SEC and Big Ten are prepared to push for changes to CFP seeding in 2025

 

[February 20, 2025]  By BRETT MARTEL

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference commissioners said Wednesday they will push for something closer to “straight seeding” in the College Football Playoff next season to give less of a break to lesser-ranked conference champs and better reflect how teams are ranked by the playoff selection committee.

“I’m prepared to vote for seeding change,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said. “But it has to be unanimous.”

At least for next season, anyway.

Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti, speaking after joint meetings in New Orleans with their conferences' 34 athletic directors, acknowledged that their leagues ultimately will be driving changes in the CFP format after the 2025 season.

However, they declined to address details of anything related to 2026 or beyond that might have been discussed — topics that likely include expansion of the playoffs and more automatic bids for their own conferences.

Sankey said those negotiations should include leaders of all the conferences, who meet next week in Dallas at a CFP gathering, but that the SEC and Big Ten can certainly be trusted to keep everyone's interests in mind.

“If I was just representing the SEC, we’d still have a four-team playoff,” said Sankey, whose own conference's addition last year of Texas and Oklahoma was part of a nationwide shift that added uncertainty to college sports. "It was neither our idea, nor was it our commentary, nor was it our need — even post-expansion.

“My view is the 12-team playoff last year helped everybody’s regular season, or brought people into the conversation. From my seat, we’ve deployed leadership in a responsible way.”

Last college football season was the first under the expanded 12-team CFP format.

While it was largely viewed as a success, a provision that rewarded byes to the four highest-ranked major conference champions drew scrutiny after all four of those teams — Arizona State, Boise State, Georgia and Oregon — lost their CFP openers in the quarterfinals.

Ohio State and Notre Dame each won three playoff games before the Buckeyes knocked off the Fighting Irish in the title game.

Petitti said both conferences are in favor of going to “straight seeding,” so that “there’s no difference between rankings and seedings."

“The committee just puts in for the 12 teams next year — just says, ‘These are the 12 teams in the order that they fall,’ based on their judgment and the criteria they’re given in the selection room,” Petitti said. “That would give the committee more flexibility to really do the job in probably a much clearer way for fans.”

Big Ten Conference commissioner Tony Petitti, left, and Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey, right, hold a news conference after the two conferences held meetings, Oct. 10, 2024, in Nashville, Tenn. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

An exception still would occur when one of the five highest-ranked conference champions is ranked outside the top 12. That team would get in next season, as Clemson (No. 16 CFP) did last season.

While the CFP contract from 2026 through the 2031 season requires the SEC and Big Ten to consult other leagues about prospective changes to the playoff system, it also provides them with the ability to impose changes they both want.

What sort of leverage that might provide them might be better understood after next week’s meetings in Dallas, where a unanimous vote would be needed on any shift in seeding for 2025.

After that, “the process going forward, if we decided to make changes, contemplates that the structure of that is led by the SEC and the Big Ten,” Petitti explained. “So, it requires (the SEC and Big Ten) to get to consensus to make a meaningful recommendation, if any, to our colleagues in the (other) leagues, and also requires us to get their input and to speak with them, to give them an opportunity to weigh in on whatever it is that we’re thinking about.”

Sankey said his conference still is considering going to a nine-game regular season the way the Big Ten does — a move that could potentially help SEC teams' strength of schedule.

Meanwhile, Petitti portrayed reports of tension between conference commissioners as overblown, insisting they've been working together on the biggest topic consuming college sports — the House settlement, which is poised to reshape the industry by allowing schools to pay players directly.

“The work that’s been done around the settlement among the conferences is probably unprecedented in terms of the amount of collaboration that’s required to get this right,” he said.

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AP National Sports Writer Eddie Pells contributed to this report.

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