RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif. -- Ohio State and Oregon both qualified for college football's postseason during the Bowl Championship Series era and in both versions of the College Football Playoff.
The Buckeyes beat the Ducks in the first four-team CFP during the 2014 season, and then beat them again on their way to winning the first 12-team CFP two years ago.
Neither program necessarily needs a bigger playoff system.
"It's debatable whether it's best for Ohio State -- you can go back and forth on that -- but it's certainly best for the conference and great for college football in general," Ohio State coach Ryan Day said in an interview at the Big Ten spring meetings Monday. "It engages more fan bases late in the season."
Both Day and Oregon counterpart Dan Lanning support a 24-team model, which the Big Ten first proposed last summer and which has gained momentum from outside the conference in recent months. The Big Ten has won three consecutive national titles, including both seasons with a 12-team playoff.
"Ryan's in the same similar situation, [Indiana coach] Curt [Cignetti] as well, similar situation," Lanning said. "Is it necessarily best for the programs that have been in to say, 'Hey, let's invite more?' No, but is it better? What's happened because of the College Football Playoff is every bowl game has been devalued, the end of the season looks completely different. You're a failure as a coach if you don't make it to the College Football Playoff.
"It's going to create more opportunity. Just like March Madness is great in the spring for basketball, it'll be good for our sport."
The coaches acknowledged that a 24-team playoff, even with byes for the top eight teams, would create a longer and likely harder path to a championship.
"When there was four (teams), you just had to win two games," Day said. "Now there's more games to be played, there's a bigger pool, a bigger field. But when you take a step away from it, you're always going to be late in the season, playing for an opportunity to be the highest seed that you can be."
Day and Lanning don't think a larger playoff will lead to coaches of teams comfortably in the CFP resting their starters for late-season games, like in the NFL.
"Because of how the seeding would work, it's so valuable," Lanning said. "We're talking about 24 teams. The value of being the first-seeded team is so much more valuable than being fourth, even, that you're going to want to make sure you put yourself in that position. Could that happen? It could happen. But there's so many teams in the conversation, one loss can be a huge difference in being [seeded] one or five or eight."
