SEC-Big Ten Impasse Keeps College Football Playoff At 12 Teams For 2026, Which Is Great For The Sport

After meetings last week in Miami resulted in no resolution, coming after countless conversations over the past year, along with a hard deadline from ESPN to finalize the television agreement moving forward, the College Football Playoff will remain at 12 teams moving forward. 

All of this comes just over 16 months after the SEC and Big Ten wanted to show a sign of unity by holding two meetings in New Orleans and Nashville that were designed to come up with different ways both conferences could work together moving forward into an unknown future in college football. 

Now, all of those conversations can essentially be chalked up to a waste of time, given the circumstances surrounding potential playoff expansion for next season. Tony Petitti and Greg Sankey did have one final call on Thursday to discuss the matter, which did not result to any agreement on changes, according to multiple sources. 

The ongoing discussions even led ESPN to extending the deadline from November to the hard deadline, which came today. 

On Friday, CFP chair Rich Clark released the following statement. 

"After ongoing discussion about the 12-team playoff format, the decision was made to continue with the current structure," said Rich Clark. "This will give the Management Committee additional time to review the 12-team format, so they can better assess the need for potential change. While they all agree the current format has brought more excitement to college football and has given more schools a real shot in the postseason, another year of evaluation will be helpful."

The deadline for changes to the 2027 season format will be December 1st, 2026. Unfortunately, this means another year of discussions about what the future will look like. So, these conversations and debates are not going anywhere any time soon. 

According to CFP chair Rich Clark last weekend, ESPN would not be granting a further extension on the deadline, which means if they did not come to an agreement, everything would stay the same for at least one more season. 

College Football Playoff Expansion Stalling As SEC, Big Ten Deadlocked Ahead Of ESPN Deadline

The biggest holdup, or line in the sand, came down to the SEC wanting to expand to sixteen teams, while the Big Ten preferred twenty-four teams. 

Next year, there will at least be a change in format for Power-4 teams. Over the past two years, there were five spots guaranteed for the CFP, given to the highest ranked conference champions. Those spots did not matter which league was represented, which is why we saw both James Madison and Tulane make the postseason. 

In 2026, each Power-4 conference champion will receive an automatic bid for the playoff, with the remaining spot going to the highest-ranked conference champion in the Group of Six. Also, Notre Dame will receive an automatic bid, if ranked within the CFP committee's final twelve ranking. 

In a ‘meet me in the middle’ caveat, Big Ten commissioner, Tony Petitti came up with a ‘bridge’ that would, in his mind, please other commissioners, most importantly Greg Sankey. 

Expand to sixteen teams immediately, then complete the full expansion to twenty-four teams within three years. This could have led to a number of other changes to the postseason build-up. 

As he exited the meetings last Sunday in Miami, AAC commissioner Tom Pernetti had this to say about whether an agreement could have been made over the last few days. 

"That’s up to two people in the room (SEC & Big Ten). There’s obviously a lot to discuss and discussions are ongoing." 

Clearly, those ongoing discussions yielded no additional compromises. 

If you went to twenty-four teams, you might as well just end any type of postseason bowl outside the college football playoff. 

Also, even though we are headed towards this route, conference championship weekend would be done, given the 24-team format would make way for CFP play-in games that would take the place of an SEC, Big 12, ACC or Big Ten title game. 

24-Team Playoff Is Too Drastic Right Now, But Things Will Change

I don't think many people would have a problem with these CFP play-in games taking the place of conference championship weekend. 

If the Big Ten, SEC, ACC or Big 12 wanted to drum up more ratings, you could still find a way to have the two-best teams battle for a trophy, but also allow others to fight for a playoff spot over the final weekend. 

"We’re only in Year 2 of our 12-team format, so I reminded my colleagues that from when we had the very first notion of going beyond just a four-team playoff to actually having a 12-team playoff, it took five years," CFP Board chair and Mississippi State president Mark Keenum mentioned after the meetings last week. 

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So, will the format change following the 2026 college football season? Sure it could, given how much money is at play. 

But, jumping from twelve to twenty-four teams in such a short period of time was pretty pointless, no matter how many automatic qualifiers each conference could finagle from a new deal. 

Right now, the current playoff format seems to be working just fine, and television ratings from Monday night's national championship game prove that college football fans are still tuning in, no matter their stance on NIL and the current landscape of the sport. 

Staying at 12 teams for 2026 allows leaders to continue digging into ways where additional expansion could work, especially with the potential for more on-campus games. We all know moving to 16 or 24 teams is inevitable, but doing so after just two years at twelve teams was a move that felt way too drastic for the current era of college athletics. 

The final numbers came in, and 31 million people tuned in for the Indiana versus Miami game earlier this week, which was the most-watched CFP game since the 2015 national title game between Ohio State and Oregon. 

Sometimes, drastic changes aren’t necessary, no matter how much money is at stake. But, I would prepare for an expansion of some sort in the near future.