For more than eight months, College Football Playoff leaders have been unable to agree on what the future format of the playoffs should look like. They agreed to the four-team format for the next four years. The news on Friday ended speculation about whether the playoff would expand before the contract ends.
It was not surprising that the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick were unable to agree on a format for the conference tournament. There are three days of meetings before the national championship game. They had a video conference to decide if it was worth continuing to push forward despite their differences.
The American Athletic Conference had time to think about the positions that had not changed.
The 11 school presidents and chancellors who have the authority to change the playoff decided on Thursday to stick with four teams for the rest of the contract. The vote to make any changes had to be unanimous because there are still two years left on the current deal. Bill was in Beijing, China, where he is a volunteer for the Winter Olympics.
The process and outcome of the expansion discussions have been described as disappointing and frustrating by most people involved in the discussions. Fans, coaches, media members and others who follow the sport have long clamored for a more expansive CFP system after the 12-team format was initially applauded.
There are about 1,000 football players from eight teams that could have been part of a national championship, but they won't be, according to SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.
The most tumultuous summer in the history of college athletics can be traced back to how this evolved from celebration to stalemate. The plan was derailed by other issues within the past few months.
The status quo was explained by several commissioners and Hancock over the past two months.
The meetings in Santa Clara were different.
The presidents and chancellors discreetly directed the Commissioners and Swarbrick to study the possibility and report back in a year. The presidents agreed that it was a good time to evaluate if the current format could be improved. The working group of Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, and Sankey was organized by the CFP in June.
They began digging into 63 possibilities for change, including models with six, eight, 10, 12 and 16 teams. They had to make concessions in order to settle on a plan. Notre Dame would not get a first-round bye if it were an independent team. He said the relationships among the four participants were as positive as any he had ever served on.
Two years after the working group formed, it presented a 12-team model that included the six highest-ranked conference champions and the next six highest-ranked teams. Thompson said there was great acceptance when the subcommittee members explained it for the first time.
The first playoff expansion meeting in Dallas was where the new commissioner of the Pac-12 was introduced. JimPhillips had been on the job for five months.
When the proposal was initially announced, there was no guarantee that it would be rubber- stamped, but the release was seen as an encouraging sign that a 12-team playoff would happen eventually.
That was a part of the problem. In January, he said that he had no issues with the process or the work that the subcommittee did, but that the public reveal might have affected its chances of passing.
In the history of college athletics, there has never been an announcement of a model that everyone needed to agree to.
I wish we wouldn't have shared it with the public until everyone had an opportunity to work through the few issues we had. I think we would have been done already.
The organization has no regrets about publicizing the 12-team format before it was approved, and has always operated with subcommittees who present their work to a larger group. There was concern about misinformation being leaked.
The intent was for the proposal to be presented to a group of people on the campus, and we thought it would be best to announce it.
The plan was to use the summer to get feedback from university presidents, athletic directors, coaches and athletes. When they met again in September, there was a chance that the presidents would give the Commissioners the green light to implement a new system. At the very least, there was some positive vibes.
It didn't get to a vote.
The public release of the plan was the first bombshell of a 2021 summer filled with an unprecedented amount of change in college athletics -- drastic decisions that have altered the entire landscape since the working group was first formed. Expansion would have been agreed to in 2020 if COVID-19 hadn't given the Commissioners a separate daily challenge.
The implementation of name, image and likeness (NIL), a landmark Supreme Court decision and conference realignment shook the sport, and their impact continues to be felt today. The new NCAA constitution will take effect on August 1. The combination of those events is the reason why the conference has put the brakes on expansion.
In mid-January,Phillips, who served on the NCAA's constitution committee and transformation committee -- both tasked with restructuring the organization's governance -- stated publicly that his conference was united in its stance that "this is not the right time for expansion."
He said that the membership would be supportive of future expansion if the concerns were addressed. We have a lot of bigger issues than whether to expand the CFP early by two years.
The chemistry in the meetings has changed because of the new leaders in three of the five most powerful conferences.
Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said last month that they had people who were coming into the room with new ways of thinking. Great ideas. When we started meeting in June, we were still formulating the individuals in the room who had some very forward- thinking ideas that needed to be heard.
The Alliance was formed in August of last year to form scheduling partnerships, bring together like-minded academic institutions, and stabilizing a landscape that was again uncertain with another round of realignment. The Power 5 became the first 16-team super conference after that move.
Sankey's role in conference realignment and playoff expansion has been questioned by some, but he has pointed out that his conference never advocated for a bigger playoff. Scott, the former leader in the Pac-12, and former Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany initially made the biggest push for expansion.
The day Oklahoma and Texas decided to join the SEC will be remembered.
When it came out, there was an initial burst of enthusiasm and support, Aresco said. I don't think it should happen because I think it's a good plan and we need it for college football. I think that stopped it for a bit.
The pause was expected to last into 2022.
Thompson, the most senior conference leader in the room, said in January that he has been a Division I commissioner for 35 years. I have been in a lot of meeting rooms with other people. I have never seen hardened positions in intercollegiate athletics.
There are many reasons, but the most glaring are the Big Ten's push for automatic qualification and the stance of the Atlantic Coast Conference. During the current contract, the Big Ten did favor expansion, but also shared concerns about revenue distribution and the Rose Bowl's relationships with other conferences.
The Big Ten Conference supports expansion of the College Football Playoff system for our student-athletes, member institutions and fans. I trust that we will continue to address the unresolved matters and move forward with expansion for the greater good of college football.
There are too many unanswered questions as it relates to the health and safety of the athletes, the overall disruption in college athletics, and the desperate plea for federal legislation as it relates.
Pitt would have qualified for the playoffs if it existed this year, but the coaches don't think it's the right time.
He said in January that they had tried to get feedback from their athletes. They don't.
When the members of the committee came up with the proposal, they realized it would be difficult to pass because the vote had to be unanimous if changes were going to be made before the contract expired.
Everybody has 100 percent leverage in a situation where you need a unanimous vote.
It is frustrating that people in the long term operated against their self-interest. The things that got in the way were important to the people. It can be hard to reconcile the issues with the larger benefits. Everybody has their own opinion.
He said that setbacks are sometimes temporary and that he still believes an expanded field is possible in the next contract.
I know that the management committee and the board would like to see the CFP expand, but for Years 11 and 12 there were a lot of things that stood in the way.
Sankey said that throughout the process, the SEC has made concessions that were pretty substantial.
He said that Alabama and Georgia didn't need to play another game to prove they were the best teams in the country. Others were not willing to create those opportunities. We will have to rethink our views if this process re-starts.
Aresco told ESPN that it was unfortunate and that he was disappointed, but the focus now needs to be on 2026.
He said he was not going to take shots at anyone and that he had tremendous respect for everyone on the committee. We are all friends, but we haven't been able to get there. I wish kids would have the chance in 24 and 25 because I think it will happen down the road.
The playoff will look like in the future. It is currently a blank slate, though Swarbrick believes the format will eventually expand.
It will, according to Swarbrick. Everyone in the room was interested in expansion. No one said no expansion. It will grow. I think we are at least 30 days past the real deadline. There are things you had to do if you go early. We couldn't get there in time.
Sankey said that he just spent three years trying to contribute to that process. We will see.
One thing the Commissioners agree on is opening the conversation to multiple partners. The current agreement has an exclusive rights holder.
We know it will take some time to create a format we will want to pitch to television, so we will work back from that. We do not have a date set. There is more than enough time to get this right.
The chair of the board of managers for the College Football Playoff is willing to continue working on expanding the playoff, but it is up to the commissioners to resolve their issues, according to Mark Keenum, the president of Mississippi State.
The pressure of trying to get something done has been relieved, but we don't want to Procrastination.
In the next 24 to 30 months, they need to make a decision, and he acknowledged that will change. The SEC will welcome Oklahoma and Texas in the 25th century. The Big Ten's media rights deal will end in 2023, the Pac-12 will end in 2024 and the Big 12 will end in 2025. Upcoming media rights deals for those leagues will be part of future playoff discussions.
The media rights that are being negotiated by the respective conferences are going to be a big factor.
The host cities for the final two seasons of the current contract have not been officially announced by the CFP.
We will get to that as soon as possible.
The national title game will be played in Los Angeles, California, and Houston, Texas.
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