Is there a perfect system for selecting College Football Playoff participants?
The past and future format of the playoffs was a topic of discussion at the annual Fiesta Bowl Spring Summit at the Hyatt Regency Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale on Wednesday. The event brought together representatives from all 16 Big 12 schools for the first time since the sweeping realignment that will feature the addition of the “Four Corners” schools – Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah for the upcoming school year.
Basketball and football coaches met with Big 12 representatives earlier in the week.
Wednesday’s panel discussing the College Football Playoff included Bill Hancock, who has served as executive director of the CFP since its inception, Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark and football coach from Nebraska, Matt Ruhle. It was moderated by Heather Dinich, ESPN’s senior college football editor.
The CFP will expand from four to 12 teams in the upcoming season, with the possibility of going to 14 as early as 2026. As far as Yormark is concerned, more is better. He also advocated that the popular NCAA men’s basketball tournament expand beyond the current 68 teams.
12-team vs. 14-team College Football Playoff format
“If we end up getting to 14 and we can make the championship experience even better for more teams and more student-athletes, that’s great,” Yormark said. “I’m going to keep betting on the Big 12 that we’re going to take some of those spots overall. In theory, more is more. More is good, but the proof is in the details and I’m looking forward to it to see how this year at 12 will go.”
But Yormark said he would like to see the pros and cons of the 12-team format before trying to tweak it.
The 12-team format will use automatic bidding for winners from the five top-ranked conferences, supplemented by seven at-large bids, with the four seeded teams earning first-round byes.
The proposed 14-team format would provide three automatic bids to the Big Ten and SEC and two bids to the ACC and Big 12, with one spot reserved for the top-ranked Group of Six team, supplemented by three at-large bids . .
Support for an expanded playoff has grown in recent years, bolstered even further by this year’s exclusion of Florida State, which won the ACC, went undefeated but failed to secure a place.
Public reaction leads to expansion
Hancock, who just stepped down as executive director, said the crucial factor in the committee’s decision was FSU quarterback Jordan Travis’ season-ending injury. He called the backlash he and the committee received “vicious,” to the point that committee members were assigned extra security until the furore subsided.
Asked which years were the most difficult to spread across four teams, Hancock said last season as well as the first in 2014 included Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Florida State. Ohio.
Asked about public misconceptions about the selection process, Hancock said one is that the committee selects teams to avoid rematches. He said that was not the case because it would conflict with the “integrity” of the process.
While the Big 12 took a hit with the departure of Oklahoma and Texas, Yormark remains positive. He continues to push for his conference, which won’t have the same appeal as the so-called powerhouses of the SEC and Big Ten. The Big 12 is expected to receive less revenue shares than the Big Ten, SEC and ACC starting in 2026. The conference is expected to earn a 15% share of CFP revenue ($12 million per team per year), well below the Big Ten and SEC (29%) and just below the ACC (17%).
“I definitely wasn’t happy with the distribution,” Yormark said. “I guess you could say in some ways I was happy. It was good, but definitely not happy. I don’t think our athletic directors or our coaches are (happy) either, but we’re going to continue to investing for the right reasons. We will continue to grow football. It is at the heart of what we do and I am excited about our future.
Yormark called for a review clause in the CFP contract in 2028, which would allow for a reassessment of the economic aspects of the contract, believing that by then his conference would have strengthened his case for more equal treatment.
“I believe if you create value, you should be rewarded,” he said. “When you look at the first 10 years of the CFP, we probably haven’t done as well as we would have liked. That’s OK. History may not repeat itself, and that’s why we did this review I made a point to include this because I’m betting on the Big 12 and I’m betting on our future, I hope that by 28 we can perform at the level that. we will be really proud and that we can then exercise this vision based on our performance.
