Headed into the start of SEC spring meetings, the Big Ten believed it had a partner in its push to transform the College Football Playoff into something more akin to the NFL.
The Big Ten and SEC have grown significantly closer over the last year, having orchestrated a takeover of the College Football Playoff that gives them say over whether and how the format will change for 2026 and beyond.
The two conferences strengthened the bond with historic conference meetups — first in Nashville in October 2024 and then in New Orleans in February. At those meetings, the Big Ten’s preference to move to more automatic qualifiers — four each for the Big Ten and SEC, two each for the ACC and Big 12 — began to resonate with an SEC contingent that had previously resisted.
Those involved in the discussions and participants in the meetings say once Big Ten leaders laid out the reasoning for a move to more automatic qualifiers — chief among them taking away power from a perceived inconsistent selection committee process and allowing for better non-conference scheduling — it gained traction within the SEC. The Big Ten believed a move to more automatic bids would lessen the selection committee “conflicting itself week-to-week,” according to one source familiar with the discussions, and allow for consistency that it didn’t think was possible for a 13-person group that changed its membership year-over-year.
“Make it about how you compete against your conference and take out any sort of perceived bias or politicking and campaigning and let it play out how each conference thinks is best for them,” is how one Big Ten source explained the pitch.
Still undecided, SEC holds the key to College…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/why-sec-is-drifting-from-aq-heavy-college-football-playoff-format-what-it-means-for-big-ten-relationship/
Author : John Talty
Publish date : 2025-06-03 16:04:00
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