Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark Has Choice Words on Proposed New College Football Playoffs Format

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Nick Meyer | Last updated Jun 12, 2025 11:49 PM ET

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark's league has undergone significant changes in recent years as top schools Oklahoma and Texas have left and others including the Colorado Buffaloes, Arizona State Sun Devils and BYU Cougars have joined up.

The Big 12 is a different conference compared to what most fans grew up watching, but remains one of the best in America heading into the 2025-26 college football season.

Recently, a proposed new format for the upcoming season was revealed, showing favor on the Big Ten and SEC conferences as part of a '4-4-2-2' format providing four guaranteed College Football Playoff slots to the Big Ten and SEC and two each to the ACC and Yormark's league.

On Thursday, Yormark's initial thoughts on the situation were revealed, painting the picture of a man who was thoroughly disappointed with the recent proposal.

"I didn't like it," Yormark said when asked about the proposed new format.

"And obviously that model's been out there for almost a year now, and I didn't like it because I just felt that it created a huge divide between us and those two conferences.

"Now as you guys know I have good self-awareness, I know where we reside in the world of college football, but I just felt that it put a line in the sand that didn't need to be there.

"I'm a firm believer in that if you create value you should be rewarded, earn it on the field, every year's a new year," Yormark added, saying that recent revenue sharing measures in college football should create "a level playing field across the board."

"I didn't like it. I felt like it created a huge divide between us & [the Big Ten & SEC]."@Big12Conference Commissioner Brett Yormark shares his thoughts on the rumored College Football Playoff format, which gives the Big Ten & SEC a combined eight teams in the Playoff.… pic.twitter.com/hE9HXvER69
— The Triple Option (@3xOptionShow) June 11, 2025