Heather Dinich explains why automatic qualifiers are key in future College Football Playoff format talks

A new proposal for College Football Playoff expansion was revealed on Wednesday, when Yahoo! Sports outlined a potential 14-team model with several new automatic qualifier spots.

The new model would offer more guaranteed access for a handful of power conferences, beyond the current 12-team model that has five automatic qualifiers.

Under the new proposed model, the Big Ten and SEC would each get three automatic qualifiers, while the ACC and Big 12 would get two. Then the highest-rated Group of Five conference team would also get an automatic qualifier, leaving three potential at-large spots up for grabs between other teams or Notre Dame (if inside the top 14).

ESPN insider and College Football Playoff reporter Heather Dinich opened up on why the automatic qualifiers seem to be a big driver behind this particular push for playoff expansion on the Paul Finebaum Show on Thursday.

“When you look at the Big Ten having 18 teams this year with the addition of those Pac-12 teams, then you can see where Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti wants to have a guarantee of more teams in there,” Dinich said.

“The thing that people have to wrap their heads around and might not be able to is the fact that a three- or a four-loss Big Ten or SEC team could very well be a better team than another team with fewer losses that competes in a weaker conference against weaker opponents. That’s the crux of the argument here and something that people may or may not like who are just fans of certain teams and want to see more even access throughout the sport.”

The thing is, the current model also includes automatic qualifiers for certain teams. Each of the power conference champions will receive a College Football Playoff berth, while the highest-rated Group of Five champion will too.

Proponents of that system will point to the seven at-large spots as being fairly inclusive outside of the automatic bids.

But even on that there’s some disagreement.

“Well there are AQs in the 12, too, let’s remember that,” Dinich said. “It’s the five highest-ranked conference champions, plus the next seven best teams. Five plus seven in the 12-team model. There are some people out there who think that maybe it should be the 12 best teams, maybe it should be the 14 best teams. But that’s not what’s getting the most support at least as we sit here right this minute.”

What Dinich noted a couple times during her appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show was that nothing is set in stone just yet.

Even the proposed model to move to 14 teams is just one potential iteration.

“I repeat: That is not the only model that they are talking about,” Dinich said. “That is one that has gained some traction recently and they are hoping to gather next week as the College Football Playoff management committee through video conference to further talk about this. But they all realize that time is of the essence and CFP executive director Bill Hancock said mid-March is a target deadline.”