Boise State AD prefers expanded football playoffs: System ‘doesn’t sit right’

LAS VEGAS (Idaho Statesman) — Boise State football had its first-ever opportunity to compete for a national championship last season, qualifying for the inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.

The Broncos smashed their way in by enjoying an 11-1 regular season and claiming a first-round bye as the only non-power-conference team in the field.

Boise State earned the bid as the highest-rated conference champ among the so-called Group of Six, and the Broncos’ No. 3 seed — a result of the Big 12 and ACC champions having multiple losses and a lower ranking — caused hand-wringing among college football’s elite.

The SEC and Big Ten are pushing for a 16-team playoff that would feature at least four automatic qualifiers from their leagues, which could leave a lot of teams even further down in the pecking order, but so far they haven’t been able to come to an agreement.

And a change already has been made so that the four highest-ranked conference champs don’t automatically get the top four seeds, regardless of their CFP ranking.

In last season’s rankings, Boise State was No. 9 and Arizona State No. 12, but they were the 3 and 4 seeds because of the conference-champ rule, and the Broncos and Sun Devils both got byes. Five conference champions still will get automatic berths this season, but the seedings will simply match the order of the rankings.

Boise State Athletic Director Jeramiah Dickey labeled that the Boise State Policy after the change was made. The need for clarification on CFP expansion, which could happen as soon as 2026, holds even more importance for Dickey, as Boise State is less than a year away from joining the new Pac-12, a conference once labeled among the Power Five, a designation it lost after its dissolution in 2024.

During Mountain West media days in Las Vegas, Dickey told the Idaho Statesman that there have been talks “at the conference level” about how the Pac-12 might fit into the future CFP, but it wasn’t anything he could talk about publicly.

However, on a personal level, Dickey said he supports an expanded playoff because it “provides more opportunity.”

“I look at last year, and say it was us and Memphis, and even UNLV. UNLV lost to us twice and was ranked,” Dickey said. “They’re losing games, and whoever loses drops completely out. I don’t like that. UNLV was a damn good team.”

He noted that there was “little room for error” for teams not in the power conferences, with their only way in realistically being the top-ranked conference champ from the Group of Six.

Teams in “another league” get a mulligan or two, Dickey said, while a Mountain West or American Athletic Conference team likely doesn’t. Clemson made the field with three losses last season, albeit as an automatic qualifier, and Notre Dame was easily in despite an early-season loss to a Northern Illinois team that finished 4-4 in the Mid-American Conference.

Alabama, at 9-3, was No. 11 in the rankings, but didn’t make the field because a pair of conference champs were behind them. SMU, from the ACC, made the playoffs with two losses and only one win over a ranked team.

At the same time, Army went unbeaten in the AAC and won the conference championship game, with its only loss prior to the playoff field being announced coming to Notre Dame. At 11-1, they were ranked No. 22 by the CFP committee, and then lost to Navy a week later in the annual rivalry game.

“There’s this difference between this perception versus the reality,” Dickey said. “We’re all here to compete. We want to win. I want a system that’s built that gives us not just one seat, but multiple opportunities to have a seat at that table.”

Even with Boise State’s stellar 2024 season, which featured only a loss to undefeated Oregon on the road by a field goal, the Broncos’ playoff status depended on the Mountain West championship game against UNLV.

A loss to the Rebels would have spelled doom.

“I see the investment. I see how hard everyone works. I see how we compete,” Dickey said. “And to get to the end of a season like that, with the season we had, it all came down to that Mountain West championship. Whoever won that game was going to CFP at the end, and everyone else was getting left out. “We all play tough schedules. … It just doesn’t sit right, you know?”