The SEC and Big Ten are doing their best to take over college football. The former’s conference meetings could set the stage for the sport as the ACC and Big 12 try to stay relevant.
Insider Details Possible Repercussions of SEC-Big Ten Playoff Plan
College football doesn’t operate as it used to. If the SEC and Big Ten have their way, the sport won’t even fully resemble what it was last year.
At the conference’s meetings last week in Los Angeles, the powers in the Big Ten supported a 16-team College Football Playoff format that would give their league and the SEC four automatic qualifiers each, double what the ACC and Big 12 would receive. If the SEC leans the same way at what some have labeled the “most consequential gathering in the history of the conference” in Florida this week, things could get ugly.
“I guess we’re going to war,” one Big 12 athletic director told Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.
The College Football Playoff was expanded to 12 teams last season, with the Ohio State Buckeyes powering to the title. Having seen how Penn State’s path was much easier than Oregon’s, despite the former losing to the latter in the Big Ten championship game, the playoff switched to straight seeding last week.
Now, there’s a chance the bracket could be altered once more.
If the “4-4-2-2-1” format is implemented, it would give one automatic qualifier to the Group of 6 and three at-large spots—the SEC has further change plans. Dellenger wrote that, in that case.
“SEC administrators are more willing to (1) add a ninth conference football game, (2) eventually strike a scheduling agreement with the Big Ten and (3) remake conference championship weekend with on-campus play-in games pitting their third, fourth, fifth, and sixth-place finishers against one another for the final two CFP automatic qualifying spots.”
The format would obviously be met with pushback. It would upset plenty of college football fan bases and could attract the attention of congressional lawmakers, not to mention damage relationships with the ACC and Big 12.
“The way the economic forces in college sports are going, it’s going to exacerbate the gaps between the haves and the have-nots,” said former Texas president Jay Hartzell, now at SMU. “I do worry about schools below a certain threshold, and I do worry about how they will keep up and keep competing.”
KEEP READING: Joel Klatt Sounds Off on SEC and Big Ten Pushing for More CFP Auto Bids
Even those who don’t have an iron in the fire are paying attention.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Big Sky Conference commissioner Tom Wistrcill said. “There’s going to be no checks and balances for them. There’s going to be no limit to what the Power Two can do if you give them any more.”
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