College Football Hits Reset: Commissioners Restart Playoff Model Search

College football commissioners are officially restarting their search for a new College Football Playoff model. With the 12-team playoff on the horizon and concerns mounting over auto-bids, conference power dynamics, and long-term media contracts, the pressure is on to build a sustainable future for the sport. We break down what this means for the Big 12, how the SEC and Big Ten might shape the conversation, and whether a fair and balanced system is even possible.

Keywords:
College Football Playoff, CFP expansion, college football commissioners, playoff model reset, Big 12 football, SEC, Big Ten, ACC, realignment, media rights, college football future, CFP negotiations, 12-team playoff format, NCAA football playoffs

Transcript

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There's once again chaos. Let's talk about it on today's show. From all of home to safe Colorado, Arizona, safe to Cincinnati. We've got Big 12 covered from end zone to buzzer beater. This is first and 12. You're all access passed to all 16 teams. All in every episode. Hello and welcome to another episode of first and 12. I'm your host Adam Gibby. Thank you for joining us today. Let's jump right into today's topic. We are once again talking about the college football playoff and what it's going to look like after this upcoming season. Brett McMurphy, who is one of the more respected and one of the more indebted journalists for college football alongside maybe P-thamble and Nicole Auerbach. He found and had a discussions that essentially said that the college football playoff is back at square one. I'm going to read a tweet that he put out yesterday that says the following. Conference commissioners have decided to start over on determining the 2026 college football format sources said big 10 and SEC initially wanted for a cues each with two each going to the ACC in big 12. However, the ACC in big 12 pushed back. SEC coaches later publicly did not support for automatic qualifying models instead preferring a five automatic qualifier plus 11 at large format for a 16 team playoff as did the ACC in the big 12. The SEC wants more value given to the strength of schedule metrics, something a CFP executive discussed in today's meetings. However, a source cautioned even if strength of schedule is supposed to carry more weight with the committee, it still boils down to their opinions on who they think are the best teams. Deadline for finalizing the 2026 college football playoff format is December 1st. All right, so there's a lot to unpack there. And if you want to understand each of those models, I highly recommend going back and checking out a few of my other episodes. All you have to do is just look up first in 12, then type in college football playoff. I've got a couple episodes where I break down each of these different formats, talk about the pros and cons of them, as well as what I think would be best for the big 12 in general. Now, what does this all mean? It really shouldn't come as a surprise that you have a bunch of different conferences wanting very different things. The big 10 who is relatively new to being this super power in college football. And yes, they've had Michigan. Yes, they've had Ohio State. But it wasn't until recently where they were considered a power to in a sense or the clear number one or two in college football. That's a brand new idea to them. And so for them, they're trying to strike while the iron is hot. They're saying, hey, let's get our four automatic qualifiers along with the SEC who is by far the biggest brand out here. And let's try to push down the ACC in big 12 and every other conference to two automatic qualifiers or less. And let's let's make this deal happen because again, the big 10 is is relatively new to this power model. This is something that we haven't seen for, you know, a very long time. So I had another tweet that I found. This was by Flatland Sports at Flatland underscore sports on June 16. So two days ago. And they threw out what a proposed 16 team college football playoff would have looked like back in the year 2008. And this is what was found. There would have been four big 12 teams, three mountain West teams, three SEC teams, only two big 10 teams, one from the WAC one from the pack 10. And what's the pack 10 at the time? One from the ACC and one from the biggest conference, which no longer exists in college football. Why is this relevant? The big 10 just 16 17 years ago was not considered what they are today. Remember, they just recently acquired Oregon, Washington, USC, UCLA. Those are new teams to their conference. And so this idea of, hey, we're on par with the SEC where the biggest were the baddest is a new idea for them. And so yeah, of course, they want to strike while the iron is hot. They want therefore automatic qualifiers. And to essentially cement themselves as a top two conference, that is their best interest and makes sense. The SEC seems to be kind of flip flopping and not really sure what they want to do. First, they're on board with the big 10 saying, yeah, this seems great. This is a great idea. Let's go forward with this. But now they seem to be kind of swaying back to the, hey, let's get more at large teams because we can get eight teams in the college football playoff every year because our buddies, ASPN are going to talk about us all day and our buddies, ASPN are going to put together an FBI model that favors our metrics so that when the AP voters and the college football playoff committee gets together, they will have only seen and heard about us all week long. And so they're going to have an influence. I think I said the quiet part out loud there, but that's essentially what is going to be going on. So they're kind of going that way. Their best interest is they just want as many teams as possible. I'm not sure they know what that's going to look like for them. Now for the big 12 in the ACC, they clearly want the 5 plus 11 model. That is the model they've been pushing. That is what they want to have happen, where every single conference, well, the power for conferences and probably the pack 12 is the fifth one, we'll get one automatic qualifying spot to the conference champion and then everybody else is just an out-large team. You have to earn it on the field to earn a spot in the college football playoff. This seems fair for the big 12. This seems fair for the ACC. And the SEC again with their little idea of hey, we can control narratives seems to like this idea a lot as well. But here's the problem. It has to be a decision made by the group and I realize that it doesn't have to be unanimous. But the big 10 in the SEC, at least those two have to be on the same page. I would think that they would need at least the ACC or the big 12 to also join them because in terms of voting rights and in terms of having a voice in a room, they do need a supermajority. And the G5 conferences, although they don't have a lot of power, they can still side with the big 12 in the ACC. So that's why I think they're starting over. I think that they're looking at this saying, listen, we're not getting to an agreement. There seem to be flaws in every single system. We're not going to get to a spot given our current setup where all the teams are happy. So let's just go back to step one, go back to the drawing board. Let's try to come together and figure something out. What do I think that is? I have no idea. What I do know though is that every conference needs to be very careful because this is going to set a precedent. This is going to set the immediate future of college football into motion. And it's a very different sport than it was the last time that discussions like this were really ramping up. You have to think the last five years, when I have NIL, when I have the transfer portal, we have revenue sharing. With those changes, the formation of conferences, the formation of college football as a whole is set up to drastically change forever. You have to remember the big east was once a power conference. They no longer exist. The pack 12 was once a power conference. They're getting more respect. They are getting teams, but they are not once they are not what they were just a couple of years ago. They are not the same as when they had Oregon, Washington, USC, Utah, Arizona, Arizona state. They're not the same conferences they were. They're now filled with a bunch of state schools, Utah state, Colorado state, Fresno state, San Diego state. And so these conferences have to weigh their options on one hand. Well, when I say these conferences, I mean, everybody but the big 10 in the SEC. So every decision that's made with the big 12, the ACC, the pack 12, every other conference needs to be made with the understanding that if they make the big 10 in SEC to upset, they might just get kicked out. That's a very real reality. That is a very, very real possibility where the SEC and big 10 say,"Hey, agree with us or we're going to use our influence and sway to do a different model that is the absolute worst case scenario for you." And they can do that. They'll get away with that. And then if those teams, if those conferences start to fall apart, they can then pick up any team they want or just let the conference style as a whole. So what do I think is going to happen? I think the conferences are going to come together. I think one or two things is going to happen. I think either first the conferences are going to come together. And they're going to agree to the 5 plus 11 model. I think this is the one model that every commissioner could get behind. Every conference could get behind and say, "Yes, let's get an automatic qualifying spot just in case we have a bad season or whatever." And then there's 11 at large. I think for that to happen, the big 10 would demand that the SEC goes to nine conference games or they would demand that everybody goes to eight conference games. Personally, I kind of like the idea of eight conference games because I like to see more out of conference play. I think the strength of schedule argument loses a lot of credibility when every conference is only playing one game against another P4 team. Meaning Texas Tech is only playing one P4 opponent outside of the big 12. And that's all you kind of have to go off of. So I think getting two of those games or even three of those games. I love the concept of you play eight conference games as a big 12 team. Then you play one SEC school, one big 10 school, one ACC school. Hey, let's make it one pack 12 schools while. So that's who you play. And everybody plays in that formation. That's going to give a huge sample size. That's going to really let teams around the country know who is actually the best, which conferences are stronger and kind of go from there because what we're constantly seeing what we've seen the last couple of well, the last couple sports just this year is that the SEC starts off super hot. And then they seem to cool off in the post season. We saw them in college basketball. We've seen that in college baseball. I think I haven't figured out at least to an extent early in the season, especially with the transfer portal. You have teams still geling. You have teams still figuring out who they are. And the SEC clearly has the most talent. And so in a competition between two teams, raw talent is going to beat less raw talent every time. Now as these teams develop, as these teams grow as a team, they start to jelz a team by the end of the season. Yes, you might have a team that has more talent per se, but they're not going to always beat the team. That's a better team. And so when you get, so that's why in the SEC, you saw teams just below through their non-conference, just blast everybody. They won basically every single game. And then they got to March madness. And we're losing a bunch of games. And then in the college world series, you saw an unprecedented amount of teams who are hosting region regionals, by the way, losing their games. It's because of this reason, because once they get to the postseason, those teams that they were beating before have now jelz, they've now figured things out. They've now become better teams. And they're able to compete with the SEC right now within nine game schedule or only playing one game. There's, I believe, and I wrote it on it. I had the, and my notes from another episode. I think there's only three big 12 teams that are playing in SEC opponent. There's only three. So there's only going to be three opportunities to see a kind of a sample of how the big 12 stands up to the SEC. And those aren't always fair. You know, you might get, well, just as an example, you have Oklahoma State playing Oregon. You have possibly the worst big 12 team playing possibly the best big 10 team on the road. I mean, there's going to be, it's not fair, but there's going to be a narrative. I'll see the big 10 is better than the SEC because Oregon just be Oklahoma State at home. Even though Oregon's the best team in Oklahoma State is clearly not. You can kind of see where I'm going here. So I think the five plus 11 model with the condition of eight conference games. We can work out how to do the other non conference games later. I think that's option one or everybody goes to nine conference games. I don't like that model as much. You're already not playing a bunch of teams. What's one last anyways? I think option two is they say, Hey, let's play this year out. Okay, we changed the format a little bit where it's no longer the top four seeds are the four highest conference champions. They are just the four high strength teams. Let's see how this goes for a year. If we love it, maybe we'll keep it. And if we don't love it, well, we can change it after December 1st. Well, I guess after January 14th when the National Championship game is next year, they've already thrown out ideas. They have concepts ready to go. They have a knowledge of what conferences are and aren't willing to do as far as negotiation pieces go. It appears that the big 12 and ACC are at a firm no to the 4422 model. Would they consider it a 4433? Would they consider it a 3322? I'm not entirely sure, but it does appear to the 4422 is is out at least for right now. Now again, that could change. If the ACC in big 12, each only get one team in this year and would have only gotten one team in a 16 team playoff as well, then maybe they look at themselves in the mirror and they say, you know what, we hate to be less than the big 10. We hate to be less than the SEC. We especially hate to admit it. But let's at least get two teams in a year because only getting one team in is awful. Let's not do that. So maybe they do come back in exterior and say, yeah, let's let's go ahead and go the 4422. I don't know. We'll have to see what ends up coming out of this because it's it's very surprising, but also not surprising that after weeks and months of discussions and everybody having their own ideas and this almost assumption that we would be at a landing spot by now is both surprising and not surprising that we're sitting here on June 18th and we're getting the news that yeah, we're we're going to start over because we're clearly not going to agree on anything that's currently on the table. So again, I think one of two things going to happen. You're either going to go to a 5 plus 11 model, but everybody's playing the same amount of conference games or I think they table it for another year. They say, you know what, we're just going to do one more year at the 12 team playoff. We're going to see how it goes if we like it then we'll just keep doing it. I do think that there has been some momentum lately. I know Josh Pate as an example for a few other people mentioned that there's momentum to not going to 16 all of a sudden. There seems to be this idea of why are we going to 16? We don't need 16. Instead, maybe what we do is we have automatic qualifying spots within conferences. And so the conference tournaments, which aren't like your your typical, you know, multi-round tournaments, but more of a the one plays the four, the two plays the three, the two winners go to the playoff and then, you know, maybe get an at-large spot or whatever. That seems to be gaining some more traction, which in a way expands the playoff. It technically doesn't because it's not the playoff. It's just a conference championship weekend set of games, but it would expand it in that win and you are in the tournament, lose and you're hoping for not large. So a week ago, I would have told you it's about a 98% chance we go to a 16 team model. In fact, I had even said publicly on this show. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. I'm not so sure anymore. I would put it maybe at an 85% now. Now, that's still really high. That's still a comfortable statement to say we're probably going to 16, but it's not a short thing anymore and it's definitely trending towards not happening. Now, like trend does not mean it's not going to. It doesn't mean it's probably not going to. It just means if this momentum continues, we might end up tabling this for a year. Personally, I wouldn't hate tabling it for a year right now because I think that we're coming off of a year where the big 10 and the SEC had a very strong year. Yes, I realize that the SEC would not say they had a strong year, but they did. And the big 12 didn't have the strongest year. The problem with the big 12 is that their best teams came out of nowhere. So by the time they became relevant, it was already so late in the season and by the time they lost one or two games, they were essentially out of the conversation again. I think this season, if you have the suspected good teams actually play good this year, so you have Iowa State play really well. You have BYU play really well. You have Arizona State once again in the conversation. They're going to remain relevant and in the rankings, even with the loss or two. The problem last year was that the Oklahoma State versus Utah game early in the season. I think it was week three. That was viewed as the conference championship preview. These are the two best teams. They're playing each other. They're probably going to be playing each other again at the end of the season. So here's round one. They ended up being two teams that were not even in the picture by the middle of the season. So I think that's one thing. I think the big 12 didn't set themselves up last year to be successful. And I think the ACC did the same thing with Florida State just falling off the cliff last year. That didn't help the image of the ACC. I think SMU winning the conference. Sorry, they did not win the conference, but they were the best team in the conference. And Clemson kind of came in through the back door. I think that hurt the ACC. And so what you had is you had the SEC and big 10 have good seasons. You had the big 12 and ACC have a bunch of surprise teams and the good teams didn't end up being that good. And so it's created to this off season narrative of let's give four automatic qualifiers to the SEC and big 10 and only two to the big 12 in the ACC. I think if you flip things next year, you have Clemson do really, really well. You have Arizona State play really well. You have Iowa State, some combination of Iowa State, BYU and this state also up there as well as SMU who's no longer a dark horse as well as Georgia Tech who now has a pulse as well as Miami. Then I think we could get to next off season when they look at things and say, Oh, why were we thinking of a 4 4 2 2 we should. If we're going to do that, let's get a 4 4 3 3 or 3 3 2 2 because those two conferences clearly aren't as bad as we suspected they were. So either way, this is big news. College football playoff talks are restarting. Isn't this fun? It's June 18th and we're talking about the college football playoff, which if I'm not mistaken, it's about seven months away from now for for this next upcoming season. So we've got we've got a while to go before bowl games and while we've still got about 70 days for the football season to start. So if you like today's show, please like, subscribe, leave that five star review. I really appreciate it. I'll catch you tomorrow. Bye.