The public furor over relatively light NCAA penalties in Michigan’s sign-stealing scandal was barely 24 hours old Saturday when the Big Ten interrupted the news cycle with a leaked proposal to super-size the College Football Playoff.
What better way to change a negative narrative — to end the outrage — than with something utterly outrageous?
The shock factor might well be the point of Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti’s latest playoff proposal, which was reported by multiple news agencies.
The conference is floating the concept of a 24- or 28-team CFP.
In the larger version, the Big Ten and SEC would receive seven automatic bids, with the ACC and Big 12 getting five.
Conference championship games would be eliminated.
The opening-round games would be played on the second Saturday in December, the day currently reserved for Army-Navy and the Heisman Trophy presentation.
It’s not the incremental playoff expansion, from 12 teams to 14 or 16, that has been discussed and debated by the power conference commissioners for months.
It’s a complete restructuring of the postseason that would (likely) begin in 2027 and have massive consequences for the sport.
The concept makes zero sense and loads of sense at the same time, especially if Petitti’s goal is to recast his previous proposal as tame.
Months ago, the Big Ten crafted a 16-team CFP with 13 automatic qualifiers, including four each for the Big Ten and SEC. The idea seemed radical at the time, encountered immediate pushback and struggled for traction. Eventually, a counterproposal by the Big 12, with five automatic qualifiers and 11 at-large berths, gained support.
What better way to normalize the radical than by offering up the ridiculous?
And just to be clear: We believe Petitti’s original plan had considerable merit — that the downstream, multi-year impact on regular-season schedules would benefit the entire sport.
(The biggest problem with the so-called AQ format was the messaging. Petitti, a former Major League Baseball executive, didn’t sell it to the public. And in college sports, to a far greater extent than the pros, public opinion matters.)
So the Hotline is not hardwired to resist whatever proposals the Big Ten puts forth.
But a 24- or 28-team playoff? Hard pass.
It’s loaded with flaws, starting with the likely impact on the three-month regular season that has always been the lifeblood of the sport. If 14 of the 34 combined teams in the SEC and Big Ten (41 percent) are guaranteed playoff bids before a single result has been posted, the Saturday drama would plunge — and take interest with it.
Oh, and don’t forget: The proposal carves out two at-large spots, so there would be room for an eighth, and possibly ninth entrant from either the Big Ten or SEC.
Teams with .500 records (overall) could participate.
Teams that lose to Appalachian State could get in.
There are other hurdles.
The super-sized playoff would devastate the bowl system. That might please some fans and industry officials, but it won’t sit well in certain corners.
Additionally, the expanded, five-round event would force ESPN to rethink its programming strategy.
The network owns the rights to the CFP through the 2031 season and, presumably, would have to approve the radical change.
Would ESPN want the additional games?
Could the change open a pathway for Fox, the Big Ten’s media partner, to grab a piece of the postseason inventory?
And would the elimination of conference championship games lead to ESPN and Fox tearing up their existing media rights contracts and negotiating new deals with the power conferences that account for a devalued regular season?
There are a litany of unknowns at this point.
The 24- and 28-team formats reportedly have not been shared with the SEC, ACC or Big 12. That will change in the coming days.
The models could be tweaked or trashed.
All we know at this point is any format changes for the 2026 season must be passed along to ESPN before the end of 2025.
Also, we know the 16-team proposal by the Big Ten recently considered radical now looks reasonable by comparison.
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