“We revert to the BCS model”: As CFP debate heats up, Josh Pate explains his perfect playoff picture

The college football playoff expanded to 12 teams last season and will be expanding even further.

In the 2025 college football season, the 12-team playoff will be back, but it's expected to expand to upwards of 16 teams in 2026. However, college football analyst Josh Pate believes the playoffs should revert to the BCS model.

"In my perfect world we revert to the BCS model and eliminate the Playoff. Next option is 6 or 8 team field at which point I'm fine with straight seeding," Pate wrote on X on Wednesday. "There is absolutely no way to maintain proper value on the regular season going straight seeding with a field 14 or 16 deep."

The BCS model, of course, filled out the playoffs by a combination of computer rankings and polls to determine the playoffs.

It's an intriguing thought by Pate, as he doesn't think the College Football Playoff selection committee has much of a need anymore.

"As we devalue the CFP Committee's role I would advocate for conferences to form their own committee's built to determine their 1-6 seeding entering their December play-in weekend," Pate wrote.

"This provides a mechanism to address vast disparity in conference schedule strength + ensures proper value is placed on entire resume including out of conference games."

Although Pate isn't a fan of the College Football Playoff selection, it likely isn't going away anytime soon.

SEC proposing a unique College Football Playoff structure

With the college football playoff expanding, how teams get in has been a major talking point.

The SEC and Big Ten have been pushing for mandatory spots, but now, some in the SEC like another idea. The idea is to have the five highest-ranked conference champions and 11 at-large bids that can go to any team and conference.

"They talked about -- I'll call it a 5+11 model -- and our own ability to earn those berths," Sankey said at the conclusion of the second day of spring meetings, via ESPN. "... At the coaching level, the question is, why wouldn't that be fine? Why wouldn't we do that? We talked about 16 with them. So, good conversation, not a destination, but the first time I've had the ability to go really in depth with ideas with them."

As of right now, how the 16-team playoff will determine spots is uncertain. But the SEC is now just pushing for the 16 best teams.