Pat Narduzzi: Players 'don't want' northern bowl games, fans will be 'bored to death' without 24-team CFP

If you don’t want to be bored with late-season college football, you need to listen to Pat Narduzzi and his take on a potential 24-team CFP. The Pittsburgh head coach is in favor of doubling up the playoff, as reported.

“As far as playoffs, you know, I think the more access, the better,” Narduzzi told Sirius XM. “When it comes to that, I think bowl games are going away. And I hate to say that because I’ve got so many good bowl friends, but, you know, they’re kind of going away, you know, especially up north. I know our kids, they have no desire, like, if they’re going to a bowl game, they want to be down in Florida, they want to be in Texas. They want to be in San Diego. 

“They really don’t want to be up north. And I hate to say that, but that’s, you know, the facts. And again, I think you know, your kids get excited about playing in playoff games. They get excited about playing other Power Four teams. And to me, that’s where we got to start moving as far as the bowl games go in the playoffs. So I am for 16, 24, the more the merrier. I think why not? The bowl games are going to go away.”

So with bowl games going away, teams opting out, locations changing and so on and so forth, Narduzzi claimed fans will be bored with those games at the end of the year. So to help the fans, he said college football would be right by going to 24 teams in the CFP.

“All the fans will be bored to death if we don’t have 24, especially with the bowl games going away,” Narduzzi said. “And then the conference championship games, that’s kind of one of those, I’m not sure guys you know, again, you know the AFCA came out with, you know, their statement yesterday, but I still love the championship game. Okay?”

The championship games mean something to Narduzzi. Winning a conference is something a team should be able to hang their hat on, but the bowl games can go by the wayside. But if conference title games going away means there’s going to be a 24-team playoff, Narduzzi will roll with it.

“I mean, you got so many teams in Power Four, you have 70 teams in Power Four,” Narduzzi said. “There’s gonna be one champion at the end? I think it’s always something you can hang your hat on. When we were ACC champions in ‘21_, we went in ‘18 and we’re Coastal champions … I just think there’s something to that, to go through a whole season and to have one team have that word champion … it’s nice to say there’s an SEC champion, ACC champion, Big Ten champion. I just think, you know, we lose something.

“So I’m still not high on that move, but you know, I’ll go with the flow. Whatever is best for college football on our calendar.”