Playoff Expansion Debate Pits SEC Against Big Ten in Power Struggle

There will be a lot of news, rumors and opinions over the next two months about where college sports, specifically college football, is headed.

Not just because sports writers have to write about something even when their teams are done playing for the school year, but because what is about to happen will have consequences we can’t imagine.

Also, because there might be a war brewing between college football’s two biggest, most powerful conferences: the Big Ten and SEC. No, this war won’t be settled on the gridiron. It’ll be settled in a large conference room with the conference’s decision-makers on opposite sides of the table.

Or maybe even in a courtroom. Or in a hearing room at the US Capitol.

And it all centers around what the next college football playoff will look like.

The Big Ten favors the 4-4-2-2-1-3 playoff model (side note, got to come up with a shorter name), where the Big Ten and SEC each get four automatic bids, the Big 12 and ACC get two each, a Group of 5 automatic bid and three at-large bids.

Before the SEC Spring Meetings, it appeared the SEC favored that model, too. Now, it appears there’s been a shift and that is where the unalignment is happening.

The 5+11 model is gaining a lot of traction amongst SEC decision-makers (with a big push from its coaches). That model would give the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12 and Group of 5 one automatic bid each. The other 11 spots would go the next-best 11 teams.

There are a lot of reasons why each conference prefers a specific model.

The Big Ten sees a way for adding a conference play-in game for two of its automatic bids in the 4-4-2-2-1-3 model. The SEC does too and would likely add a ninth conference game. We all know why they’d want that right? Money.

The ACC and Big 12 likely see that model as unfair and the 5+11 model levels the playing field for the non-SEC and Big Ten conferences.

What will complicate matters exponentially if the SEC and Big Ten can’t come to a consensus on which model to move forward with, is that memorandum of understanding the conference signed that gives the SEC and Big Ten power to shape the next college football playoff.

If the biggest conferences in college football can’t agree on what to do, we’ll see a war. What that war will look like? Nobody knows.

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