The SEC and Big Ten don’t know what they’re doing with the College Football Playoff. Greg Sankey and Tony Petitti jumped into expansion with 12 teams this past year while not thinking of any of the unintended consequences of their format, and every attempt to rectify the flaw has other glaring unintended consequences.
At issue for the leagues are unfair seeding, the number of marquee non-conference games and the the value of conference championship games. Not one proposal from this week addresses one of the problems without making one of the other problem worse.
On Wednesday, the two leagues, who hold all the cards in this event, met and reportedly came out in favor of changing the seeding format this upcoming year, according to ESPN. Rather than give the top four seeds to the top four conference champions, Sankey and Petitti are proposing a straight 1-12 seeding.
They’ll destroy their own conference championship games by doing that.
Think about it. This past year, the top four seeds were the four teams to play for the SEC and Big Ten championships. Why would any of those teams put any effort in that game if they were a lock to reach the College Football Playoff and a lock to get a first-round bye anyway. This is effectively a double-bye.
Once that happened, the networks would be livid.
At the same time, the seeding is flawed. This format rewarded lower seeds. It was better to be the 5-seed or 6-seed, playing a non-SEC or Big Ten champion through the first two rounds, than to be a No. 1 seed where you would play a better Big Ten or SEC team in the next round.
It already devalued the league title games. What was the point of trying to win the SEC or Big Ten championship game if you were already in the College Football Playoff and the higher seed would give you the tougher path we’re talking about? It was absurd. Seeding 1-12 outright, though, would devalue them worse.
Before Wednesday’s suggestion, though, Ross Dellenger of Yahoo reported Sunday that the SEC and Big Ten were already making moves to further expand the CFP to 14 or 16 teams after this contract is up, which is at the end of this year. In that article was another series of short-sighted proposals.
With the Big Ten strong-arming this move, automatic bids per conference was the proposal. The top four from the SEC and Big Ten would get in, the top two from the ACC and Big 12, one Group of Five team and one at-large team would be the 14.
In the process, the SEC and Big Ten would move from conference championship games to play-in games, where the 4th and 5th teams would play for the final automatic spot in the CFP. One idea behind this is it would no longer scare teams away from scheduling marquee non-conference games.
How are non-conference games ever marquee, though, if all that matters is your conference standing? What’s the point of playing them? You’ll see coaches rest their starters in those games as well once it becomes clear it won’t affect what happens with their College Football Playoff hopes.
Leaders of all the conferences will meed next week at a CFP gathering. Maybe there’s a formula to protect everything these leagues care about to the highest degree, but the combination of conference realignment and the nature of football make that extremely hard. This was always a warning about expansion. Now, expansion is here, and all the SEC and Big Ten can do is chase their tails and react.
