Poll: FBS coaches prefer eight-team playoff to four-team playoff
The first College Football Playoff has not been played yet, but FBS coaches are already in favor of a change.
According to a poll conducted by ESPN in which 103 of 128 FBS coaches participated, 44 percent of those coaches prefer an eight-team playoff compared to 29 percent in favor of the four-team model. On top of that, 17 percent of those polled want the playoff expanded to 16 teams.
Other coaches voted for no playoff at all (four percent), a six-team playoff (two percent), a 12-team playoff (two percent), plus one vote each for a two-team playoff, a 32-team playoff and a 64-team playoff.
The poll found that many coaches who prefer the eight-team model think the playoff should consist of “the conference champions from the Power 5 leagues plus the next three highest-ranked at-large teams, or the top-ranked Group of 5 champion and the two highest-ranked at-large teams.”
The conference breakdown for the votes went like this:
More than half of the coaches (53 percent) from the Power 5 conferences (ACC, Big 12, Big Ten, SEC and Pac-12) who voted chose an eight-team playoff, compared with 33 percent for the four-team model. The coaches who voted from the Group of 5 conferences (American, Conference USA, Mid-American, Mountain West and Sun Belt) preferred an eight-team playoff (39 percent). However, 25 percent of the Group of 5 coaches wanted a 16-team playoff, slightly below the 26 percent who voted for a four-team playoff.
The College Football Playoff has a 12-year contract with ESPN and CFP executive director Bill Hancock has said on numerous occasions that there have been no talks of expanding beyond four teams. Despite that, ACC commissioner John Swofford – a member of the CFP management committee – said last week that an eight-team format “would probably be ideal.”
Swofford said he thinks the debate on a four-team playoff vs. an eight-team playoff is going to stick around for a while.
"You have four teams that get a chance to play for the national championship, which is twice as many as before," Swofford said. "But whoever's fifth or sixth is not going to be happy. There will be some [Power 5] conferences that won't have a team in the playoff."
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
