The question of expansion for the college football playoff is going to stay on hold for another month, and likely longer. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told the media his member schools are in no hurry to decide what expansion might look like, and so it is fine if everyone pumps the brakes for now.
SEC Pumps the Brakes on College Football Playoff Expansion
The SEC is having its annual meetings with athletic directors, school presidents, and coaches in Destin Beach, Florida.
Sankey led off the meetings on Monday with a question-and-answer session with the media. “I do not anticipate any decisions on the College Football Playoff — just so we’re clear, so we can tamp that down,” Sankey told the media. “We have time. We’ll have informed discussion.”
Sankey said he wanted to make it clear that he is not an opponent of expanding from the current 12-team format to either 24 or even 28 schools. The commissioners from the ACC, Big 10, and Big 12 have already come out in support of expanding the field to 24 schools starting next year. Last week, Big 10 commissioner Tony Petitti said he was opposed to going from 12 to 16, even though the original suggestion for that number was his two months ago. Sankey came out in favor of the 16-team formula last week. Petitti said he wants the expansion to 24 teams, and that the backup plan would be to stay at 12 teams.
That makes the SEC the last of the P4 schools to hold out on the expansion to 24. Sankey was unbothered by the prospect of holding up the expansion process. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “People tell me that [that they are the last holdout], but I don’t know if you pay attention in college sports. Positions seem to change a lot.”
There is also a large-scale likelihood that there will not be uniformity among the SEC schools on the size and level of expansion. The Big 10 trumpeted its support with one voice following its meetings in Palos Verdes Estates, CA, last week. Sankey acknowledged that there are different opinions within his conference, based in part on where schools stand with scheduling out-of-conference rivalry games late in the season, or the potential elimination of conference championship games.
Sankey still would not commit to dropping the conference championship games in order to expand the playoff calendar. He said he wants to focus on the potential changes to the schedule on a broad scope. “When you start to quantify, you look at a certain number,” he said. “What are games that may have mattered in a smaller number under the scarcity principles of 12? Where you go to 24, and maybe one or two of those games don’t matter in the same way.”
Earlier this month, the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) came out in favor of the 24-team playoff. But the support was thrown in as part of a larger scale of pressing issues that the coaches wanted to see addressed by the powers-that-be. The priority for the coaches was the calendar, with the championship game going all the way into the third week of January, potentially starting the season earlier, and the portal window. Endorsing the 24-team playoff was added to the list. As one coach told Last Word at the time, “The playoff expansion is going to happen anyway. The coaches have no ability to stop that. So let’s make sure we are getting other things that do matter to us, like a change in the calendar. There would only be a few teams playing the first and second week in January, and the rest will have moved on to what’s next.”
There are meetings scheduled in June for the executive committee of the College Football Playoff, including the four P4 commissioners. It is possible there is no agreement at that point either. Sankey pointed out that the real deadline to decide for the 2027 season is December 1st. It is at that point that the television partners need to be informed. If the expansion stays at 12 or goes to 14, ESPN would still have the exclusive rights to all the games. That would not be the case if it expanded to 24.
Main Image: Maria Lysaker-Imagn Images
