OSU AD Ross Bjork Says CFP Bracket Should Expand Again for 'Good of the Game'

Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork went public Thursday with his support for another College Football Playoff expansion.

Speaking to Front Office Sports (h/t Dan Hope of Eleven Warriors), Bjork expressed his belief that a bigger CFP would be better for college football despite the fact that the Buckeyes won't often need a bigger field in order to make it:

"Selfishly, Ohio State could stay at four; we could go back to four and most years, probably be okay. At 12, we should be okay. We gotta keep doing our part, right? I mean, we gotta keep investing and keep coaching and keep recruiting at a high level. But I'm a believer that for the good of the game, for the health of the game, for content, for high-level matchups, we should expand."

For the first 10 years of the CFP's existence, only four teams made the field, but it was expanded to 12 teams last year, and it yielded a national champion that would not have made the CFP under the original format.

Eighth-seeded Ohio State beat seventh-seeded Notre Dame in the National Championship Game, adding credence to the idea that more teams deserved a shot to vie for a title.

Many different models have been proposed when it comes to another CFP expansion, and while Bjork is in favor of adding more teams, he didn't throw his support behind a particular format:

"Could we go to 16? Could we go to 20? Could we go to 24? There's proposals out there to go to 28. There's been a couple other proposals to go to 32. … We all get hung up in these numbers; 24, 28. 'Oh my God, they can't do this.' But here's what you cannot argue with—nobody can argue with this—what's wrong with more high-level football? What's wrong with more meaningful postseason content? What's wrong with keeping the postseason alive for as many teams as possible? So to me, nobody can argue with that piece."

Perhaps even more so than the amount of teams that should be in the CFP, the biggest discussion point has been how many automatic bids particular conferences should receive—primarily the Big Ten and SEC.

More playoff games should lead to bigger television deals and more revenue in the long run, and Bjork noted that it will be beneficial to the players in terms of the compensation they receive:

"The system needs more money. So if you have these high-profile games that are playoff games, there's more money into the system, which then goes back to the athletes. So to me, hopefully we can get to a good place where expansion can really be well thought out between all the conferences, knowing that the Big Ten and the SEC are gonna drive the way."

For the 2025 season, the 12-team CFP will remain in place, but based on the amount of conversation surrounding expansion, it seems likely that more teams will be added as soon as next season.

ESPN's Pete Thamel reported last month that Ohio State's conference, the Big Ten, has been considering a plan that would double the CFP field to 24 or perhaps even more to 28.

Under that proposal, conference title games would cease to exist any longer, and the power conference would receive a significant amount of automatic bids.

While it is up for debate if that would be the best course of action, Bjork's stance that more playoff games equals more games of importance and more revenue is tough to argue against.