The SEC and Big Ten Are Reportedly Working on a New CFP Format That Would Include Expansion and Four Automatic Bids From Each League

Yahoo — According to most who have viewed the memorandum of understanding from last spring, the SEC and Big Ten hold sole discretion on the future CFP format starting in 2026, the beginning of the CFP’s new six-year television agreement with ESPN that runs through the 2031 playoff.

The agreement grants the leagues decision-making powers over the format but directs them to have “meaningful consultation” and collect “input” from the other conferences before making their decision.

Leaders in each conference have spent the last several weeks evolving a format idea — multiple automatic qualifiers per league — into a more realistic proposal. The 14- or 16-team model would grant four automatic qualifiers each to the SEC and Big Ten; two each to the ACC and Big 12; and one to the highest-ranked Group of Five champion. It includes one or three at-large spots, one of those intended for Notre Dame if it finishes ranked inside the top 14 — a guarantee specifically designated for the Irish that is part of the CFP memorandum.

Officials describe the 14-team format as a 4-4-2-2-1+1 model in which the top two seeds receive first-round byes. There would be no byes in a 16-team structure. In either, the CFP selection committee’s role is greatly diminished. The committee, its future — as the memorandum stipulates — also controlled by the SEC and Big Ten, would presumably seed 1 through 14 or 16 based directly on its top-25 rankings.

We're getting closer, folks. A College Football Playoff format as similar to the NFL's as we can possibly get, just what college football fans have desired for decades.

Honestly, each new update of the goings on with the College Football Playoff just makes me sad. Go ahead and get us to the 16-team, SEC- and Big Ten-controlled automatic qualifier tournament and be done with it. And actually, if you think you may want to expand past that in the future, just do that now too so we don't have to deal with these meetings and leaks every year going forward. Just take us wherever we're going so the conferences can make more money and we can hand out more participation trophies.

In a 14- or 16-team model last season, one of Alabama, Ole Miss or South Carolina would have been given the SEC's fourth automatic spot in the CFP despite all going 5-3 in conference play. I thought we had all agreed we didn't need to see any of those teams be granted the privilege of playing for a national championship, but everyone wanted to expand the Playoff and hand over control to the SEC and Big Ten, so that's what you're gonna get.

The problem with the current version of the CFP is the automatic qualifiers and byes handed to champions of lesser conferences, but that doesn't mean we need to go all the way in the other direction and have eight automatic bids from the two power leagues. If you play well enough in the regular season against a schedule worthy of inclusion, there are enough spots already for you to get in. Nobody wants this except the conferences who stand to make more guaranteed money who were also given the unfettered power to craft this system under the threat of leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. Hell of a pickle y'all have found yourselves in now, huh?

I'm all for people making money. I love money as much as the next guy. But when it comes to an American institution as sacred as the sport of college football, I would implore those in power to take a step back and assess their actions which cannot be undone and how those affect the best sport on the planet well beyond the time they will no longer be part of it.