This 12-team playoff is going to be a dream. Now, if only the Big Ten and SEC would keep their hands off instead of rigging the system.
SEC, Big Ten leaders will meet next week in Nashville, and the future of the CFP will be up for discussion.
Disproportionately increasing the number of automatic bids for SEC, Big Ten would make a mockery of the postseason.
That most uncommon day arrived in December 2022, when the College Football Playoff managers board agreed on a 12-team playoff that promised a fair, accessible format. This system preserves value for the regular season and rewards conference champions while heightening intrigue, participation and access to the playoff.
Five bids are earmarked for conference champions. An additional seven spots up for grabs via at-large selection.
It’s glorious.
As we enter this season’s second month in this inaugural year of the expanded playoff, more than 30 teams, from a variety of conferences, retain realistic playoff hopes.
Enjoy it while it lasts.
A roadblock looms downstream, and it’s a biggie: This playoff format is only finalized for this season and next. After that, all we know is that the playoff will continue with no fewer than 12 teams. Could be more. Won’t be less.
Also, importantly, the manner in which bids are assigned remains subject to change after the 2025 season.
The Big Ten, SEC and ESPN will shape the future direction of the playoff. Gulp. I don’t like the sound of that.
These behemoths do what most behemoths do. They look out for themselves, gobble up all the steak and potatoes, and leave the unsavory scraps for everyone else.
And when Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC boss Greg Sankey gather next week, I wouldn’t trust them to do what’s best for the Big 12, ACC or the sport as a whole. These fellas are ruthless. They look out for No. 1. In doing so, they could wreck this whole magnificent thing before we even get our first taste of this 12-team format.
Big Ten’s Tony Petitti, SEC’s Greg Sankey can wreck this playoff
Big Ten and SEC leaders will convene next week in Nashville, and the CFP is on the agenda.
Petitti and Sankey are too chummy for my liking. Past commissioners from these super-leagues butted heads. A little disagreement could be healthy. Consider it checks and balances.
If Petitti and Sankey lock arms, they could morph the CFP into a Big Ten-SEC Invitational – not a formal breakaway from the playoff, but rather a heist of the CFP.
Why leave and create your own sandbox, when you could stay in the current sandbox and make everyone else in it cave to your rules?
What might this bullying look like?
There’s nothing wrong with the SEC and Big Ten getting the most bids in a given year. Plenty of good programs reside in those leagues. But, fairness would dictate that those conferences should earn those bids like everyone else, via conference championships or at-large selection, rather than disproportionally collect them pre-emptively.
Please, let this 4+4 suggestion be a negotiable trial balloon. Hand me the arrow, because I’d love to shoot down this pathetic flex that would make a mockery of a playoff that was painstakingly and beautifully constructed two years ago.
Guaranteeing, before the season even kicks off, that the Big Ten and SEC would receive the most playoff bids would be a bald-faced rigging of the system.
Let’s at least see what this 12-team playoff looks like first, shall we?
Want to increase the playoff from 12 to 14 teams two years from now? Fine. Seems unnecessary, but more games means more revenue opportunities, so I get it. But, don’t reserve a bid for a fourth-place conference finisher before the season even starts.
A front-end stacking of the playoff deck would be akin to the NFL deciding in the preseason that the AFC gets 10 playoff bids and the NFC gets six. The NFL would never do that, of course, because unlike college football, the postseason is not run by individual conferences or divisions.
College football enjoys a popularity heater. Saturday’s Georgia-Alabama game on ABC attracted 12 million viewers, making it the most-watched primetime college football game since 2017.
This 12-team playoff format, with its healthy mix of automatic and at-large bids, magnetizes fans who never before had hope of making the playoff. Fans are not just emotionally invested. They’re financially invested. Everyone and their grandmother wagers on games.
If there’s one way to threaten this swelling popularity, it’s for two men in suits to decide they’re rigging the postseason.
And the silly thing is, it would be wholly unnecessary.
The SEC and Big Ten should have no trouble qualifying teams on merit. Come December, these two conferences likely will gobble up most of the at-large bids.
In the meantime, powerbrokers from two conferences will head to a meeting, and it already smells rotten.
When solipsistic leaders go into a room, never trust that they’ll emerge with a solution that will be fair to anyone other than those who made the decision.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.
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