there, you have people going and looking for you to be their next head coach and you have many suitors for your services, why would you pick Carolina right now?

Because I wouldn't. So with all that being said, we are getting ready. And I know in the next two months, a lot of excitement happens in the NFL.

There's many positive storylines. When you look at who's going to come out of the AFC, is Lamar Jackson going to get to a Super Bowl? Is Kansas City going to get three Super Bowl victories and become a dynasty?

How far can Jacksonville take it? There are some stories out there in the AFC. And in the NFC, there's a lot of good teams, more than what we thought. But the two best teams in the NFC play this weekend, the Eagles and the 49ers, and you would anticipate one of those two teams are going to the Super Bowl. So there's a lot of unknown.

There's a lot of uncertainty. There's a lot of excitement. And this is why this time of the year is great when you have the NFL season pretty much go right at the top.

And now we get to make this trek in the final seven to 10 to 12 weeks, whatever it is, all the way up until the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. And the games just get better and better. And the stakes just get bigger and bigger.

And you can't wait to see how it plays out. But on the other side, you have 14 teams that make the playoffs and then everybody else doesn't make the playoffs. And those teams are trying to figure out how do we change the direction of our franchise to be one of the seven teams in the AFC or one of the seven teams in the NFC that are fighting for that shiny trophy. And sometimes you get into the dance, but you don't go home with the prom queen and then you think, OK, I got to rethink things.

I got to change things. And sometimes here and there, there's a coach that makes the playoffs that ends up getting fired. But right now we are on the cusp over the next few weeks of seeing many coaches lose their jobs. And we could have the craziest hiring cycle that we've ever seen. We already have two coaches that got sent back in. Josh McDaniels and Frank Reich. Bare minimum, we're probably looking at five more.

And that's at the absolute bare minimum. And I think we will exceed that number. You could have double digit jobs that are open. At the end of the season that are going to be looking to all make the dash and make the race to get their next head coach, their next leader of their franchise. So McDaniels already open, open up the Raiders. Reich already opened up the Colts are the over the Colts last year. And now he opened up the Carolina Panthers. And now it's who else do you think most likely won't be back next year? I think Belichick is back with the Pats. I don't think Brandon Staley is back with the Chargers.

Sean McDermott. Buffalo's probably got to go form one of their next five games to make the playoffs. I don't think that's happening. So he should be sent packing.

You know, it's only a matter of time. It's not a matter of if he's going to get fired. Just when will he get fired? Ron Rivera is going to be shown the door.

Matt Eberfluse. I know the Bears won last night, but he's not going to be able to save his job. And in all likelihood, probably Todd Bowles, if the Buccaneers give a damn, will get rid of their coach at the end of the season. So just right there at the top of my head, that's eight coaches that will be let go to already happening with McDaniels and Reich. And there will be eight job openings and the Saints will make the playoffs.

That could be nine. Maybe you get rid of Dennis Allen and there always could be a surprise firing or someone that we don't expect to let go. Or maybe someone walks away because they no longer want to do the tough nature of the job. But out of the realistic jobs that are going to be open and we already know two of them with the Raiders and the Panthers. Pat's probably being open. Bill's probably being open. Chargers probably being open. Commanders, Bears and the Buccaneers probably being open. I'll just ask a simple question as we're going to have this mad dash to go get the guy, whoever that is, whether it's Harbaugh coming over from college, maybe back to the NFL. Johnson with the Lions. Is it Anaromo with the Cincinnati Bengals, their defensive coordinator? Whoever you think the big dog is, there's going to be a lot of teams vying for the big dog services. So I'll just ask you this. What's the most attractive job out of all the realistic potential openings?

Which job do you think is the most attractive? And I do believe that it's the Buffalo Bills. Because the Buffalo Bills have their guy in Josh Allen.

They already have their guy paid. I know Stefan Diggs can be a headache, but he's under contract. Matt Milano coming back from injury. You've got to fine tune that defense a bit. But you are also in a division that is a solid division.

It's not a great division. Two is healthy this year. Is he going to remain healthy for the foreseeable future? The Jets are getting Aaron Rodgers back.

They'll be a player for a year or two at most. And the Patriots have a long ways to go. So you could go to Buffalo, a team that's been in the hunt, a team that's been a contender the last few years, and now they need a reset.

They don't need to blow the entire thing up, but they need to retool what they're doing. And that starts with the head coach, because as much as I am a fan of Sean McDermott and I have really wanted to see Sean McDermott succeed, he hasn't been a failure. We know the Bills didn't make the playoffs in like 20 something years.

All they do is now make the postseason up until this year. But he has reached his end destination. I don't think you could travel any farther than you've gone if you continue to employ Sean McDermott as your head coach. And with all these jobs open, he'll land on his feet somewhere.

He'll get hired somewhere this year, because there's a lot of teams that would love to have the quote unquote problems that Sean McDermott has and get to that spot where they can be a consistent contender and a consistent playoff team. But Buffalo is so attractive. And then after that, you could argue that this team has more talent than Buffalo.

But the one tough part about that job is the division they play in. And that's Los Angeles Chargers, because I know the Broncos are hot right now, but forget about them. The Raiders, it feels like they're hiring a new coach every two years. So forget about them.

Sorry, Stu. But you have this unmovable force right now in the AFC in Kansas City, led by 15 Patrick Mahomes. And through the next few years, you're going to see some changes in Kansas City. Eventually, Travis Kelce is going to reach an expiration date.

I don't know when Andy Reid is going to decide to hang him up. But as long as you have 15 and even through all the vulnerabilities that the Chiefs have had the last two years, they've won a Super Bowl. And if the season ended today and I asked a simple question of who's going to get to the Super Bowl out of the AFC, the Chiefs are still a top two thought of team in the AFC.

The debate is either the Baltimore Ravens right now or the Kansas City Chiefs. But the Chargers have so much talent. When you look around, Mike Williams coming off the injury, Keenan Allen, Quentin Johnson, the young wide receiver.

I don't know if Ekler will be back next year. It starts with the quarterback Justin Herbert. I know Bosa is hurt right now, but you got Bosa, you got Mack, you got Derwin James. There's too much talent on this team. And the last few years, even though last year this team made the playoffs, and this year they're regressing to not making the playoffs, they have too much talent to continue to employ Brandon Staley and see Brandon Staley be a major reason and the reason why this team is nowhere close to reaching their potential. And you get the right coach in Los Angeles. And when this core is still somewhat young, you have a window of at least two to three years where you could actually put a dent into what Kansas City is trying to do.

And you could actually challenge Kansas City inside the AFC West. And that's why I can't stand Brandon Staley because he only lives and dies by the analytics. It's stupid. He's become extremely arrogant with the media and he is very, very cocky, which is fine. And you should have an ego as a head coach, but he doesn't adapt.

He doesn't change. And that's a big problem. And when you have all this talent and you're not getting the most out of this talent, it's unfortunate because it makes Kansas City and it positions Kansas City to be an even more of a force because no one in their division is trying to take that baton from them or you look at them seriously in trying to take that baton from them. So out of all these potential jobs that are opening, I do believe the bills and the charges because of their established quarterbacks are the most attractive. But if you want to roll the dice, I don't think there's many teams in a better position than the Chicago Bears.

And you can say, Zach, whoa, what are you talking about? I'm talking about the realistic jobs that could be open. You look at Chicago, you're going to have a new GM in place, a new head coach in place.

You're going to get to start this partnership of building for the future. And you're most likely going to have two top five picks and probably going to have the number one overall pick. There's a way you could draft either Caleb Williams or Drake May, trade Justin Fields, get more picks back for Justin Fields, who I still think can be okay in this league. I think there will be people that look at Justin Fields and go, oh, the Bears messed him up. I'll go give a second round pick to go try to fix him. And we've seen that before in the league, whether it was Josh Rosen or Sam Darnold, and it didn't pan out for either of those quarterbacks. So you could go get a May or Williams and then get some picks for Justin Fields and also have another first round pick where maybe you go get a dominant Edgerusher, an offensive lineman or Marvin Harrison Jr. And inside that division, yeah, the Lions are happening now. The Packers, their future is uncertain.

Minnesota, they're a solid team the last two years, but they're not this unmovable force. And we don't even know if Kirk Cousins is going to be their quarterback next year. So that Bears destination, even though right now it's like, oh, bleak, oh, you go to Chicago, your quarterback basically just dies and has no chance of succeeding.

I don't look at potential when I'm taking a job and there's two nice resources there with those two top five picks. So I think the Pats could also be attractive, too, even though they don't have much. They're going to have a top three pick and Robert Kraft is going to feel the pressure. And remember, Robert Kraft used to be a fan of the Patriots before turning them into a six time Super Bowl champion. And he's one of the more respected owners in the NFL. And there's going to be some personal motivation in Robert Kraft's later years. But now Brady out of the organization, Belichick on his way out to try to turn this thing around and get his moment of big time praise in life after Brady and life after Belichick as well.

So if I had to rank these jobs, top three of jobs potentially open up. Bills would be one, Chargers would be two, and then the Chicago Bears would be three. What say you eight five five two one two four CBS eight five five two one two forty two twenty seven. This is Zach Yelp show on CBS Sports Radio. We'll take a break when we come on back. Why, 12 is not the perfect number.

It is a Zach Yelp show on CBS Sports Radio. 12 is not the perfect number outside of Tom Brady. But when we look at the number 12 for the college football playoff, it just makes me, as Emmitt Smith would say on this show, hot. When we know that the next year, the college football playoff is going to be expanding to 12 teams, it bothers me. For a bunch of years, I thought if you're going to expand, go to eight teams.

And I know now the landscape of college football is changing. But at the time, the format was the five power five conference champs get in. Then you have the best non power five conference champion as another seed.

And then you have two wild cards. But throughout the years, I have softened that stance and I have gone back to that four is the perfect number. Because there's never really been a year where I thought to myself, oh, the college football playoff committee got it wrong. Or, man, I need to see more of the teams that weren't the four teams that were selected.

But I'm already cognizant of the fact that I've lost this battle. I already acknowledge that greed and money is why they're going to 12. But after this weekend, it just further shows that going to 12 teams for a college football playoff is an egregious mistake.

Because it takes away from these great games. Like, don't get me wrong, Michigan, Ohio State will always mean something. But when you have a do or die scenario, make the playoff or go home.

That makes it even so much better. And you have a chance next year with the Big Ten going away from divisions. That we could see Ohio State, Michigan on Thanksgiving weekend, then could see it again for the Big Ten championship game. And let's just say if like Ohio State lost both of those games and they would have two losses then on the season, both to Michigan. They don't deserve to go to the playoff, but they probably would still belong in a 12 team college football playoff. Like Alabama, we all know how great that finish was up against Auburn. Auburn didn't have a prayer to make the college football playoff we know this year. But Auburn prevents Alabama on third and fourth and goal from the 31.

And let's say they were able to stop that play. Alabama's season's done in a 14 playoff. Now in 12, Alabama could limp to the finish line and they'll still get in. They have three losses, Alabama.

They get in every single time in a 12 team playoff. And like let's just look at it right now. Because I will admit I understand there was going to be expansion. So I could live with six, I could live with eight. But with this going to 12, anything north of eight just seems ludicrous to me. So let's just go to the AP standings right now. And I'll give you the four teams, I know it doesn't always work this way. But the four teams right now that would maybe make the college football playoff.

Or would be in the running to make the college football playoff if it was a 12 team playoff. Missouri. Missouri's having a phenomenal season. Do I need to see more of them? Do I need to see Missouri in a playoff?

No. Penn State. The Nittany Lions who had two damn games on their schedule.

See this is why 12 is idiotic. The Nittany Lions had two games on their schedule. It was Ohio State and it was Michigan. I need to see James Franklin finally get into the college football playoff when he doesn't deserve it. Because we're opening this up to now 12 teams, it's crazy. Don't get me wrong, I love laying Kiffin at Ole Miss.

Love him. But Ole Miss has two losses, I don't need to see him in the college football playoff. Oklahoma, I don't need to see him in the college football playoff. Heck, there's a door open for LSU in a 12 team playoff to make it.

They're 9 and 3. LSU doesn't play an ounce of defense. It's just too many teams. And maybe this is my stance a lot of times, like NFL. When they added an extra wild card in each spot and went from 6 to 7, I didn't like it.

Has it been miserable? No. But it's unnecessary. But that's just only adding one more team from each conference. The NBA.

How much of a joke has the NBA become? I know ultimately their playoffs technically don't start until 8 teams get in. But now we reward losing where 7, 8, 9, and 10 in each conference, they have a play-in tournament. Because the regular season wasn't enough to show that you belong, so now we need a play-in tournament where all these players don't give a rat's ass about the regular season. Baseball?

This new format is not for me. And I love baseball. And I was okay when they added a second wild card, but I thought baseball had a great format. Where you have the two wild card teams, they play a single elimination game, and then you have your divisional series start with the best four teams remaining on each side in the AL and the NL. But for college football, it's one of the... College football and the NFL are truly the two sports where the regular season really does matter. Hockey, I remember one year when it was the Canadiens and the Flyers meeting up in the conference finals, it was 7 and 8.

We've seen before a lot of hockey teams, the regular season, just get in the dance and you'll have a chance. College basketball, I love college basketball. Most of us don't even care though until conference championship weekend and then March Madness. You go through these sports, there's not a lot of regular seasons that we really give a damn.

Or give a rat's ass about. NFL though, every game matters. College football is the definition of your regular season mattering. And I'm okay, as I said before in the past, even though I prefer four, going to six, going to eight, and like this year, six or eight would be fun.

Because I know it doesn't always work at this and you have to get a group of five school in there too. But right now in the eight people, the best eight teams in college football, Georgia, Michigan, Washington, Florida State, Oregon, Ohio State, Texas, Alabama. I'm okay with seeing all those eight teams continue to play.

I'm fine with that. But to go to 12, you're just giving a lot of teams a soft landing spot when they don't deserve to belong. Because teams like Ohio State, let's say Alabama, the big brands of Texas, Michigan, Georgia, these schools get two, three losses. They're always going to have a chance, and not all these schools always get two, three losses, but they always get a chance to then make a 12 team playoff. And that's my gripe with going to 12.

And I look back at this weekend, I don't know, is that the big house? And after I drink too much Fireball and I'm sitting in the stands and I'm watching the game, I did think to myself at one point, college football playoff goes to 12 teams next year. And in a 12 team playoff, Ohio State loses this game, they're still making it. And maybe Ohio State still makes it in a six or an eight team playoff, so I understand that. But all these games, they mean so much, and that's why it's so awesome, and it puts so much pressure on these schools in the regular season, as a viewer it makes it so exciting. You could lose one game in your regular season and you could be dunzo. That happens.

But that's what makes this sport great. And it annoys the crap out of me that we're going to 12. Now, Samter is wearing a beanie today.

He looked like he just robbed a bank, especially with that beard now really coming in strong, with that gray beard, it looks pretty good. I don't know, like Samter's trying to be like a winner model, or if he's trying to rob a bank today. But you're shaking your head when I say that 12 teams is absolutely ridiculous. Give me your thoughts on this. Not only is it ridiculous, it should be more than 12. Here's why. You just like to hand out participation trophies. Let me explain. In every sport, now the NBA is a little bit extra, the NBA is 66% of teams, if you count the playing game.

Too much. Have a chance at the playoffs, right? That's 10 for me to lead, that's 20 out of 30 teams.

And only, let me just, I'll let you finish. The only reason why the playing tournament has been successful, at times, is because they got the big stars in there who dogged it during the regular season. Even last year, right? The Spurs were tanking, this was supposed to be made to avoid tanking and give every team a shot.

But everyone tells me all this playing tournament's been wonderful because we've seen Steph Curry in it and we've seen LeBron James. But even if you don't count the playing tournament, if you just have the top 8 seeds from each conference, right? Like it used to be for years, that's still 53% of the NBA makes the playoffs. 44% of the NFL makes the playoffs. Baseball's the same thing, it's 40-something percent. Even in college basketball, we have 351 Division I teams, 68 make the tournament, right? So that's 19%. If you have 4 teams in college football make the playoff out of the 113 FBS schools, that's 3% of the FBS makes the playoffs. If you have an 8 team, that's 6%. And if you have 12 teams, you're still at 9%, which is a fraction of what every other sport that we watch has.

But it's so misleading. It's so misleading because there's so many schools. If you're not in a Power 5 conference, you're going to have one automatic spot to make the playoff. There's so many schools though that never have a prayer to make the playoff, nor should they.

And I come from a smaller school as an alum in a football program that you think I should be imploring to open this thing up. But as a watcher of college football, you tell me you want to see more than 12 teams? You want to see more of Notre Dame this year? They're 9-3. You want to see Iowa, who's in the Big 10 championship game and they're going to get smacked by Michigan? The spread's like 22 something points. We got to see more of this Iowa offense? Come on. At the end of the day, you're probably right that a team like, I don't know, Arizona would probably get smashed in the playoffs against a team like Texas or Oregon.

Fine. But Arizona's look pretty good. They're the 15th seed in the country. They're a solid year.

What? They're a solid year. Could they be Oregon or Washington?

Absolutely. Washington almost lost to Arizona State. There was a one score game and Arizona beat ASU by 40. So like at the end of the day, Notre Dame beat good teams. LSU could absolutely contend.

They don't play any defense. They just lost to Alabama. And they lost to Florida State by like 30. They had the lead in the fourth quarter against Alabama. They had a chance to win that game. And they lost by a big margin. Missouri had a lead against Georgia in the third quarter and was down by three in the fourth quarter. Penn State lost by eight to Ohio State in Ohio State and lost to Michigan by nine. The two in the top six teams in the country. You can't just give the final scores. You can't just give the final scores. You watch that Michigan game. It was never close. And then you watch the game against Ohio State.

They had no offense. He was quarterbacking a JV team. We all agree that Michigan is either the best or the second best team in the country. And Penn State lost by less than two, lost by basically one score. It was nine points.

So it was just barely over one score. Yeah, with a garbage time touchdown at the end against Michigan. And Ohio State is also a top five, top six team. So they lost those two games and you want to see more from them? The only two games that were actually on their schedule? You know that Penn State couldn't contend with Washington, Florida State, or Oregon?

Considering that they lost by one score at Ohio State and nine points at home against Michigan? So how many games do you want to throw to? How many teams do you want to throw to? I think 12 is a good number to start for now.

Let's see how it goes and then maybe expand it out after that. It takes away from the regular season. We've never seen a 16 seed beat a 1 seed. It's happened. We've seen 15 seeds beat 2 seeds. And these are small, tiny, little, minor conference schools beating the best of the best. But you can't compare it to college basketball. You can't compare it to college basketball because what's the biggest issue with football? Player safety.

So what, are we going to have a 20 team playoff? Does the student athlete thing matter anymore? We're going to have these guys playing 3, 4, 5 extra games a season in this physical sport where they can barely walk the next day to get to class? Here's the thing.

You talk about NILs and the kind of money that these kids are now going to be making, I'm sure the players would sign on for it. Fine. You know what? You want to take away one game from the regular season? Fine. 12 I think is a good number for now. There's no way that 12 is too many.

You're right. Oklahoma is 12. Ole Miss is 11.

Penn State is 10. They'll probably lose to the Georgias, the Michigans, the Washingtons. But you tell me that Ole Miss can't beat Washington? That Oklahoma who beat Texas couldn't beat Texas or Washington? They don't belong.

Of course they can. Of course LSU and Arizona can make a statement against some of those mid-level teams as well. 12 teams is a great number.

And most likely, Team 12 will lose, but they might win. If we get one more win on those guys' schedule and pull off a first-round upset, we now need to ruin the regular season of college football. But we're not ruining it.

You are. You're taking away from the meaning. Is baseball's regular season ruined? There's 162 damn games.

It's not set up to succeed. That's what makes football so great. What about the NFL? Does the NFL matter? 43% of the teams make it into the NFL playoffs. Does the NFL regular season not matter? There's seven teams that make the playoffs in the AFC, seven teams that make it in the NFC. Every regular season game in the NFL matters. Every regular season game in college football matters. You start expanding this damn playoff to 12, 13, 14, 16, 18 teams. Ohio State-Michigan means something because of the rivalry and the hatred.

It means jack though in terms of do or die to make the playoffs and keep your season on line. That's what makes college football so fun. You only have a certain amount of weeks and you don't just say, oh, let's just load management everything in the regular season and then everyone gets an invite to the playoff. Heck, for Michigan, you could lose three games.

You still get in. Michigan loses three games. They don't deserve to make the playoffs.

I don't need to see more of them. Everybody talks about the devaluing of the regular season. Who cares? When we think about Michael Jordan and his amazing accomplishments, do we think about what he did in the regular season? Or do we talk about what he did in the playoffs? When we talk about Tom Brady, do we talk about like, oh wow, he won a lot of AFC East titles? No, we talk about the playoffs and what he did in the playoffs.

It's a different format. But the point is we remember the playoff memories. We're not remembering, yes, maybe it might devalue Ohio State-Michigan in the regular season, but what's going to happen is when Ohio State-Michigan play in the national championship game or in the semifinals of a 12, 14 team playoff, we're going to remember that way more than we will some random game from 1987. So Arizona, they win a playoff game. You're going to remember Arizona winning one playoff game more than what we just saw this weekend in the Iron Bowl. Or what we just saw this weekend in Michigan-Ohio State.

No chance. If Arizona has some epic Hail Mary, of course we're going to remember that. Doug Flutie, we remember the Hail Mary. It's about the play, it's not just about the game. We remember the kick six from Auburn-Alabama because it was an epic play, an epic game. Now you take that epic play, epic game, and you do that to the playoffs, it means ten times more.

Nope, because you've got to have four, five more teams and you're going to have to win. It's the dumbest thing in the world. It is so dumb to go to 12.

It is the dumbest thing in the world. You are ruining the regular season. Sorry, shut up for a second. Shut up.

Stop. It's the dumbest thing. Don't ruin my college season.

Don't ruin the regular season like every other sport ruins their season. It is crazy. I'm not doing this conversation anymore because it's stupid. You take away from the importance and I know you have a bleeping grin on your face right now because you wanted me to freak out. You wanted me to yell and you were just finding a way to annoy the crap out of me for the last eight minutes. Everything you just said the last eight minutes made absolutely, positively zero damn sense.

Here's your PSA. It's greed. It's stupidity. It's just so idiotic to go to a 12-team playoff. It takes away from the importance of the regular season and then you get morons like Ryan Hickey running around CBS Sports Radio. Penn State got into the college football playoff and they got blown out in the first round. So we need to cater to that school. We need to cater to those programs so their teams feel like they could have a shot and that they belong.

Oh, give me a break. Going to 12 is the dumbest thing ever. Alrighty, here's Richard Ackerman with the latest. Second college football playoff expansion. It's going to 12. We knew that before the season even started.

But after watching the college football games this weekend it even further showed why it would be an egregious mistake to give all these schools that lose in these major rivalry games a soft landing spot and still a door to get into the college football playoff and have that door open. 855-212-4CBS, 855-212-4227. Let's go to Fred in Missouri. First up on the Zach Gelb show. Fred, good afternoon. What's happening?

It's that great show. I love the intensity, man. Thank you. Appreciate it.

What do you got for me? School in southeast Kansas. Now I'm going to blow your mind because we have a 28-team playoff every season.

The top seed, there's four top seeds they get to buy in the first week. Fred, what did you say in the first part? Your phone broke up.

Where are you? Oh, well, I work for Pittsburgh State University. We're in D2 football. I follow D2 football. I can't keep up with D1 anymore because these teams move conferences and the rivalries mean something. And in D2 football, we have a 28-game playoff.

Okay. And we're already in week three of the playoffs already. Yeah, and no offense, Fred. Does anybody care about that playoff? People care about it around here, they do. Okay, but I'm talking about nationally. Does anybody care?

I mean, nationally, I don't care about, I can go anywhere and listen to national sports talk, but I mean, people have these smaller schools, you know, across the Midwest. I mean, I know that it's not going to be D1. That's fine. But do you think that works in D1? That's what I'm saying, because that's the conversation. Not to be disrespectful about what you're talking about, and I always respect, right, different places and things like that, but we're talking about expending to 12 in the big boys here. I think it would, because one of the points you made before you went to break was the schedule. Like, if you add games to the schedule, you know, the playoff doesn't count, because the teams are going to make it anyway. Our schedule is only 11 games, you know, so literally every game counts. Our team at Pittsburgh State went 12-0 undefeated last year, and we lost in the second round to the eventual back-to-back champions who lost in the first round this season. Well, they played 12 games in college, so let me ask you this. Like, NC State right now is ranked 21 in the country.

They're 9-3. Do you have any desire to see NC State continue to play football this year? I mean, I think things like that should be given a least a shot to have the national recognition that a team like, you know, torture or Alabama does. Yeah, I do. Okay.

Well, we're going to agree to disagree on that one, Fred. NC State, I don't think there's anyone in the country right now, unless you know someone that plays on that football team that needs to see them play another game this year. So, let me just go through the NC State schedule. They beat UConn by 10. They lost to Notre Dame 45-24. They beat VMI 45-7. They beat Virginia. They lost to Louisville. They beat Marshall. They lost to Duke. They beat Clemson, Miami, Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, and UNC. Anyone call them for NC State?

Sam Thurm, Mr. Expand the College Football Playoff, you want to see NC State play in this 26 Focaccia team tournament that Fred's arguing for? Not at this point. And like I said, I would stick with 12 to start, but here's another part of it, right? Because we've known that it's the top four teams, and we're not thinking about 12 or 13 or 14, we've been ignoring those teams that are 15, 14, 13, 12. Maybe if we're thinking, okay, these teams are going to be in the tournament, we're going to pay a little bit more attention. Maybe we'll learn more about NC State and their team. Maybe we'll learn more about Arizona and Jed Fish. Maybe we'll learn more about Louisville, Tulane, Iowa. Maybe we'll pay a little bit more attention to them because they're going to be in the playoff, or they might make the playoff, and therefore we're going to have to know more about them when they get into the playoff time. Now we're just focused on like six or seven teams. We're focused on Georgia, Michigan. We've talked about Michael Pennix and Florida State and Oregon and Bo Nix every week, all week, and it's great.

They're interesting because they're going to be part of this playoff. But think about if we can expand that out to talk about LSU and Jaden McDaniels. Talk about Oklahoma and Dylan Gabriel. Talk about the teams. Talk about Arizona and what they're doing in the Pac-12 without anybody talking about it. Daniels may win the Heisman.

Everyone's talking about him. Doesn't mean that we need to see more of them this year. They have three losses.

They can't play like a defense. We talk about Jaden Daniels in onside, offside. But we barely talk about him, and we only talk about him because he might win the Heisman.

That's it. We talk about Brian Kelly. We're not talking about LSU and that team.

Because they don't deserve to be talked about more. Outside of that, they had an extremely disappointing season this year. This team had national championship aspirations, and they've been a failure. But if they're a top 12 team, then they matter. And could LSU get hot and beat Michigan or Washington or Florida State? Absolutely. No. They don't have the defense.

They do not have the defense in multiple games in the playoff this year. And not only that, if you want to tell me you want to expand, okay, I can listen to it. But to go from 4 to 12, that's too steep of a jump to just test this thing out and mess around and see what happens.

I can agree with that. 6 or 8, I'm okay. I can live with 6 or 8. If you want to go from 4 to 8 and you want to just say the jump is too big from 4 to 12, I can understand that. Because you know what's going to happen? I still think 12 is a good number, but if you want to say the jump is too big, that's fine. But you know what's going to happen? This expedites the process now.

And then in future years, it will be from 12 to 16, and then 16 to 20. I'm fine with that. And then it's, who cares about the regular season? Let's just give everybody a ticket.

855-2124 CBS, 855-212-4227. Want to squeeze Vinny and Arizona in real quickly. Vinny, go ahead. Hey, what's going on, Zach? Thanks for taking my call, man. You got it.

What do you got, Vinny? Alright, so I do believe that the playoffs should be expanded. Now, going from 4 to 12 could be a little stretch, but looking at the rankings right now, I feel like it would be a pretty stacked playoff. Like if there were 12 teams in this year, starting from like Georgia through Oklahoma. But this may actually be the only year, Vinny, where anyone has said we've got to see more than the four teams. In all the other years, there's not been this big push where teams have had legitimate gripes where we need to go to 12 teams. Right.

No, absolutely. Because, I mean, you have like a three-loss Alabama that's, or, excuse me, one-loss Alabama right now. But I meant to say OSU. I mean, they're number 13. I don't think, even if you extended it to like 16, if you are a three-loss team, I don't feel... You don't deserve. You don't deserve to belong. You don't deserve. Like one or two, maybe.

Like depending upon like... I mean, if you're Georgia and you lose like Appalachian State, that's kind of... I don't know if I'd say you deserve it.

Like you'd have to win some pretty blowout games against some pretty meaty opponents. Yeah, Vinny, appreciate the phone call. We've got to run because we're up against the break. It is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. Yogi Ross is going to join us, by the way.

College football analyst for the Pac-12 Network coming up at 4.20 p.m. Eastern, 1.20 p.m. Pacific. We've got a whole lot more to do. If you want to continue to get on in on this conversation about college football playoff expansion with it going to 12 next year, you could take Sampthor's side and you could be wrong saying 12 is great and eventually we're going to have a 45-team playoff field. Or you could take my side and say, at most, eight teams. And I'm more good with four right now and maybe even six most. But what say you 8-5-5-2-1-2 for CBS 8-5-5-2-1-2, 42-27.