Greg Sankey calls out critics of SEC, Big Ten's automatic qualifier proposal

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey called out critics of the SEC and Big Ten’s automatic qualifier proposal for the College Football Playoff. The two conferences would get four auto bids in a 16-team bracket.

That’s if and when the playoff expands to 16 teams. Right now, the College Football Playoff is expected to adopt a straight seeding model in 2025 for its 12-team format.

Sankey actually argued critics of what the SEC and Big Ten are proposing should dive a little deeper. In any case, the 16-team format has to be figured out before anything is finalized!

“There’s critics all over the place,” Sankey said to open the SEC Spring Meetings. “So if you actually go back and do the research, that kind of format could cost us positions depending on the number of teams. I don’t see the critics actually digging in to understand that reality. I don’t see the critics actually analyzing like I’ve just described, how schedules are evaluated so the critics can run to the microphones and share their opinions. We’re trying to find a format to determine whatever number it is. It’s the best teams in college football. 

“And I think where we are right now is we have used a political process inside a room to come to decisions about football. We should be using football information to come to football decisions (and) have to be unanimous. We provide a model, and then we sit on our hands for a year and a half, two years, as opposed to looking at the depth of issues I’m describing about the game and the concerns about the regular season, scheduling being impacted by what we have right now.”

As far as the other automatic qualifiers in the College Football Playoff, the Big 12 and ACC would get two auto bids for the bracket. There would be one Group of Six team as well, in addition to final three spots up for grabs.

Interestingly enough, Sankey said it’s about finding the best teams in college football. The data would suggest the SEC and Big Ten hold most of them and they are right to have more automatic bids. That’s why it’s even been suggested the conferences could hold CFP play-in games on conference championship weekend to determine their auto bids, rather than do straight standings and a conference title.

Sankey mentioned how this proposed format could hurt the SEC and Big Ten because they are reduced to four auto bids, so perhaps the quality of teams below those top four would be lower than say the No. 3 team in the ACC or Big 12. However it works, it remains to be seen if the model will actually be adopted.