The knives are starting to come out with the latest talks around expansion of the College Football Playoff and just how much power the Power 2 conferences of the Big Ten and SEC will hold. And it may be more power than anyone is comfortable with, not just in college football but in congress as well.
The Big Ten and SEC have undoubtedly won the recent rounds of conference realignment and separated themselves from the rest of their power conference brethren. They now have the vast majority of top schools, top brands, and top television dollars. And they are doing everything they can to concentrate their power and influence over the sport of college football.
That is especially the case with the latest rounds of College Football Playoff talk where a specific proposal to guarantee each mega conference up to four automatic bids is getting nuked by everyone outside the Big Ten and SEC. Not only that, but a bizarre 16 team format with double byes and a first four is totally nonsensical, but only further works to the advantage of the power conferences who can then schedule their own lucrative play-in games. The hard feelings are boiling over in public with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey sending a not-so-veiled shot to the ACC and Big XII.
Unfortunately for the other conferences that exist in college football, they may be powerless to stop it. There was a “memorandum of understanding” signed last year that gives the Big Ten and SEC near autonomous control over the CFP format because of their outsized power in the sport. Unless someone else steps in to stop it – like congress.
That’s where Pennsylvania representative Brendan Boyle comes in.
The Democratic ranking member of the House Budget committee sent a stark warning to the SEC and the Big Ten and called for congressional hearings into what he called “collusion” between the two conferences.
Let me state this as clearly as I can: the @bigten and @sec should be very, very careful about some of the decisions they are about to make. Because they appear hellbent on ruining major college football. I think they need congressional hearings into their collusion.
— Congressman Brendan Boyle (@RepBrendanBoyle) May 26, 2025
From the latest CFP tensions to congress’ involvement with paying players and a White House commission on college football that is on-again and off-again, it seems like the sport is hanging on by a thread. The house of cards that is holding college football together could fall apart at any moment.
The point of acquiescing to the desires of the Power 2 as it comes to the upcoming College Football Playoff format was to prevent them from breaking away and staging their own playoff in the first place. If pressure grows from inside the sport or from congress, what’s to stop them from doing so? The Big Ten and SEC already have the networks and the finances in place. And both conferences have the vast majority of the top schools in the sport. If congress wants to investigate them for collusion, they might as well smile, say “guilty as charged!” and then walk away to form their own super league of college football. And they could claim they were forced to do so.
Wherever this does eventually end, it’s looking increasingly likely that it’s going to get ugly. And it’s increasingly likely that it’s not going to have the best interests of the sport in mind.
About Matt Yoder