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Big Ten officials want to pitch an idea that would expand the College Football Playoff from its current 12 team format to potentially up to 28. The problem is that administrators around the college football landscape aren't thrilled with the league's execution.
News of the Big Ten's plan leaked before commissioner Tony Petitti was able to inform the nine other FBS commissioners personally, according to a report from CBS Sports.
“We sound like immature children throwing garbage against the wall,” one CFP executive that the outlet characterized as “upset” said.
The leak comes less than four months before the December 1 deadline for college football officials to decide on a new playoff format. Previous proposals would expand the tournament from 12 to 16 teams, with the four power conferences quibbling over the allocation of automatic bids.
“It's frustrating that these topics can't be discussed behind the scenes and brought out to the public once they've been vetted,” an SEC administrator said.
While the two proposals from the Big Ten — one for 24 teams and the other for 28 — are considerably bigger than a 16-team field, the league has stayed staunch in its hope for multiple automatic qualifiers for each power conference. CBS Sports reports that the Big Ten's preferred version of a 16-team field would give them and the SEC four automatic bids each, with two each going to the ACC and Big 12, and one for the Group of Six conferences.
The model that the ACC and Big 12 prefer would give one auto bid to each power conference, one to the Group of Six and 11 at-large bids.
“There was enough conversation about it that it filtered into conversations between the league offices,” another SEC administrator told CBS.
The Big Ten and SEC hold decisive voting power on the CFP board as the two biggest and most lucrative leagues. If they cannot agree on a new format by the deadline, then the playoff will stay at 12 teams — for now.
