College football keeps expanding its playoff, rearranging its conferences and creating new ways for the biggest programs to make even more money.
Meanwhile, most of the Group of Six is still fighting over one seat at the table.
For the 2026 season, the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt is guaranteed a place in the 12-team College Football Playoff.
That sounds like access.
It really isn’t.
The Group of Six representative may be invited to the playoff, but it has virtually no chance of winning three or four consecutive games against the deepest, richest and most talented programs in the country. It enters the tournament as a nice story, a dangerous first-round opponent and an example the sport can point to when it claims everybody has an opportunity.
But being allowed into the bracket is not the same as having a realistic chance to win it.
That is why I think the Group of Six should have its own playoff.
Completely separate from the College Football Playoff.
The best teams from those six conferences should play in their own postseason tournament with a real trophy, national television exposure and a championship their fans would genuinely care about—and genuinely have a chance to win.
The Current System Gives Most G6 Teams Very Little to Chase
Every team technically starts the season with a chance to make the College Football Playoff. Technically.
But the reality is different.
A strong SEC or Big Ten team can lose a game—or sometimes more than one—and remain firmly in the playoff conversation. A Group of Six program may need to go undefeated, win convincingly, schedule the right opponents and hope the teams around it lose at exactly the right time.
Even then, only one G6 team is guaranteed entry.
What happens to the others?
They get assigned to bowl games that often feel more like exhibitions than conclusions to a season. Players opt out. Coaches change jobs. Rosters begin turning over in the transfer portal. Fans may travel, but the game rarely determines anything beyond who gets to lift a sponsor-covered bowl trophy.
There is nothing wrong with bowl games. Some are fun, some have real history and players deserve the experience. But for the best teams outside the Power Four, there should be something more meaningful available.
Give Them a Championship People Can Follow
Imagine an eight-team Group of Six playoff beginning after conference championship weekend.
The six conference champions could receive automatic places. Two at-large spots could go to the strongest remaining teams, giving an exceptional runner-up a path into the field.
No G6 team would be sent to the CFP. The Group of Six playoff would be its postseason destination, and its championship would be the ultimate prize for those programs.
The first round could be played on campus, with higher-seeded teams hosting. That gives schools a valuable home game, rewards regular-season performance and creates the kind of atmosphere neutral-site bowl games often struggle to produce.
The semifinals and championship could then be packaged for television and played at rotating regional sites—or incorporated into selected existing bowls that want their games to mean more.
Suddenly, a late-season game between two Sun Belt contenders matters beyond conference standings. A MAC championship does not merely decide which bowl invitation a team accepts. A Boise State, Tulane, Toledo, James Madison or Fresno State-type season could end with a legitimate postseason run rather than one isolated game in December.
Fans understand brackets. They understand survive and advance. Most importantly, they understand what the winner gets.
It Would Generate Money
College football rarely makes a major decision without money being involved, so let’s not pretend this idea would survive on competitive fairness alone.
Fortunately, it could make financial sense too.
An eight-team playoff creates seven games of television inventory. It creates sponsorship opportunities, ticket sales, campus revenue, advertising and a media package that the six conferences could sell together.
No, it would not command SEC or Big Ten money. It would not need to.
The more useful comparison is what these schools and conferences earn from the postseason opportunities they have now. A coordinated tournament with recognizable stakes should be easier to market than a collection of unrelated bowl games featuring teams whose seasons are already effectively over—or a CFP appearance that usually ends with the G6 representative becoming somebody else’s first-round opponent.
It could also create more consistent national exposure for programs that usually receive attention only when they upset a Power Four opponent or become the annual playoff outsider.
Seven meaningful games are worth something. A recognizable championship is worth something. A postseason product that can develop its own history is worth something.
It Would Create Excitement Beyond One G6 Team
The best part of March Madness is not that every team has an equal chance to win. They clearly do not.
The best part is that hundreds of teams begin the season with a championship path they can see.
College football needs more of that.
Right now, the sport is increasingly organized around a relatively small group of wealthy programs. Realignment, television contracts and playoff access have widened the gap between the top conferences and everyone else.
A G6 playoff would not erase that gap. But it would give more teams a meaningful goal and more fan bases a reason to stay invested through November and December.
Winning it would matter.
Some people would dismiss it as a second-tier championship. Fine. The Group of Six already occupies a second tier. College football just refuses to say it out loud.
The money is different. The facilities are different. The roster depth is different. The television contracts are different. The playoff access is different. Calling every FBS program part of the same championship level does not make them equal competitors.
And “second tier” does not have to mean meaningless. The FCS has its own playoff, and its championship matters enormously to the schools and fans competing for it. A championship becomes meaningful when the teams, players and fans care about winning it.
Meaning is built over time. Rivalries develop. Memorable games happen. Programs begin measuring themselves by appearances, wins and championships. What starts as a new tournament eventually becomes tradition.
College football is very good at turning repeated events into traditions.
The Objections Are Real—but Solvable
There would be concerns.
Would some programs resist leaving the CFP because they want to preserve the possibility of being college football’s Cinderella? Of course.
But pulling one upset is difficult. Winning three or four consecutive playoff games against Power Four opponents is something else entirely. The occasional competitive game does not prove the system offers a legitimate championship path.
Would teams decline a playoff invitation because they still viewed a bowl as more prestigious? Possibly, especially at first.
Would the calendar become crowded? Yes. Any proposal would need to account for final exams, the transfer portal, coaching changes and player health.
Would some people call it a consolation playoff? Absolutely.
But those problems are not bigger than the problems college football already solves whenever additional revenue is available. The sport has expanded the CFP, stretched conference geography from coast to coast and rebuilt schedules around television. If the people in charge wanted to make room for seven meaningful games, they could.
The bigger challenge would be convincing the conferences to cooperate and share revenue instead of protecting their own small pieces of the existing bowl system.
That is where leadership would have to replace short-term thinking.
Give More Teams a Chance to Play for Something
The College Football Playoff can remain the ultimate prize for the Power Four programs built to compete for it.
The Group of Six should stop accepting one ceremonial seat at that table and build a table of its own.
There are too many good programs, too many passionate fan bases and too much unused potential to keep sending nearly all of them into disconnected bowl games and calling that opportunity.
A Group of Six playoff would generate money. It would create television inventory. It would give players a championship to pursue and fans a bracket to follow. It would make regular-season games more important for dozens of teams that currently have almost no margin for error.
Most of all, it would give more of college football a chance to play for something.
The separation already exists. The Group of Six might as well turn it into something worth winning.
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