Iowa football: 8 team playoff would immensely benefit the Hawks

With the idea of CFP expansion gaining traction, what would that mean for the Iowa football program? History says it would help quite a bit.

The College Football Playoff has been around for five seasons, and while the four team playoff was a good start, people are strongly calling for an eight team playoff after what went down this year with a 12-1 Ohio State Buckeye program and a 10-2 Georgia Bulldog program being left out. Having an eight team playoff would have no real impact on the Iowa football team this year, but in past years it would have been huge for the validity and national notoriety of the program. That being said, I am all for it, and here is why.

As it stands today, the Iowa football team basically needs to be perfect in order to reach the College Football Playoff. Heck, back in 2015, the Hawks won 12 straight games before losing to Michigan State in the Big Ten Championship on a last second game-winning touchdown. Instead of finding themselves competing for a national championship, the Hawks were sent to the Rose Bowl.

With an eight team playoff, this would all change and teams like Iowa would have a much better chance of chasing the national championship. It would also provide a slightly larger margin for error, which is something an Iowa football team could really benefit from.

In the Kirk Ferentz era alone, there are three instances where the Hawks have had fantastic seasons and in a new format, would have qualified for an eight team playoff. The 2015 season is one and the 2009 and 2001 seasons are the other (granted, the 2001 season Iowa would have likely qualified for a four team playoff). Moreover, the 2003 and 2004 teams would have also been in the running for the College Football Playoff as the 2003 team sat at #13 and the 2004 team sat at #11.

Considering there was no Big Ten Championship game either, those teams could have walked into the Big Ten Championship game and bumped up in the rankings with another quality win over another ranked Big Ten opponent.

Again, these are all hypotheticals and we obviously can’t go back in time, but if history tells us anything, it’s that the Iowa football program would greatly benefit from an eight team playoff. The difference between a four team and eight team playoff in the Kirk Ferentz tenure would be the difference in one versus potentially five College Football Playoff births.

Let’s do this thing NCAA. Listen to the fans and make the change.