There are more pressing matters that will unfold when SEC officials meet in Florida, and the attention that will be paid to the verbal donnybrook between Alabama and Texas A&M will be appreciated.
When Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC in 2025, the way the league plots its future may also affect the future of college football.
Sounds dramatic, right? In the last calendar year, the SEC has delivered a lot of drama on and off the field. The way the SEC constructs its future will be felt by all leagues, as any SEC scheduling decision must take into consideration what the College Football Playoff will look like. No one knows what the future will look like after 2025.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey is still upset about the way the College Football Playoff expansion talks collapsed. He has been vocal about his displeasure and that will guide league decision making. There has been a general erosion of trust in the collegiate landscape commissioner.
A veteran collegiate official said that whatever collegiality existed among those five Commissioners appears to be gone.
The current contract means a four-team playoff through the 2025 season, meaning the idea of expanding the playoffs to 12 teams was dashed in February. Uncertainty about formats has increased.
SEC officials are expected to discuss the idea of the SEC creating, running and profiting from its own SEC postseason. There are other models that will be discussed, but the most obvious one is an eight-team one.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said there was no imminent change. He mentioned that an SEC-only playoff was one of nearly 40 different models discussed by SEC officials at their fall meetings.
As we think as a conference, it's vital that we think about the range of possibilities.
The league will be even stronger once Oklahoma and Texas join, according to the Florida athletic director. The focus should be on how we use that strength to further position the SEC as we face new realities. Commissioner Sankey has encouraged our athletic directors to think creatively, and an SEC-only playoff is a different idea that we should absolutely consider.
What would that look like? We will explore more later. Could we see an eight-team tournament that eventually faces the winner of The Alliance? The Big Ten? The rest of the leagues are not playing in the same playoffs. Maybe they all get mad at the SEC and don't play their winner. We are in a world of hypotheticals.
Sankey said that they need to engage in blue-sky thinking.
Sankey is calculating. He was not happy that there was a lot of time, sweat equity and outreach to other leagues that was wasted when talks of expanding the playoffs to 12 collapsed.
Sankey believed that there was significant sacrifice that may not come around the next time there is talks. The SEC has won 12 of the last 16 national titles and had two teams face off for the title last year. The SEC's five different title-winning programs over that span are more than the other three winners. Sankey is not lost on where the leverage is.
Everything is on the table for the SEC. It is a cloudy picture with no future.
Sankey said that those unknowns are on their minds as they think about decision making. It is hard to understand where things will end up if you wait.
We wanted to be good partners. We think we gave up a lot, which was seen as a balanced approach. We have a responsibility to think about different possibilities. The SEC will continue to do that.
The SEC scheduling model, which is expected to be heavily discussed in Destin and decided in the upcoming months, offers a window in the future of the sport. The SEC teams play a lot of league games. They are currently at eight, which has caused a lot of concern from other leagues.
Beat reporters fill their notebooks with future scheduling formats during spring meetings. There is more at stake this year for the SEC and everyone else.
In the final year of the current four-team playoff format, Oklahoma and Texas will join the league, as the next CFP format begins in 2026. The size of the playoff is currently unknown, so it is potentially tricky for the SEC to make a decision.
There needs to be some decisions made in the short term, but for now, Sankey said, they will be focused on more traditional scheduling models.
Sankey made it clear that SEC teams seeing each other is the priority.
There are two scheduling models that are most likely for the SEC.
If the SEC sticks with eight league games, this model would be best for the overall exposure and variety of league games, which Sankey values. There are more Texas vs. Alabama and less Georgia vs. Kentucky games. Every year, teams would get one rivalry game that is played every year, and then they would play the other seven. The current four-team playoff system would be better suited to the current eight-game schedule, as it allows for the customary SEC non-league game late in the season. If there is a four-team playoff, there is little margin for error, and that could cause hesitation to play more league games, which could lead to missing out on a CFP spot.
If the SEC goes to a nine-game league scheduling format, this is the model that would be favored. Each program plays three teams every season. It is thought that Georgia would play South Carolina. It feels more like a league because it is not as restrictive and repetitive. Since Texas A&M joined the league, they have played once. The nine games would be better for the league and would be embraced by TV partners, but it would be difficult if the College Football Playoff field remains narrow. Saban wants nine league games.
The other two models seem to have more traction than thepods and divisions.
No one really knows what this idea is all about. The scope of how it would affect the league, bowl system and sport is significant. It is certain that it would generate a lot of television interest, as the inventory would be coveted.
How could an eight-team SEC-only postseason work? There would be an eight-team, seven-game format that would unfold over the course of about a month when the season ends. A week or weeks open at the end of the season to play games to build toward the playoffs was discussed this fall.
Maybe there are four divisions and each one has a winner. And then they face four more? The league structure will inherently be designed around a postseason model, which is why this macro thinking is happening.
The SEC could play up to 10 conference games if it doubles down on itself. That would increase television inventory, appeal to the league&s parochial pride, and issue a rebuttal to the talks dissolving.
It would have to be significant changes. The SEC title game could be moved to New Year's Day because of the SEC playoff. The SEC title game usually takes place on the weekend of December 3 and 4. Maybe there is a week off before the next set?
What would it look like? The SEC Playoff could look like this. If this is ever created, it would not be East and West.
East Georgia vs. West Mississippi State.
2W Ole Miss vs. 3E Tennessee.
Alabama vs. 4E Missouri.
Kentucky vs. Arkansas.
The teams that play in the SEC title game would play 15 regular season games. If they played another league for the national title, that would mean 16 games. Both Alabama and Georgia played 15 games.
It would be attractive to television if the SEC were to expand the amount of league games and create a new playoffs. The rights to the league will be exclusively owned by ABC for 10 years.
Sankey felt burned by the three new commissioners who formed The Alliance and played a role in stalling the College Football Playoff expansion talks.
This is just an idea that will be discussed. The possibilities and ripples are fascinating.
There are significant pressure points emerging from the Supreme Court ruling in the Alston case that allowed the conferences to widen the financial gap between the SEC and Big Ten.
Few people think that college sports will look the same in five years. The pressure will be on the brand-name programs like USC because of the lagging finances of the conference. There are significant legal challenges to anyone attempting to leave before 2036. After two more football seasons, the grant of rights will be up for renewal.
It will be interesting to see how long the Big Ten is with The Alliance. Will the Big Ten try to keep up with the SEC by adding members? Is the SEC's next postseason exploration going to include more realignment ploys? The lack of leadership for decades from the NCAA has been made worse by the Supreme Court's insistence that leagues can forge their own paths. Sankey was not a fan of the outgoing NCAA President. Few were.
If the SEC created its own postseason, it could speed up the change that market forces are making. With the Big Ten on the verge of a historic television deal expected to be announced in the next few months, it is only going to make financial inequalities more pronounced for everyone not in the SEC.
It is difficult to project the near future of college football and college athletics because there are so many options.
The size and scope of the playoffs will inevitably guide how leagues are structured. There is nothing certain about the future of the College Football Playoff.
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