College football is about to undergo even more significant adjustments. With at least four automatic bids for each of the two main conferences, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and the Big Ten are advocating for a 14- or 16-team College Football Playoff, which is expected to begin in 2026 or 2027.
You would wake up to a sport that was entirely different from where it was if you had spent the previous ten years in a coma. Even if the damage is been done, it will only get worse.
Sankey has hinted that the SEC may be kicked out of the NCAA completely. Fans of the sport have not benefited from any of the decisions that have been taken in recent years.
There will never be enough space on the playoff pitch to please everyone. Alabama has always been at the forefront of playoff expansion.
There was always going to be a playoff, but when Alabama faced LSU again for the BCS championship in 2011, the process was greatly sped up. Even though it was clear that the SEC had the two greatest teams in the nation, conference leaders from other conferences couldn’t tolerate that both teams were from the league when only two teams had a chance to compete for the national championship.
The SEC only received three teams in the 12-team playoff field this past season, which led to further expansion and format adjustments. Last season, teams like SMU and Indiana, which had considerably inferior schedules overall, received a bid over Alabama, and the Crimson Tide was the first team eliminated from the playoffs.
At the time, we warned you that Greg Byrne, the Alabama AD, and Sankey would not sit quietly by and watch the snub. Following that committee decision, changes were constantly occurring.
The SEC schedule may not have nine games.
Many anticipate that the league would ultimately give in and switch to a nine-game schedule once a new framework for the College Football Playoff has been agreed upon, especially if it includes guaranteed berths for the SEC. Financially, it’s always made sense; Sankey would naturally want a ninth game to increase income.
However, until the playoff qualifying requirements are outlined in a way that doesn’t penalise you for losing to superior teams, he will only receive pushback from his member schools.
At the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Sankey stated, “You have a team that played four games against teams with 6-6 records last year that got in.” Nobody from the top of their conference was chosen for another team’s game.
“And it is evident that, in many respects, winning becomes more significant than defeating the University of Georgia, which two of our teams failed to do.”
Both Alabama and Ole Miss, who defeated Georgia but finished 9-3, are mentioned by Sankey. For the sake of fairness, Kalen DeBoer and Lane Kiffin were doomed by more than just the quantity of losses. They lost to that person.
Vanderbilt and Oklahoma, two teams with six regular season defeats, defeated Alabama in two games. Louisville defeated Ole Miss 4–8. You cannot lose those games and still claim that you should have been in the playoffs. The only person you can blame is yourself.
This is not to argue that neither team was more worthy than Indiana or SMU. Those teams got away with mediocre schedules and were never truly required to defeat any notable opponents. Despite what supporters of other leagues would like to think, the SEC grind is distinct.
In the end, Sankey might be the antagonist in this tale. Without a question, fans outside of the SEC will be watching him. However, Sankey is prepared to fulfil this position in order to guarantee favourable treatment for the league that has controlled the sport for the past 25 years.
