Big 12 chief fires back at SEC over 'lecture' comments, playoff format

Some minor bad blood surfaced between college football’s major conferences in recent days amid the continued debate on how to expand and shape the College Football Playoff.

It resulted in something of an indirect exchange between the head of the SEC and his counterparts in the Big 12 and ACC, when commissioner Greg Sankey said he didn’t need “lectures from others about the good of the game.”

That certainly sounded like a shot across the bow at Brett Yormark and Jim Phillips.

“I agreed with Greg’s follow-up statement that I’d be entertained by it, and I was,” Yormark said at the close of the Big 12 spring meetings.

“We all have thick skin here, but the neat thing about our relationship amongst the commissioners is we’re going to battle. That’s part of life. We’re going to agree to disagree. 

“We’re kind of in that mode right now, but I have a lot of respect for my peers, and I know they have a lot of respect for me and Jim, and we’ll end up in the right place.”

Until now, the right place has been defined differently by the SEC and Big Ten on one side and the Big 12 and ACC on the other.

The first two conferences have been leaning towards a playoff format in which they receive four automatic qualifiers each, while awarding two each to the other leagues, a proposal they naturally didn’t take to.

The other idea, the so-called “5+11” format, would give automatic places to the four Power Four conference champions and the champion of the highest-ranked mid-major, with the 11 remaining places selected by the College Football Playoff committee.

Yormark predictably sides with the 5+11 model.

So, incidentally, do the SEC football coaches, in a reported point of disagreement with their superiors.

“Certainly the public is voting yes for it, which I think is critically important, and it’s a very good sign,” he said.

“And yes, the Big Ten and SEC are leading the discussions, but with leading those discussions, they have a great responsibility that goes with it, to do what’s right for college football and not to do anything that just benefits two conferences.

“I have a lot of faith in the process, and I think we’ll end in the right place.”

Yormark admitted it may seem counterintuitive to lobby for a model that gives his conference just one guaranteed playoff bid rather than two, but he prefers a system that determines postseason access based on what happens on the field.

“The 5+11 might not be ideal for the conference, but it’s good for college football and it’s what’s fair,” he said.

“And we don’t want any gimmees. We want to earn it on the field, and that was the direction of the key stakeholder group, the ADs and the coaches, and I feel comfortable with that. And I feel the same way, and I’ve been very outspoken about it.”

Whatever happens will have to be decided by the first day of December to lock in the College Football Playoff format under its new contract, but everyone hopes a final verdict will be in before the start of this football season.

Whether that actually happens is another matter.

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