Who’s in? Since the College Football Playoff debuted in 2014, there have been countless hours spent and words spoken pondering the possibilities before, during and even after the season. Speculating about which teams will make the Playoff can be a bit much in mid-September, but those debates have become an integral part of college football. The subjectivity baked into the process of determining a national champion, a longstanding tradition in the sport, is both maddening and alluring.
There is a reason why the CFP selection committee releases a month’s worth of essentially meaningless Top 25s before selection Sunday. Fans love to complain about the rankings and the committee, but as long as they’re talking about college football, that’s generally viewed as a good thing.
The Big Ten and SEC appear intent on putting an end to all that, and turning the selection committee into, basically, a seeding committee, with almost all of the Playoff participants determined by a combination of conference standings and play-in games.
Commissioners Greg Sankey (SEC) and Tony Petitti (Big Ten) mostly deflected questions about potentially overhauling the CFP, starting in 2026, after the latest summit of their two conferences’ leaders in New Orleans this week but gave a few hints about where their collective heads are at.
We also have an interest, and I said this in December, in understanding selection committee decisions in the last few years. We have different views. We entrust them with that work, but there are domino effects from those selection decisions. Again, I’m not forming the agenda, but I’m identifying things that are regularly a part of our conversation with lots to understand.
That’s a tricky way to get me to commit to something that might be said in a meeting or not. So I appreciate the effort.
Plenty in SEC country took care of that for them after the conference that has dominated college football for much of the past two decades had only three teams make the first expanded field.
And so whatever pressure is there, pressure is there. But the people around the room have the best interest of the game of football in mind, the front of mind. And so structure doesn’t matter. In other words, it’s going to be pressurized anyway, just because of the concept of picking teams and ranking teams. So it’s all good. Y’all feel it, too. Y’all run y’all weekly ‘who should be where’ and then people yell at y’all, too. It’s no different than the committee.
How do we understand the function of the selection committee? Is it meeting the objectives established? How are the criteria used? You know, my members want to understand, how is strength of schedule fully evaluated in the selection room?
That’s a tricky way to get me to commit to something that might be said in a meeting or not. So I appreciate the effort.
The model that seems to have traction includes 14 teams, with four spots each going to the SEC and Big Ten, two each to the ACC and Big 12, one set aside for the best of the six other Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and one at-large spot that provides an access point for Notre Dame but could conceivably go to the highest ranked team that hasn’t already played its way in.
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