There has been a lot of talk about Big 12 expansion of late, with many debating which would be the best candidates to join the conference to keep it from falling too far behind the other Power Five conferences.
But what if talk of expansion misses the point? What if the next big move in college football realignment is actually consolidation?
That's the question that Fox Sports analyst Stewart Mandel posed in a recent column.
"The playoff will inevitably expand to at least eight teams, if not more, when the current deal ends, and it will separate completely from the bowl system.