The College Football Playoff could remain at 12 teams if the Southeastern Conference and Big Ten can’t come to an agreement, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said Monday.
“That’s fine,” Sankey said as SEC media days kicked off in Atlanta. “We have a 12-team playoff, five conference champions. That can stay if we can’t agree.”
Coaches in the SEC would like to see a 16-team playoff that follows the “5+11” model, made up of the five highest-ranked conference champions and 11 at-large bids.
The Big Ten has proposed a format where the Big Ten and SEC would each get four automatic bids, with two going to both the ACC and Big 12 and one more to the highest-ranked champion of another conference. The rest of the field — either 14 or 16 teams — would come from at-large bids.
“We had a different view coming out of (SEC meetings) around the notion of allocations, if you will,” Sankey said, referring to automatic bids. “I think you’ll probably hear that again from our coaches. The Big Ten has a different view, that’s fine.”
Although all sides at least seem to favor increasing the size of the field, Sankey said it’s not a foregone conclusion.
“I think there’s this notion that there has to be this magic moment and something has to happen with expansion, and it has to be forced,” he said.
There is a Dec. 1 deadline to determine a format for the CFP in 2026 and beyond.
–Field Level Media
