By Mark Pszonak
Missouri head coach Eli Drinkwitz is always good for a few memorable comments. Aside from being a very good coach, he is also funny, entertaining and insightful. He was full of insight this morning at the SEC Media Days when he proposed a 30-team College Playoff field.
Eli Drinkwitz proposed the idea for a THIRTY TEAM College Football Playoff format this morning at SEC Media Days.
— SEC Unfiltered (@SECUnfiltered) July 17, 2025
“Now you’re talking about an opportunity for 30 teams, 30 fanbases to be excited and engaged, engaged in giving revenue. You’ve got 30 teams with players who have… pic.twitter.com/1ZDytemHNH
This is outside-the-box thinking and should be difficult to even wrap your head around, considering all of the current issues with expanding the field of 12 to a possible 16. The thought of going from 16 to 30 seems as likely as Ball State winning the National Championship this season, but Coach Drinkwitz did add some additional insight.
“My math could be wrong here but, if we did the 12, okay, and you had four automatic qualifiers? Everybody thinks that’s limiting. It’s not limiting if you think about it from, you take those four automatic qualifiers and you divide that into eight opportunities, of eight play-in games,” Drinkwitz explained. “Now you’re thinking, the SEC is playing in for eight, the Big Ten is playing in for eight. Since we’ve expanded the bubble to 16, give three to the Big 12, three to the ACC, one, one.”
With comments like these, this doesn’t seem to be something that Coach Drinkwitz spontaneously came up with on the podium, but instead something that he has put time and thought into. I guess the off-season allows for some down time to come up with conversation starting topics. If that was Coach Drinkwitz’ goal, then he succeeded this morning at SEC Media Days.
