Despite numerous potential expanded College Football Playoff formats having been floated in recent months, it seems the sport’s power brokers are no closer to settling on a 14- or 16-team playoff than they were at the beginning of this process.
Crucially, according to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s remarks at the conference’s media day on Monday, the SEC and Big Ten remain divided on how best to expand the CFP. And if the two conferences can’t agree, it looks like college football’s postseason will be staying at 12-teams for the time being.
“We have a 12-team playoff, five conference champions. That could stay if we can’t agree,” Sankey said, per NBC Sports. “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. No.”
The SEC currently supports the “5+11” model which would see the five highest-ranked conference champions earn automatic bids, while 11 spots would be determined by a selection committee. The Big Ten has proposed a format that would see them and the SEC earn four automatic berths each, while giving the ACC and Big 12 two automatic spots, along with one Group of 5 school and three at-large selections.
At issue is the amount of conference games each league plays. The Big Ten does not want to support the 5+11 format if the SEC remains at just eight conference games while it plays nine.
The conference commissioners must come to a decision by December 1 should a new format be implemented for the 2026 season, the first under ESPN’s new media rights deal. However, while CFP executive director Rich Clark told NBC Sports there is a sense of urgency to come to a resolution, nothing has to be set in stone. Clark kept the door open to additional changes should a new format need tweaking.
“It would be great to have a decision that lasted and endured throughout, but I don’t want to tie us down to that,” Clark said. “If we need to change something because we go through a season and the commissioners realize that there needs to be a tweak here and there, we need to do it. We need to have that freedom. But the fewer changes, the better. It lets fans settle in. It lets the coaches and the teams understand what they’re coming into in the postseason. A bit of consistency would be really helpful.”
At the moment, nothing seems imminent for 2026. But as we all know, that can change quickly in college football.