SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey is now in favor of a nine-game conference schedule moving forward with “one caveat: An expanded conference schedule should not impact the SEC teams' chances in the College Football Playoff,” according to Ehsan Kassim of USA TODAY. While Sankey has “privately voiced support for a nine-game conference schedule behind the scenes,” he confirmed during an appearance on “The Paul Finebaum Show” yesterday that how the conference performs in getting to the College Football Playoff “harmed progress to already expanding to nine games.” The decision of expanding to nine games from the current eight “could come down to whether the SEC and Big Ten get guaranteed playoff bids in a new CFP format.” The potential idea of a 14-team playoff field where both conferences would each get four guaranteed bids has “received a lot of blowback.” Sankey referred to the “bids” as “allocations.” He acknowledged the idea has “received considerable criticism” and said that “no decision is imminent” (USA TODAY, 3/3). THE ATHLETIC’s Seth Emerson noted Sankey “favors games of ‘high interest’ in general” and “expressed disappointment at Nebraska recently canceling a series with Tennessee and Wake Forest canceling a future game with Ole Miss” (THE ATHLETIC, 3/3).
UPPING THE COMPETITION: AL.com’s Michael Casagrande wrote Univ. of Alabama AD Greg Byrne was “diplomatic” when asked if the automatic qualifiers “were a must for the SEC to move to nine games.” Byrne said, “There’s a way to get to nine. We’ll see if it makes sense for the conference as a whole.” Casagrande wrote decisions like this “aren’t as simple as playoff math.” There is “the matter of value for season ticket holders that are paying more and more for the right to attend games.” Dropping a “low-interest” non-conference game against an FCS or lower-level FBS team in favor of another SEC game “would add value to the packages with spiking price tags around the league and nation starting this fall.” Casagrande: “Will there be the desire to play so many high-profile, high-intensity regular-season games without the relative break a lower-level visitor currently provides?” (AL.com, 3/3).
HURDLES REMAIN: THE ATHLETIC’s Russo & Vannini wrote the Big Ten and SEC’s “forced transformation of the College Football Playoff into an invitational is not inevitable,” as there are “several possible obstacles the leagues could face beyond just the objections of their colleagues.” An expansion of the postseason to include automatic bids “could draw legal and political scrutiny -- to go along with already mounting public backlash” -- if the two conferences “try to force through a new format.” It is “hard to gauge how much appetite there would be within the group to start filing lawsuits against each other.” But whether any legal challenge to the CFP agreement between the conferences would ultimately be successful “is almost inconsequential,” as the “simple filing of a lawsuit in a receptive home court could be enough to bog down the process and create CFP stagnation and uncertainty.” College sports leaders also are not looking to “risk alienating federal lawmakers.” Sankey and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti have been “among the many who have been lobbying legislators in Washington for a bill that will allow the NCAA and conferences to effectively regulate college sports” (THE ATHLETIC, 3/3).
