"Fans deserve it": Former Heisman winner Robert Griffin III proposes notable change in CFB after pointing out the flaws

Former Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III believes that college football conference champions should be rewarded for their accomplishment. The teams that raised their league trophy this past season likely wholeheartedly agree with him.

The top four seeds in the first 12-team playoff — Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, and Arizona State — all received a bye, and all were beaten by lower seeds in the quarterfinal round at neutral sites.

Meanwhile, Texas, Penn State, Notre Dame, and eventual champion Ohio State enjoyed momentum-producing wins at home in the opening round. That's something Robert Griffin took notice of.

"The change the College Football Playoff needs is for Conference Champs to have a home game in the quarterfinals after the 1st round bye," Robert Griffin wrote Monday on X/Twitter. "Otherwise they are getting blessed with the bye and then screwed with a neutral site game instead of having home field advantage.

"Semifinals and Finals can be neutral site, but if we are going to reward conference champs then let's reward them all the way and give them that home game in the Quarterfinals. Their fans deserve it."

Does Robert Griffin have a point?

To Robert Griffin III's point, CBS Sports college football analyst Josh Pate spoke about how conference trophies seemed to matter little in terms of importance this past season.

"The Big 10 and the SEC run this," Pate said. "Now, you may say to yourself, 'Oh, of course, they're the biggest conferences.' No, I'm telling you they run it. Exclusively, they run it. ... They're going to find a way to cement the value of their conference races because this past year was an abomination.

"This past year, you had head coaches, like Lane Kiffin in the SEC, just outright publicly saying, 'Do I even wanna play for my conference championship?' You had people in the Big 10 saying, 'Should Oregon have been better suited to lose their conference championship game?' That is poison to anyone, i.e. a network, that's paying billions of dollars for those media rights."

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Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger reported Sunday that the Big 10 and SEC are pushing to expand the College Football Playoff to 14 or 16 teams. That would also mean multiple automatic bids per league.

"The playoff format change would clear the way for SEC administrators to, finally, make the long-discussed move to play nine regular-season conference games and would trigger, perhaps, all four power leagues to overhaul their conference championship weekend," Dellenger wrote.

That goes back to Griffin's point that conference championships seemed meaningless during the first rendition of the 12-team bracket. The future of the sport could look even more different because of that.