If he had it his way, Steve Sarkisian would be coaching this weekend

Steve Sarkisian slipped an opinion of his in the middle an answer about eligibility timelines on Wednesday that seemed far-fetched practically, but maybe not as much as originally thought.

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“I do think we need to evaluate championship weekend if you want to know the truth,” Sarkisian said. “Why are some teams getting the opportunity to play a 13th game and not another? I sure would like to play a 13th game. Let us get another win on our resume. But we don’t get that.”

Of course, teams like Georgia and Alabama are playing in conference championship games because they finished as the top two teams in the Southeastern Conference. Similar applies to Ohio State and Indiana in the Big 10, and BYU and Texas Tech in the Big 12. Conference title games have been around since 1992, and have turned into cash cows for the leagues and networks. And since then, those games have either featured division winners or the top two teams in the league.

Those select teams have been given the spotlight in early December that they don’t have to share with other teams in their league as rewards for strong seasons.

A lot has changed since 1992. The SEC is now 16 teams compared to when the number was 12 for the 1992 season. The national championship is earned via progressing through a 12-team playoff instead of waiting on votes.

What Sarkisian was really wondering was, why are 1992 decisions affecting the sport in 2025?

He’s not the only head coach thinking that. Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea is on a similar wavelength.

Clark Lea told me that he and the team were willing to do “anything” to further prove they belonged in the playoff. AD Candice Storey Lee had been working the channels in hopes of setting up a game before the final rankings are unveiled Sunday. https://t.co/zMKr982OUM

— Chris Low (@clowfb) December 4, 2025

That led to a report from Pete Thamel earlier today.

“Sources: No. 14 Vanderbilt explored the possibility of playing an exempt 13th game this weekend as a way to give one final showcase for the College Football Playoff,” Thamel tweeted. “There was interest from the team, university officials, the athletic department and coaching staff. Ultimately, the operational and legislative requirements along with last-minute scheduling constraints could not support the game.”

Any team that wanted to do something like this, as Thamel mentioned, would have needed a waiver. There are a handful of rules that would have made putting something like this together in under a week tough from an NCAA standpoint, let alone a “let’s get FirstBank Stadium ready for a game” standpoint for the Commodores.

In a perfect world, that would all be taken care of both in Nashville, in Austin, or wherever the Longhorns would have played. Sarkisian could get his program a 10th win and bolster its strength of schedule and strength of record. After all, a 13th game and a 10th win are more data. If the Longhorns and the Commodores were to meet again, that’d help just about everyone. A win for either program would solidify its status as a College Football Playoff team. A loss would sort things out. The SEC is going to nine conference games next year anyway. Sarkisian and Lea are thinking, why not make it happen a year earlier?

There is something to be said about earning the right to get that 13th game. Whoever wins between Georgia and Alabama will have the championship of course.

Sarkisian believes that other teams should have a similar chance. It could take the form of a “play-in” or a jamboree-type weekend where the regular season results dictate the postseason matchups. Kind of like how tournaments have games for third, fifth, and even seventh places.

Would that be something the committee even values? The hypotheticals are hard to keep up with.

In any case, Sarkisian would probably agree with these words from Dan Wetzel as he continues to politick for his program to earn a place in the CFP.

“The fact Vanderbilt, per selection committee comments, did not get much credit for beating rival Tennessee (9-3) on the road because they won by so much the committee dropped the Vols out of the rankings, but Alabama moved up for beating rival unranked Auburn (5-7) on the road because it was a close game and made a “gutsy” call on a late touchdown should go down in selection committee Hall of Fame reasoning,” Wetzel said.

Sarkisian was thinking similarly yesterday.

“I just don’t like contradicting yourself when you tell me it’s about strength of schedule and you tell me it’s about head to head, yet you make a decision predicated on what’s our record,” Sarkisian said.

This concept mentioned by Sarkisian and Lea isn’t foreign to college athletics. In sports that have postseason tournaments like basketball or baseball, leagues have altered postseason tournament structures in order to give the best teams the best opportunity to improve their resume. Take a look at one way conferences are going about this in men’s basketball.

In the Sun Belt, the top two teams in the league have a bye all the way to the tournament semifinals. Teams No. 3 and 4 begin in the quarterfinals. Other teams have to earn the right to play in those games by advancing the old fashioned way. Odds are, the best teams will win those games and create stronger matchups. Stronger matchups are more valued by the selection committee.

Here’s how it looked before the most recent SBC Tournament. Three-seed Troy ended up as the tournament champion.

That abstract art piece may not be 100% replicable in college football, but the idea of creating matchups that are beneficial to contending teams looking for one more resume bullet point is something Sarkisian would have liked to have utilized this weekend.

Maybe it’s a possibility going forward. For now, Texas is 9-3 and will have to hope that record is good enough to earn a place in the College Football Playoff.