Dan Mullen Pitches a Group of Six Mini-Playoff for Two CFP Bids

Dan Mullen has a maths problem with the new College Football Playoff, and he has a fix for it too. The UNLV head coach said on Wednesday that the Group of Six should get two guaranteed bids in the expanded 24-team field, not the one it keeps from the 12-team era, and his solution is a playoff to decide the playoff: the four highest-ranked Group of Six conference champions play each other on the Army-Navy weekend, and the two winners take the bids.

What did Mullen actually propose?

Two games, one weekend, two bids. Mullen’s plan, reported by On3, puts the four highest-ranked Group of Six champions, drawn from the American, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt and Pac-12, into a pair of games on the Saturday of the Army-Navy game. “During that weekend, the four top-ranked Conference Champions play each other. The winners get the automatic bids,” Mullen said. The timing is the clever part: Army-Navy weekend is the one Saturday in December when college football goes quiet, so Mullen would fill it with games that matter. “Imagine there’s no college football that weekend, or is Army-Navy going to that weekend? Right? Well, that’s fantastic. They play at whatever time they play at. Play a game before, play a game after. Now, there’s a couple games that weekend.”

Why does he think one bid is wrong?

Because the field doubled and the Group of Six share did not. The 24-team format, confirmed earlier this week for the 2027 season, gives the four Power Four conference champions a bid each, the highest-ranked Group of Six team one, and hands out the other 19 spots at large. “I think [the 24-team Playoff] could be great,” Mullen said on Wednesday. “At our level, the Group of Six at 12, we got one in. I think we should have two in. So, they doubled the number of teams. I don’t know why we didn’t get a second bid. If they’re gonna do 24, we should have got a second bid.” Six conferences share one protected place while each Power Four league gets one to itself, and that is the imbalance Mullen is pointing at. The Georgia-Alabama game that ended with fans throwing objects after a no-call showed how much a single playoff-relevant result can matter in November, and Auburn stunning Georgia with a walk-off kick showed how quickly one result can reorder a conference race, and Mullen’s point is that Group of Six teams rarely get that kind of stage at all.

Would anyone buy these games?

Mullen thinks so, and he ran through the buyers on the spot. “Group of Six gets two automatic bids, right? The four-highest ranked champions play a mini-Playoff. We might get an extra game in there. That’s okay, but I bet someone would buy that game. We could find someone between CBS, FOX, The CW. I’m sure somebody would like some college football. NBC? Everybody’s showing it right now. Amazon might like it. You don’t know. All of a sudden, whoever wins those games get an extra bid.” The Spun is careful to note there is no indication the idea will become reality, and no commissioner or committee has endorsed it. But Mullen’s pitch is aimed at the one thing that moves college football decisions: a broadcaster willing to pay for a December Saturday with nothing else on.

What is in it for UNLV?

Less than Mullen would like, this season at least. UNLV entered the year as a popular pick to represent the Group of Six in this season’s playoff, Saturday Down South reports, but early losses to Memphis and North Texas left the Rebels 5-4 and out of the race. Boise State would take the Group of Six’s automatic bid as things stand, On3 reports. UNLV plays New Mexico on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. ET on The CW, a game that matters for the Mountain West race but no longer for the playoff, and the wider picture is just as volatile: UCF stunned BYU in double overtime in a chaotic ending that shook the Big 12 race in the same week Mullen made his pitch. Mullen’s perspective has shifted with the job: at Mississippi State and Florida he coached programs that expected a bid, while at UNLV he leads one that has to fight for a single guaranteed place shared across six leagues. Michigan’s Zack Marshall apologised this season for leaked texts criticising his own coordinator, a reminder that a coach’s public words can carry further than he intends, and Mullen chose his on Wednesday knowing exactly who was listening.

What happens next?

Nothing, for the 2027 season. The 24-team format is set, with four Power Four champions, the top Group of Six team and 19 at-large bids, and the first 24-team bracket will be built on those rules. Mullen’s mini-playoff would need the commissioners and the television partners to agree, and neither has said a word about it. What the proposal does is frame the argument that will follow the first expanded bracket: the committee doubled the field and left six conferences sharing one protected opening, and the coach of a team on the wrong side of that line has now given the argument a name, a date and a television slot. The next test is Saturday against New Mexico, and after that, whether anyone in charge picks up the phone.