The Big Ten holds the cards, and it’s showing the SEC its hand.
The numbers are 12 or 24.
“We’ve had zero conversation about 16 (playoff teams),” Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said at the conference’s spring meetings in California.
Advertisement
That’s the line in the sand.
If the SEC wants to expand the College Football Playoff, then the number is 24, a number set by Petitti.
Or, the playoff can stay at 12 teams, a format the Big Ten has dominated in its brief existence.
Petitti’s hardball stance amounts to a move ripped from the Greg Sankey playbook.
Indiana running back Roman Hemby carries the ball past Alabama defensive back Domani Jackson during the 2026 Rose Bowl in the College Football Playoff quarterfinals at Rose Bowl Stadium.
Big Ten steals SEC’s power-move playbook
You’ll remember a few years ago, Sankey held the best cards in playoff expansion talks. The SEC’s commissioner wasn’t afraid to use them.
When other conference commissioners supported an eight-team playoff that included six automatic bids for conference champions, Sankey erected a firewall.
Advertisement
Sankey laid out three options:
1. Status quo of a four-team playoff, which the SEC dominated.
2. An eight-team playoff with no automatic bids and only at-large selections.
3. A 12-team playoff that’d include a mix of automatic and at-large bids.
The eight-team playoff, with six AQs, died on the vine because the SEC vehemently opposed it.
After some squabbling, Option 3 emerged as the winner.
Now, the shoe has switched feet, and the Big Ten is setting the terms for the playoff’s size.
The SEC must choose between a format the Big Ten rules (12) or an expansion model the Big Ten suggested (24), instead of the format SEC headquarters prefers (16, including 11 at-large bids).
Advertisement
So much for the SEC-B1G buddy group the conferences announced two years ago, in a pledge to team up to solve problems together.
Petitti, a former MLB Network executive, took the reins of the Big Ten in 2023. He swiftly learned college athletics is a get-mine business and no place for friendship bracelets.
A 24-team College Football Playoff? No thanks
I’m opposed to a 24-team bracket. It would turn an already long playoff into a five-round affair and bulldoze the playoff’s exclusivity, by opening access to 8-4 teams.
Most importantly, it would devalue the greatest regular season in all of sports.
Petitti likes to point to MLB’s playoff expansion — it went from eight to 10 to ultimately 12 teams — as a model for the CFP.
Advertisement
He’s comparing apples to oranges. It’s absurd to compare a sport with a 162-game regular season and a full complement of games each day to a sport with a 12-game regular season that turns each fall Saturday into appointment viewing.
College basketball serves as a better comparison for what Petitti attempts to do to college football.
In a rare act of teamwork, Sankey and Petitti helped muscle through March Madness expansion to 76 teams. College basketball’s regular season is low-stakes filler. At 76 teams, a power-conference team might need only to finish barely above .500 to earn tournament selection. The college basketball diehards watch throughout a monthslong regular season, but most folks wander in when March arrives, as the postseason nears.
Hey, that works for college basketball, which is a tournament sport. College football is distinctly not a tournament sport. It’s always been more of a rivalry-Saturday kind of a sport, where every outcome matters.
Will SEC cave to Big Ten demands?
Although I object Petitti’s vision for the playoff, I understand why he’s not motivated to meet in the middle at 16. He’s paid to represent the Big Ten, and a 16-team bracket would be a greater benefit to the SEC, based on recent history.
Advertisement
Plus, a mega-sized playoff like the 24-teamer the Big Ten supports would allow Fox, its media rights partner, a chance at getting a piece of the playoff pie.
ESPN, the SEC’s media partner and CFP rights holder, prefers a playoff of no more than 16.
With Petitti’s line in the sand drawn, next week’s SEC spring meetings will test Sankey’s power and mettle. They’ll also offer a peek at what size playoff the conference’s presidents and chancellors prefer. Those campus administrators are the quiet but powerful brokers in these negotiations, more so than coaches or athletic directors.
Consider the SEC a company where Sankey functions as CEO serving at the pleasure of the presidents and chancellors, who operate as the company’s board of directors.
Advertisement
Georgia president Jere Morehead, an influential voice among the SEC’s presidents and chancellors, told The Athletic a 24-team playoff would be “a mistake.” Morehead added he thinks the SEC’s university brass will follow Sankey’s guidance.
Can Sankey persuade the SEC’s presidents and chancellors to stay at 12 teams, if 16 isn’t possible? At 12 teams, the SEC doesn’t face a playoff access problem. It received more bids to the 12-team bracket in two years than any other conference. Playoff performance has become the SEC’s issue, a problem that’s not inherently solved by expansion.
A 24-team playoff likely would end conference championship games. If Sankey could convince university administrators the SEC championship game is a sacred cash cow worth saving, that might extend the life of the 12-team playoff.
Don’t expect a solution at the SEC meetings, but they’ll be a bellwether of the conference’s latest playoff mood.
Advertisement
The Big Ten discarded the 16-team option. The SEC has six months to decide which card to choose from the Big Ten’s hand: 12 or 24.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s senior national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: SEC’s College Football Playoff plans for 16 teams boxed out by Big Ten
