CHARLOTTE, N.C. – On Wednesday afternoon, an Arizona State team projected to finish last in the Big 12 nearly reached the final four of the College Football Playoff, falling 39-31 in the Peach Bowl in a double-overtime thriller Texas.

Twelve days earlier, Indiana, a program with a 3-24 Big Ten record in 2021-23, ended a Cinderella season with an 11-2 record and a 27-17 playoff loss to Notre Dame.

The larger playoff field is changing the game — and raising expectations — in college football. The Big Ten, for example, landed four teams in the 12-team field. Coaches see a prize that is no longer reserved only for the upper classes.

“That’s a real goal for us,” Gophers coach PJ Fleck said Thursday. “When you look at some of the teams that have not only been there but played in it, everyone has a chance. I’m not saying it can happen every year, but absolutely (it is possible). … We talk to our players about it. We talk about how close we were this year.”

Fleck points to the Gophers’ 3-4 record in one-score games this season as showing how close and how far the Gophers were to that goal. That included the 26-25 home loss to Penn State on Nov. 23 – the same Nittany Lions team that made it to the playoff semifinals.

Quinn Carroll, a senior offensive tackle for the Gophers, will play his final collegiate game on Friday. He gave an insight into the players’ ambitions.

“That was our goal at the beginning of the season,” Carroll said. “Since January, when we knew this was going to be the new rule, with a 12-team playoff, our schedule and our talent… we can play with anyone. When you look back at a lot of games this year and we lost by one point, two or three points, you understand that we could have been there and probably should have been there.”