AUBURN | All things being equal, the idea of automatic bids in an expanded college football playoff makes a lot of sense.
But all things aren’t close to being equal. Not anymore.
With the SEC adding Oklahoma and Texas and the Big Ten adding USC and UCLA, the two conferences have separated themselves by a significant amount over its three Power 5 rivals, especially the Pac-12 and Big 12.
The best teams left in the Pac-12 are probably Oregon, Washington, Utah and Stanford. In the Big 12 it would be Baylor and Oklahoma State. The expanded SEC and Big Ten will each have at least nine teams better than or comparable to any teams in those two conferences.
“In this environment, I'm proud to say in my view, I think in the view of our entire membership, the Southeastern Conference is stronger now than at any other time in our history,” said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey Monday during his opening remarks at SEC Media Days.
When the college football playoff committee last got together to discuss expansion in February, the then-Alliance, which included the Big Ten, Pac-12 and Big 12, wanted to include automatic bids for conference champions.
The SEC wasn’t willing to do that with an 8-team playoff because there would have been so few at-large bids, but would compromise with a 12-team format. Ultimately, a consensus couldn’t be reached and the decision was tabled until later.
“I walked into one of the first meetings when we were looking at the format and said, If we want to expand to eight teams for the playoff with no automatic bids, I'll have that conversation,” said Sankey. “But moving to an eight-team playoff and granting what were going to be six automatic bids, reducing at-large access, is unwise.
“But the pressure was there to have conference access with some guarantee. So the 12-team, six at-large, which increases the at-large access, and six conference qualifiers, not automatic qualifiers, but the guarantee that the six best conference champions was a really good balancing outcome.”
When those meetings resume, the Alliance will no longer exist and the Big Ten’s priorities should be more aligned with the SEC. There’s no way any representative of the now two super conferences should support handing the Pac-12, Big 12 or even the ACC an automatic bid.
One of two things need to happen.
The committee needs to agree on a format that includes only at-large bids, which seems the most likely right now, or three conferences — the Pac-12, Big 12 and ACC — need to become two super conferences.
There’s also the issue of including a Group of 5 school in the process. Cincinnati qualified last season, but should that be a guarantee or just an opportunity or somewhere in-between?
And should the Power 5 (maybe a future Power 4) go its own way and let the remaining schools in D-I hold their own playoff?
“We're going to have to determine how to make effective decisions in Division I,” said Sankey. “There are incredible disparities around revenue, around expenses, around support and around expectations in this division. It makes it difficult to ensure the presence of shared values and common purpose around supporting athletics programs.”
Playoff expansion is coming but probably not until 2026. There’s too much money to be made to stop it. But there’s still a long way to go in figuring out the format and no telling what the college football landscape will look like after four more years.
“Where we go? We'll see,” said Sankey. “We've had one initial conversation in late June. I walked into that meeting not very optimistic about the ability to talk through issues. I walked out much more positive about the path forward than when I walked in.
“There's a lot of work to do. We have time and we'll use it. It's the same type of issues that you've heard, AQ, no AQ, how many teams, what's the relationship to the bowls, when do we play these games on a calendar. We really need to look at that more deeply than we did in the previous iteration. We'll see how it goes, but those are the realities.”
