Last week, the Big Ten and Big 12 took six teams from the Pac-12, permanently changing the landscape of college football. With ongoing realignment and changes to the sport’s power structure, SEC commissioner Gregg Sankey is pushing for revisions to the 12-team College Football Playoff format. The current system, which was established in December of last year and will be implemented in 2024, ensures spots for the six highest-ranked conference champions.
“Given these changed circumstances, I believe it is wise for us to step back and reconsider what the playoff format might look like,” Sankey said on the Paul Finebaum Show. “We haven’t discussed this yet, and I haven’t had any significant conversations, but we have to acknowledge that it’s on everyone’s mind, depending on the outcome of these membership movements…Right now, we still have 10 FBS conferences, but there are questions about whether that will remain. And yes, that could lead to some level of adjustment.”
The Pac-12 is on the verge of collapse. Prior to last December’s CFP agreement, the conference had already lost USC and UCLA to the Big Ten, and in recent weeks, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah have also left. Cal, Stanford, Washington State, and Oregon State are the only remaining members of the Pac-12.
Sankey explains that one of the reasons he supported automatic bids in the original CFP agreement was to include the West Coast in the playoff.
“As commissioner of the SEC, one of the reasons I gave was that we wanted college football to be nationally strong,” he told Finebaum. “Since 2016, we haven’t seen a participant from west of the Rockies, except for Washington. The expansion was about bringing Western football into the picture. Now, Western football has entered other conferences, and the circumstances have changed.”
The current CFP contract extends until the 2025 season, allowing the playoff to adjust to the evolving geography of the sport by the 2026 season. The SEC, led by Sankey, is the only conference to have a participant in the CFP every year since its inception.
