Greg Sankey reaffirms his stance of no automatic bids for College Football Playoff

As SEC commissioner, Greg Sankey remains among the most influential voices in college football, and a preeminent decision-maker when it comes to how the future of college athletics will look. It’s because of that authority that Sankey’s opinion about the next iteration of the expanded College Football Playoff carries more weight than almost any other.

Coming out of last week’s 2025 SEC Spring Meetings in Destin, Fla., Sankey put the league’s support behind a Big 12-backed “5+11” 16-team model for the expanded CFP that features 11 at-large bids along with the five highest-ranked conference champions. It was in direct opposition to the Big Ten-backed “4-4-2-2-1” 16-team model that granted four automatic bids for both the Big Ten and SEC and two apiece for the ACC and Big 12, which the latter two leagues have thoroughly rejected.

For his part, Sankey made it clear he’s never been in support of “automatic bids.”

“I’ve been one that said over time, I’d give no allocation. … I’d just make it the 12 best teams. And I was clear on that,” Sankey said on Monday’s Dan Patrick Show on Peacock. “Now, when we get into rooms, we make political compromises if you will … to achieve an outcome. … But we spent so much time expanding and working through our own little side arguments — about teams, and aw we can’t do this, we need this, you’ve got to protect this bowl game or that bowl game — that we never went back to the essence of decision-making, which is how are teams selected.

“As everyone relocated over the last 4-5 years, do the analyses that existed and worked for the four-team playoff in 2014 still have the same relevance? And we’re behind that curve in my opinion. That’s why other ideas are introduced and considered. And we’ve looked at ideas,” Sankey continued before pivoting to a repeated criticism of last season’s CFP format. “You know this allocation of what’s called automatic bids, that’s such a harsh term. I think allocations is … I like that word. Because we’ve already allocated. Look at last year, we had two teams not in the Top 4 that get to move up because of the political compromise. So we have a team outside the 12 that moves in and then the teams that are displaced look around and say, ‘Hey wait a second. That doesn’t make sense any longer.’ That introduces the questions around should that model continue or should that allocation expand where other teams are brought in?”

Automatic bids — or “allocations” as Sankey prefers — have been widely repudiated by fans and college football coaches alike since the Big Ten pushed it during their Spring meetings early last month.

During the ACC Spring Meetings last month,  Miami coach Mario Cristobal publicly rejected the “4-4-2-2-1” proposal three weeks ago: “Granting spots, that makes zero sense. Football has never been about gifting. It’s about earning.”

Added Pitt‘s Pat Narduzzi: “I think you should earn your way in. It comes down to the image of the Big Ten and SEC and where they are and there’s a lack of respect for the ACC. I don’t like it.”

In at least that respect, the SEC and the ACC are in full agreement.