College Football Playoff expansion talk

Here are Wednesday's tweets and news of interest to those who follow Greater Cincinnati sports:

1) A potentially encouraging development for UC Bearcats football fans: Yahoo Sports' Pete Thamel reports that "officials on campuses, in conference offices and in the television world have expressed an openness toward a 12-team playoff."

More from Thamel:

A 12-team version would answer a lot of the immediate looming issues with the College Football Playoff — lack of diversity of programs, access for Group of Five and the erosion of the importance of supposed top-tier bowl games outside the CFP thanks to player opt-outs.

How would 12 teams work? The basic thought is automatic bids for the five major conferences — which also juices up their league title games as play-in games — and one for the highest ranked Group of Five champion. The other six spots would be at-large bids. That gives automatic bids to some of the have-nots and more potential spots for the more powerful leagues, and compromise is important in a vote where consensus is needed.

The details of how those 11 games in a 12-team system would unfold will still need to be worked out in upcoming months. But the thought is that the first four teams would get a bye and teams No. 5 to No. 8 would host teams No. 9 through 12 at home sites. (This could, of course, irk teams that finished higher and don’t get the big gate, memorable experience and home-field advantage of a playoff game.)