I immediately wanted to disagree with this but honestly the logic is kinda sound. I think 25-30 is a ln exaggeration but the theory is sound
SEC/Big10 Pushing for 16 Team Playoff
- Thread starter Flyforcy
- Start date
I would just let those two conferences eject and do their own thing. That’s what they want. If you really want to pile up losses by playing in a 28 team league, be my guest. The networks still need content and will pay for it. There’s no reason to let them boss you around and lord their power.
Might as well eject them in all sports, not just football. If they’re going to be bringing in more money from football the other sports will also have an unfair advantage (see wrestling).
NFL has more parity and those playoffs seem to be more watered down too.
I'm all for a David/Goliath type of upset situation but it's going to be super rare especially when you give teams 2-3 weeks to prepare for a playoff game vs. the regular season when things can get weird in a week to week basis.
Cody Campbell/Nick Saban 16-team Playoff based on ESPN's current 2025 Top 25 pre-season rankings and 7 10-team conferences (9-game round robin scheduling) plus ND as Indy. G5 has separate 8-team playoff with championship game on NYD:
ESPN (5/9/25)
1 Penn State (B10 Champ)
2 Clemson (ACC Champ)
3 Texas (SWC Champ)
4 Georgia (SEC Champ)
5 Ohio St (B10 At-Large)
6 LSU (SEC At-Large)
7 Notre Dame (Indy At-Large)
8 Oregon (PAC 10 Champ)
9 Alabama (SEC At-Large)
10 BYU (Big Country Champ)
11 Illinois (B10 At-Large)
12 Arizona St (PAC10 At-Large)
13 South Carolina (ACC At-Large)
14 Iowa State (Big Country At-Large)
15 SMU (SWC At-Large)
16 Miami FL (Big East Champ)
7 Conference Champs & Top Seeded At-Large Host First Round Games (replacing Conference Championship Games) with no conference rematches:
SMU at Penn State
Iowa State at Clemson
South Carolina at Texas
Arizona State at Georgia
Alabama at Ohio State
Illinois at Oregon
Notre Dame at BYU
LSU at Miami FL
Teams are re-bracketed based on seeds for quarter finals and play two weeks later (before Christmas) at bowl venues (assuming higher seeds win in first round). NFL can move their 3rd weekend in December Saturday games to 2nd weekend with no CFB:
Oregon vs Penn State
Notre Dame vs Clemson
LSU vs Texas
Ohio St vs Georgia
Semi-finals on NYD (Rose and Sugar Bowl):
Georgia vs Penn State
Texas vs Clemson
Championship Game within 10 days of NYD:
Penn State vs Clemson
ESPN (5/9/25)
1 Penn State (B10 Champ)
2 Clemson (ACC Champ)
3 Texas (SWC Champ)
4 Georgia (SEC Champ)
5 Ohio St (B10 At-Large)
6 LSU (SEC At-Large)
7 Notre Dame (Indy At-Large)
8 Oregon (PAC 10 Champ)
9 Alabama (SEC At-Large)
10 BYU (Big Country Champ)
11 Illinois (B10 At-Large)
12 Arizona St (PAC10 At-Large)
13 South Carolina (ACC At-Large)
14 Iowa State (Big Country At-Large)
15 SMU (SWC At-Large)
16 Miami FL (Big East Champ)
7 Conference Champs & Top Seeded At-Large Host First Round Games (replacing Conference Championship Games) with no conference rematches:
SMU at Penn State
Iowa State at Clemson
South Carolina at Texas
Arizona State at Georgia
Alabama at Ohio State
Illinois at Oregon
Notre Dame at BYU
LSU at Miami FL
Teams are re-bracketed based on seeds for quarter finals and play two weeks later (before Christmas) at bowl venues (assuming higher seeds win in first round). NFL can move their 3rd weekend in December Saturday games to 2nd weekend with no CFB:
Oregon vs Penn State
Notre Dame vs Clemson
LSU vs Texas
Ohio St vs Georgia
Semi-finals on NYD (Rose and Sugar Bowl):
Georgia vs Penn State
Texas vs Clemson
Championship Game within 10 days of NYD:
Penn State vs Clemson
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If we go to the 16 team playoff, the goal of the majority of the teams, and how they will be judged, will become are they getting into the playoff. It will become like the BB tournament for many teams. For some, that qualify regularly, they will be judged on if they are advancing. Only a handful of teams actually have the talent to win a championship, that will never change. For both instate teams, just getting into the field will be the reward and how their coach will be measured against his peers.
It's a problem when a team like Miss starts ranked number 8, plays a 4 bad non conf games, then goes 5-3 in the league and thinks they deserve a bid. I agree, what's the point.
Definitely. They are hell bent on ruining cfb. I see no reason why anything else should be spared. Go ahead and be a minor league team.
The future of college sports is in the hands of Saban, Trump and a Texas tech billionaire. What a world we live in.
I agree with your points. The problem is if use parity as a metric to who should have access to the CFP, no Big 12 team should be given access.
Campbell is a former TT OL under Leach and his vision aligns with how things should be relative to media contract aggregation and rational geographic realignment.
Beats the hell out of ESPN/Sankey and Fox/Pettiti running the sport.
In some hypothetical future where they have wildly different schedule?
Right now the “gauntlet” would be 4-4 or 5-3 or 6-2 with a week off late in the year and a game against Southern or Austin Peay late in the year when teams like Iowa and Iowa State are playing teams like Wisconsin and KSU.
SEC = best football conference, super average schedules
It’s genius, they get away with it. I’ll never understand why every conference didn’t copy them, especially moving big games early and having bye weeks and weeks against horrible FCS teams late in year knowing that pollsters forget early losses and punish late ones.
I feel the same way. Any other conference could copy their model instead of complaining about it. The 8 game conference schedule I understand why other conferences can’t do that because the media partners wouldn’t want to pay for lower inventory of good games.
But moving one non-conference game to November and playing easier non-conference games in general it feels like anyone could do that. Maybe they feel like fans would be against it or maybe it’s the TV partners that don’t want cupcake games in November?
Not sure why people get upset about the SEC non conference cupcake game late in the season? It gives teams an easy victory before they play rivalry week, Every league could do the same, the SEC just though of it first. It's the number of non conference games that bothers me, not when they are played.
This would be the biggest reason why I also don’t want any further expansion. There was at least Miss and Alabama that claimed they should have been in the CFP last year too but had no business in it other than beating unranked SEC teams and 9-3 overall
You will see Tiny10 and SEC really try to predict the lower conf games to build their “conference” rating. And then follow up with hopefully non-conference wins.
Get Saban, Trump and all the BS influencers out of the equation. Worthless bias input.
Get Saban, Trump and all the BS influencers out of the equation. Worthless bias input.
You left out Notre Dame - you could guarantee them a spot every year if the field were 16. That's like ACC getting 3 bids every season to Big 12s 2.
Whatever arrangement they have currently would still be in place (they're guaranteed a spot if they're in the top 10 or whatever it is and count as an at-large)
