Steve Sarkisian: CFP expansion should encourage high-profile nonconference games

Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian celebrates after beating Mississippi at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium in Austin on Saturday Oct. 24, 2026. (Jay Janner/Austin American-Statesman) ESPN and the College Football Playoff Management Committee announced Monday morning that they had reached a five-year deal that will expand the College Football Playoff field to 24 teams beginning next season.Not that such an expansion tops the list of current concerns for Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian, whose team will try and solidify a spot in this year's 12-team CFP bracket Saturday with a visit to fellow playoff contender LSU."I don't have any comment on that right now, man; I've got bigger fish to fry," Sarkisian said Monday during his weekly meeting with the media inside Royal-Memorial Stadium. "We're in the midst of this journey that we're on right now (and) people way more important than me are going to decide what we would do with that."MORE: 'Make every state your own.' Texas football relishes SEC road trips like win vs MissouriAccording to the CFP Management Committee, the 24-team playoff field will be comprised of the following: The four conference champions from the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC; the highest-ranked team from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Pac-12 or Sun Belt; and the 19 highest-ranked remaining teams in the final CFP Selection Committee.The committee also applied some scheduling mandates for each school in a Power Four conference (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12 and SEC) that requires at least 10 qualifying regular-season games consisting of conference or nonconference games versus other Power Four schools and Notre Dame.Sarkisian has consistently been clear about his biggest concern regarding expansion: The coach wants more high-profile nonconference games. If an expansion to 24 teams helps make games matter more in September, Sarkisian said, bring it on."We should be promoting more big games at the beginning of the season, and hopefully, that's what the 24-team playoff does," he said. "I don't want college football to be, ‘Hey, just wait till November, December, January. September and October look like exhibition games.' You know, there should be great (early) games, and there should be games that that we're all excited about."Texas fans have been plenty excited in recent years since Sarkisian has scheduled home-and-home games with blue-blood programs Michigan, Ohio State and Notre Dame. Sarkisian hopes other teams embrace a similar scheduling philosophy since the expanded playoff will lessen the negative impact of one loss.And playing tough teams can harden any squad for the postseason, Sarkisian said.MORE: Texas football film study: This Arch Manning move drove winning TD vs. Mizzou"All of us should want to go to South Bend, Indiana, (vs. Notre Dame) and be there for that game to see those two programs play, and then them being at DKR," he said. "There should be more of that, and people should not want to shy away from it strategically to position themselves for a playoff, because I think that's what's good for our sport. And now that we have a mechanism to allow more teams in, hopefully that encourages teams the same way teams were getting out of games the last couple years and reshuffling their schedule. Hopefully, they're reshuffling their schedule again now, and they're adding more quality teams to their schedule instead of just playing games to puff their stats and make it look good."Opponents of the expanded CFP hope that such regular-season games still carry enough weight, and they also bemoan the loss of conference title games. In particular, losing the experience of playing in a neutral-site conference championship matchup could hurt a team preparing for the CFP. In comparison, NCAA basketball still holds conference tournaments before the start of the 68-team NCAA tournament."I'm more upset about losing that conference championship," said Texas tight end Michael Masunas. "You don't get to compete against that top team on the other side. I think they'll declare one (conference champion), but it's not like March Madness, before you go into it, where you get to have that conference (title). I think it is going to be interesting for the committee to see what they do with that."Sign up for the Daily Briefing from the Austin American-Statesman. Start your day with the must-read headlines from Austin's most trusted news source.This article originally published at Steve Sarkisian: CFP expansion should encourage high-profile nonconference games.