With the College Football Playoff announcing that its management committee will consider a shift from the current 4-team format to a 12-team arrangement during their meeting this week in Chicago, many have begun to speculate what teams could inch their way into the battle for the national title for the first time as a result of the proposed system.
While Northwestern has been discussed as one school that could benefit from expansion — despite that fact that, even if a 12-team playoff had been in place since the beginning of the CFP in 2014, the ‘Cats still wouldn’t have snuck in by now despite a number of close calls — one can find a litany of potential NU berths should a 12-team competition for the championship have been the norm since the establishment of college football.