Mike Elko’s warning about a possible 24-team College Football Playoff was less a complaint about bracket size than a question about what regular-season games would still mean. At his Monday appearance, the Texas A&M coach questioned what happens to rivalry games when a team can secure its postseason position before playing them.
At his Monday press conference, Elko argued that a larger field could weaken the incentive to treat certain rivalry games as essential if a team already knew it had a playoff place secured.
He pointed to a particularly awkward scenario: a program hosting a playoff game, while also sitting out of the conference-title race, might approach a rivalry with less urgency than the sport has traditionally demanded.
That is a serious concern, especially in a sport whose regular season has long borrowed its drama from scarcity. A game between familiar opponents does not need a trophy at the end to matter, but the stakes have always been amplified by the knowledge that one loss can reshape an entire season.
If an expanded field turns several November showdowns into optional auditions for health and postseason seeding, the sport would lose something more valuable than a few television minutes.
Elko offered a hypothetical: teams could reach a point where protecting players for the postseason becomes more attractive than winning a rivalry. His NFL comparison described the incentive he fears, rather than a college rule already in place. The point was about incentives.
NFL teams can reach a point where resting key players is a rational competitive decision because their playoff position is already settled. College football has usually had fewer such situations because qualification has been so restrictive and every Saturday has carried heavier consequences.
If a 24-team field were adopted, it could change that calculation in ways that deserve more than a dismissal as coach-speak. In the scenario Elko described, a team safely inside the playoff picture could find avoiding injuries more attractive than winning a rivalry. A team out of the conference-title race might have less reason to chase a marginal improvement in its résumé.
Coaches would still be expected to compete, and players would still have personal reasons to play well, but institutional incentives shape decisions in every sport. Pretending otherwise would be quaint.
