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The playoff became a secondary con- cern for Ohio State a few days later when Meyer was placed on paid administrative leave pending an investigation into his handling of assistant coach Zach Smith following allegations of domestic abuse by Smith. Elsewhere around the conference, how- ever, the playoff conversation is ongoing, and some say it should begin with an ad- mission by college football's powers- that-be that a four-team field isn't big enough. Michigan's Jim Harbaugh would like to double that number, and if he had his way, an eight-team playoff would just be a transitional phase on the way to an even bigger tournament. "More would be more," he said. "More would be better in the playoffs: four right now, go to eight and eventually get to 16." Harbaugh came to Michigan from the NFL, where a 12-team playoff format has been in place since 1990. There has occa- sionally been talk of expanding the field to 14 or 16, but even in its current form, the NFL playoffs allow 38 percent of the league's 32 teams to compete for the Vince Lombardi Trophy. By contrast, at the college level, only 3 percent of this year's 130 FBS teams will make the playoff. Of course, many of those teams have no realistic path to the final four. But even if you restrict the list of potential participants to the Power Five conferences and Notre Dame, only 6 per- cent of all eligible teams will make the field as it currently exists. It's a much less egalitarian approach than in the sport's lower divisions. In the Football Champi- onship Subdivision, for example, 24 of 123 teams (20 percent) make the playoff field. In Division II, it's 28 of 168 (17 per- cent), and in Division III, it's 32 of 242 (13 percent). Even in men's basketball, with 353 schools playing in Division I, the odds of any given team qualifying for the NCAA tournament are considerably higher than in football, with 19 percent of the eligible teams making the field. But Franklin isn't so sure that a larger field is right for the FBS. One of the fac- tors he cites is the length of the season, as players in the sport's top division play more regular-season games than their counterparts in the other divisions. FCS and Division II teams play 11 games. Divi- sion III teams play 10. Most of those teams wrap up their regular seasons in mid-November, making it possible to stage an extended playoff without stretching the season into the spring se- mester. "People talk about expanding the play- offs and things like that," Franklin said. "I'm not on the same page with that. We started out playing 10 games [in the 1960s], then we went to 11 games, and then 12 games, and now with the playoffs P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> 1 TRACE McSORLEY QB PENN STATE A ;=h-year senior and soon to be a three-year starter, McSorley was the only Big Ten player to claim unanimous preseason All-Conference honors from a panel of media members. That was entirely understandable. McSorley led the Big Ten in total o

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