Sankey: Realignment impacts the CFP and the approach to the expanded playoff should be revisited
Greg Sankey, the SEC Commissioner, spoke with Paul Finebaum yesterday and the topic of the expanded College Football Playoff came up.
Sankey pointed out that recent changes in conference alignment have impacted the landscape and the criteria for selection into the expanded CFP structure should be re-examined.
Here's a link to the article - and, similar articles have been published by The Athletic and ESPN.
The expanded CFP hasn't even begun - and, the SEC already wants to change it. My assumption is - Sankey would like to ensure the SEC can place up to 12 teams in the expanded playoff structure.
Thoughts?
August 9th, 2023 at 12:51 PM ^
"Honest question, what's the point of having conferences anymore?"
Money... which was pretty much always the point.
To paraphrase Brian from last week's roundtable:
- The Pac12 is done, and the B1G is holding the gun and acting like it didn't shoot.
- The B1G now makes no sense geographically or logistically.
- College football is being monetized to the detriment of the sport.
- In 10 years, conferences will be obsolete and college football powerhouses will seek their own media deals, collectively or individually, to get the best deal.
College football has been subverted, and it breaks my heart.
Oops. Replied to wrong comment.
I need a nap.
August 9th, 2023 at 10:55 AM ^
I thought his name was Pete Finebaum, no?
August 9th, 2023 at 11:02 AM ^
I'm fine with reducing the # of conference champions admitted to the CFP if there are fewer viable conferences... BUT a huge NO to allowing top 4 protected seeds from being non-champions.
That's been the SEC scam for two decades.
- play a soft non-con (including at least one FBS lower tier team)
- play a soft conference schedule (seriously look at the crossover SEC opponents)
- defeat an artificially inflated conference opponent (or 3) who ends up 6-6
- lose once to a conference team
- get more opportunities in a 2-team or 4-team playoff than you deserve
- especially when teams NOT needing to play conference title games sneak in!
- gloat about having more champions when having WAY more opportunities
Keep the top 4 (Power 4?) champions as the bye. Expand the home #5-8 to include an additional at large if needed.
The other thing about taking away the conference champion provision is that NOTRE DAME will have a track to the top 4 without joining a conference. ND must join a conference to have a shot at a bye. Hard stop.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:37 AM ^
Don't forget about playing fewer conference games than their peers. And those FBS games often (for some but not all) being on the second to last game.
August 9th, 2023 at 12:23 PM ^
BUT a huge NO to allowing top 4 protected seeds from being non-champions.
If your conference has 18 teams and plays nine league games, are you really determining a valid champion?
August 9th, 2023 at 11:19 AM ^
I kind of agree but with radically different ways and means - the CFP should take over FBS football and end conference realignment. the SEC/Big Ten should become tier 1 - maybe invite FSU and Clemson too. they should be broken into 9 team divisions, and every division champ gets a spot in the CFP. the Big 12 and ACC are tier 2, split into 7 team divisions, and the division champs play each other to get into the CFP's first round. Everyone else in FBS who wants to participate gets split into 7-9 team divisions (so, the G5 is now tier 3). They get one spot in the CFP - they can have their own tourney ahead of time if they want, it'd be about 3 rounds. If they want in, they get into a division. If a school doesn't want in, they have to compete for an at large spot (so, Notre Dame).
Money/TV gets shared equally across each tier. And if you want, you can offer promotion for schools that do well in the CFP and relegation for literally 1-2 schools per year at most (so very limited, but better than now where it's basically just re-alignment).
Small divisions means plenty of OOC games for old rivals and for compelling TV matchups, which will affect the 5 at-large spots. It also means plenty of rivalry games continue across tiers, in the event your rivals get left behind. Heck you could even make rivalry games play into promotion if you want - like say, mandate a number of tier 1 vs 2, and 2 vs 3 games and if a low tier team beats a school that finishes in the bottom of their division, it can get promotion.
The sport is radically changing and this feels better to me than a 20 team big ten. We know the top tier is probably worth $60M/school annually, the middle tier is ~$30M, and the lowest tier is in the realm of ~$5M, with ND capable of getting $45M on their own. This wouldn't change if the CFP took over. And non-revenue sports, and even basketball, wouldn't have to subject their logistics and schedules to the quirks of football.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:24 AM ^
My thought is, Sankey perceives that the B1G and BXII gained from the expansion and he wants to counteract the gain.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:30 AM ^
The conference that started this death March speaks again. If he cared so much about football out west, he should've demanded that no conference get two teams in the current 4- team playoff. I never heard him say that.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:32 AM ^
it would be in the big ten's best interest to change it too. Let's say the pac 4 and mountain west merge. That conference still shouldn't be considered "power 5." The big ten with all its new members should be getting 3 or even four teams in every year.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:39 AM ^
"Power 5" is now an all but irrelevant distinction.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:55 AM ^
what I meant was, we shouldn't limit who gets the top 4 byes to conference champs -- which is the case right now.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:56 AM ^
I think Power 4 is something real though - there's a big gap between the Big 12 and the American, in large part because of their recent additions.
Also, the Super 2 is real. With USC and Oregon, the Big ten probably has 5 top 15 programs. The SEC has 4 top 10s and you figure 2 of UF/UT/OU will make them have 5 top 10/15s. Even the "meh" programs, the Big Ten west's best, UK, Ole Miss and Arkansas - are usually top 25 teams, sometimes top 15. Pretty equivalent to where the Big 12 will be most years.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:44 AM ^
Hm, I thought PAWWWLLL was verboten around here, but I guess he's not on the list.
August 9th, 2023 at 11:52 AM ^
Let's just have the entire season be a playoff. All 120+ teams are in it, you play til you lose.
We could have a "group stage" of 7-9 teams, and have lower group champs play extra games to play into the 12 team playoff.
And then we could have "out of group" games to help determine rankings of the various group champs, and to keep traditions alive.
And every year we could redefine who belongs in the top groups and who belongs in the bottom groups.
He’s not wrong. Why would you want to guarantee a CFP spot to Oregon State, Wazzu, Cal or Stanford?