If playoff expansion is coming, Auburn should be one of its biggest winners

The Tigers currently face the toughest path to championship contention in college football. A 12-team format would be huge for the program.

It’s not the CFP trophy, but the winner still gets it. (Todd Van Emst/Auburn Athletics)

When the news of a proposed 12-team College Football Playoff broke late last week, the biggest cheers should have come from the Group of Five conferences — which would finally get a seat at the table when it comes to playing for a national title.

The next-loudest ones should have come from Auburn.

The current four-team CFP format was running full speed into a real problem. In seven years, only 11 programs have made it to the final four. That’s less than 17% of the Power Five conferences and only 8.6% of the FBS as a whole.

Clemson has made it six years in a row. Alabama went five straight years, winning it twice, before an LSU-caused pause in 2019 and a revenge tour title in 2020. Ohio State and Oklahoma have already been four times.

Contrast that with the BCS National Championship Game, the controversial and supposedly too-closed format that only had two teams make it four times in 16 years. The ratio…