“Says the guy who didn’t win his conference”: CFB fans react to Ryan Day’s bold statement on the new CFP system

The new College Football Playoff was seen for the first time in 2024. Many fans have said that in its first season, the 12-team playoffs weren't perfect, but with a few tweaks, it can become great.

One college football coach who has given his opinion about a flaw in the new playoff system is Ohio State coach Ryan Day, who led his team to the national championship. Day’s issue is with the system that gave a minor advantage to the winners of the conference.

“I think that if you win your conference, sure, you should get in. But you get a bye? I think that’s a little much,” Day told On3.com.

Here is how college football fans responded to the comments made by Ryan Day. These fans have mentioned that Ryan Day did not lead the Buckeyes to a conference championship this year (Ohio State did not even make the Big Ten Conference Championship game).

"What does he know about winning a conference 😐." This fan said.

"Says the guy who didn’t win his conference… if he did he’d be all for having a buy with a conference championship," another fan said.

"Dude don’t know anything about winning his conference," a third fan said.

These fans have noted that the four teams that received the first-round bye in the playoffs all failed to make it to the next round:

"Every team with a first round bye lost, so they probably agree with this," this fan said.

"We all saw that the bye week didn't work out that great," another fan said.

These fans have said that this rule could remove the importance of the conference championships.

"So we gonna start resting players on championship weekend?" This fan said.

"Then what would be the point of those games at all," another fan said.

"The conference title games are meaningless. College football is broken," said a third fan in a rather cynical tone.

What is the current CFP system?

The current College Football Playoff system features 12 teams. The bye system that Ryan Day has criticized means that the top four seeds receive a bye in the first round.

Those four seeds are reserved for the four highest-ranked conference champions. This means that there is a very strong possibility that the number three and number four seeds in the Playoff bracket could be much weaker than the 5-12 ranked teams, who are "at large" bids.

As we saw in 2024, these byes and any advantage that has been given by having almost a month off did not help them. All four teams were eliminated in their first game, leading to questions about the relevance of this system.

The Playoffs are likely to expand in future years, where the format is again likely to change. One thing that the organizers can do is either get rid of the bye or find ways to make sure that the extra time off will benefit the teams, as it did not this time around.