Oregon news: Dan Lanning defends CFP expansion with March Madness comp

The 12-team College Football Playoff is just two years old, but it looks like it may not get much older than that before it expands again. A 24-team playoff is on the horizon, and while it may not come into effect for a few more years, it feels inevitable that is where the sport will end up.

Many fans, along with Miami (FL) head coach Mario Cristobal, are against the 24-team proposal for a multitude of reasons, but a lot of the coaches and power conferences are for it. On Monday at Big Ten spring meetings, Oregon head coach Dan Lanning talked about why he is for the 24-team playoff, via ESPN’s Adam Rittenberg.

“Is it necessarily best for the programs that have been in to say, ‘Hey, let’s invite more?’ No, but is it better?” Lanning told ESPN. “What’s happened because of the College Football Playoff is every bowl game has been devalued, the end of the season looks completely different. You’re a failure as a coach if you don’t make it to the College Football Playoff.

“It’s going to create more opportunity. Just like March Madness is great in the spring for basketball, it’ll be good for our sport.”

Oregon has had no problem making it in the 12-team field, securing the No. 1 seed in 2024 and the No. 5 seed in 2025, so it’s hard to see them having an issue being one of the top 24 teams in the nation if that becomes the cutoff in the near future. However, Lanning is advocating for his other Big Ten counterparts, as well as other teams around the country.

Every year in March Madness, teams come out of nowhere to go on big runs to the second weekend or even the Final Four. If the College Football Playoff field expands to 24 teams or even beyond eventually, maybe you will start to see the same thing happen on the gridiron. Lanning is clearly confident that could happen here and there, and he wants to see it happen in the near future.