LAS VEGAS — Inside a makeshift office at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, one of the most powerful men in college sports leaned back in a chair at the head of a long conference table and let out a chuckle.
The battle over the College Football Playoff’s future format is a hot topic at the Big Ten’s annual media days. But that’s nothing new for Commissioner Tony Petitti, who fields calls from constituents and other commissioners on the subject almost daily.
“Depends on the week, (it’s a) decent amount,” he told CBS Sports, composing himself. “But we should. That’s what the job is.”
The Big Ten continues to push for a 16-team playoff, with multiple automatic qualifiers from power conferences: four from the Big Ten and SEC, and two each from the ACC and Big 12. The 4+4+2+2+1+3 proposal would also award a berth to the highest-ranked Group of Six champion, with three at-large selections made by the CFP selection committee.
The proposal opens the door to potential play-in games in the Big Ten and SEC. For now, only the Big Ten supports the model, while others campaign for more at-large bids — increasing the burden for a selection committee already under fire after several three-loss teams were left out of the field during the first year of the 12-team playoff.
The most popular alternative is the 5+11 format, which gives automatic berths to the five highest-ranked conference champions and allows for 11 at-large bids chosen by the committee. That format is a non-starter for Petitti, though he said he remains open to other options.
“It’s not just lip service,” Petitti said. “If people have ideas and formats they want to consider, they’ll find us ready to do the work quickly to get answers back. It doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy hurdle, but we’ll do the work quickly. When ideas come, there’s no pride of authorship here. If there’s something better that solves it, we’ll embrace it.
“I just haven’t heard or seen anything about this idea that you can make the committee’s job any easier. I just don’t understand that thesis.”
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Petitti reiterated the Big Ten and SEC hold sole authority over deciding the playoff’s future format — though only after good-faith discussions with the other conferences — as outlined in a 2024 memorandum of understanding. The 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame are not scheduled to meet again until Sept. 24 in Chicago, giving time for alternative proposals to be developed.
At their recent media days, the ACC and Big 12 reaffirmed support for a 5+11 format, along with proposed adjustments to strength-of-schedule metrics and the introduction of a “strength of record” analytic for the selection committee.
SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey remains open to ideas but has leaned toward a format with more at-large bids. While SEC athletic directors aligned with the Big Ten during joint meetings last fall and winter, SEC coaches broke ranks at spring meetings in June, voicing interest in the 5+11 proposal.
“Everybody’s been pretty forceful in representing their opinions on this, but I will say Greg and I have spoken a bunch in the last seven or eight days,” Petitti said. “The process is always the same. The two of us have to come together to find something. We’ll do all that work, we’ll bring as many people together. That’s a good thing. That’s where the work has to start.
“Look, I’m not ruling anything out. You’ve just got to show us how it makes sense. That’s all.”
Among the sticking points for Petitti are the selection process and the uneven number of conference games played across the sport. The Big Ten and Big 12 play nine league contests, while the SEC and ACC play eight. Petitti wants uniformity, but increasing the number of automatic qualifiers for power conferences could undermine that goal.
While some commissioners want to provide the selection committee with more data, Petitti wants to lessen the committee’s workload in evaluating teams with widely varied schedules — especially as conferences grow to 16 or 18 members.
“I just mean this with all sincerity: the college football world the last two years is a different animal,” said Illinois coach Bret Bielema, who coached at Arkansas in the SEC from 2013 to 2018. “You can’t compare what happened 10 years ago or five years ago to what’s happening now.”
Unlike their SEC counterparts, Big Ten coaches echo support for multiple automatic qualifiers, in line with their athletic directors and commissioner.
“The point I’ll make is that every time you think about expansion, I think there’s some sort of counter-idea that it gets easier to make these decisions,” Petitti said. “It actually gets harder. More teams look alike. More teams are going to have 9-3 records and struggle in a conference road game. More teams might stumble in a conference home game. Some teams play tougher nonconference schedules.”
8-4 playoff teams?
Petitti is also intrigued by play-in games, which he believes could help determine deserving playoff teams from deeper conferences. He pointed to the NFL’s Wild Card format — specifically the 2007 New York Giants, who won three road playoff games before upsetting the 18-0 New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLII.
“There seems to be some feeling in college football that somehow if you’re 8-4 you’re not a really good football team,” Petitti said. “These conferences have gotten so much bigger and deeper. That’s a pretty good winning percentage last time I checked. Can an 8-4 team win a playoff game? I don’t know why people have made up their minds that they know the answer to that before a game is even played.”
Under that format, last season would have featured a play-in game between four-loss Iowa and one-loss Indiana. The Hoosiers reached the playoff as an at-large selection but were criticized for a weak strength of schedule that included only four bowl-eligible opponents.
“More meaningful games late in the year in college football would set the sport on fire,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule said.
“The play-in model allows it to happen on the field and not in a boardroom,” Maryland coach Mike Locksley said. “I’m for that. If you look at the way our conference is set up to play a nine-game conference schedule, and everybody else plays eight, we killed ourselves in the four-team format.”
What happens next?
Whether the Big Ten and SEC can resolve the impasse remains to be seen. The conferences could keep the 12-team format for the 2026–27 seasons and revisit expansion later for the remaining five years of the CFP’s contract with ESPN. CFP Executive Director Rich Clark confirmed that option Tuesday.
The relationship with the SEC remains strong, Petitti said, and he emphasized that when the two leagues have worked together in the past, “good things have happened.”
One possibility for collaboration is a scheduling agreement pairing every SEC team with a Big Ten team in the regular season. Petitti said such talks depend on the playoff format and whether the SEC moves to a nine-game conference schedule. Three SEC–Big Ten matchups are already on the 2025 schedule, including Texas at Ohio State in Week 1.
“Fans want more of those games,” Petitti said. “We’ve got a few of them this year, but I think we can have more. As great as college football is, there’s a lot on the table to make it even better in terms of the way everybody schedules.”