AJ Hawk, Charles Woodson support College Football Playoff format over BCS to decide champion

As the college football world officially enters its first foray into the 12-team College Football Playoff format to determine the 2024 national champion, Charles Woodson and AJ Hawk are all in.

“Yeah, I am, just because at any given time, no matter how many teams you put in, I feel like there’s always going to be teams outside that feel like they should be there,” Hawk said on Wednesday’s The Triple Option podcast. “But if we put 12 in and it’s a win-or-go-home situation, you can prove you’re the better team.

“I think it’s always better than when a group of people vote on who the best team can be. Like any time you can play for it, I’m all for it.

Of course, allowing a host of teams to win it on the field wasn’t always the case. And Woodson remembers, for one thing, the consternation the previous systems created.

Before the BCS: When the polls rang

Twenty-seven years ago, a season before the computerized BCS system was set to take effect, the Woodsons were Michigan Wolverines was 12-0 and the nation’s no. 1-ranked team when it entered Rose bowl against the Pac-10 champ Washington State. The same year was Nebraska Cornhuskers were also undefeated and ranked no. 2 before the meeting Peyton Manning and the third ranked Tennessee Volunteers in Orange bowl.

Both Michigan and Nebraska went on to win their respective bowl games in convincing fashion, leaving the debate of which 13-0 team would be the NCAA national champion up to the national polls. Not surprisingly, both the AP and Coaches polls split their vote, with the AP picking the Wolverines and the Coaches picking the Cornhuskers.

For Woodson, who won the 1997 Heisman Trophy at cornerback over Manning, the split national titles did little to solve the problem. It’s this memory that makes the current College Football Playoff model so appealing, especially as it expands to 12 teams.

“I would say, yes, just because it makes it more spacious,” Woodson said on Wednesday’s The Triple Option podcast. “Before, you go back through the timeline … we didn’t have the opportunity to play Nebraska, which was also undefeated. And I think a year later the BCS was implemented and then it started with the best (two) teams or the best four teams.”

Woodson on CFP: ‘Now we really have to figure it out’

The BCS, not without its own controversies, eventually gave way to the four-team College Football Playoff invitational format in 2014. A decade later, the Playoff has expanded to 12 teams and could expand even more after the current contract expires after the 2025 season.

Meanwhile, Woodson favors the CFP format that allows teams to ultimately make their championship case on the field.

“Outside of the four teams, you always had a fifth, a sixth team saying, ‘Hey, we’re good enough to win (it).’ … Now (the expanded CFP) allows some of the teams that would normally be outside of that window to get their opportunity,” Woodson continued. “So we’re going to see a team, maybe that’s it Boise Statethat comes in the playoffs. And in years past, they might have an undefeated season and say, ‘We’re one of the best teams.’ Okay, … now we really have to find out. We have to find out if those teams outside of that (Top 4) bubble, how real their programs are when it comes down to it.”