Paul Finebaum examines if the SEC could abandon conference championship game with automatic CFP bids

There has only been one season of the 12-team College Football Playoff. However, there has already been talk about expanding and reformatting the CFP. In particular, a model that would see the SEC and Big Ten both get four auto-bids has been reported.

In a CFP with auto-bids, there is diminished value in conference championship games and, with that in mind, ESPN’s Paul Finebaum shared that he could see the SEC moving on from its conference championship game entirely during a recent appearance on McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning.

“I think there’s two schools of thought,” Paul Finebaum said. “The old school thought is everything we already know about those weekends, but I think you have to eliminate that because that weekend is already getting diluted slightly. It even felt that way this year in Atlanta. Yeah, there were a handful of empty seats. We knew both programs were going to the Playoff, we just didn’t know which one [would earn a bye].”

Going into the SEC Championship Game, it was assumed that both teams would make the CFP. That made it so that less was on the line than in a game like the Big 12 Championship Game, where only the winner made the CFP. It also appears that regardless of whether or not auto-bids are added and the CFP is expanded further, the SEC will be in a position where it’s safely getting multiple teams into the field for the foreseeable future. That means less will consistently be on the line in a conference championship game.

“But I think if it’s done right and if it’s done with a minimum of schools,” Finebaum said. “I think there could be some drama that weekend, if we had a play-in for the fourth spot or something. Let’s say Alabama had played Ole Miss this year in Atlanta for the final spot in the field, as opposed to Alabama-Texas. There probably would have been tremendous interest in that.”

Under a potential for expansion, the SEC would go into each season knowing it would get four teams in the expanded CFP. In that model, there would be nothing on the line for the CFP in the SEC Championship Game. It would entirely be about winning the conference. With that in mind, Finebaum does think the SEC has room to play with a different model for championship weekend.

“There were a lot of people watching the game as it was, but there was minimum on the line. There was a first round bye on the line, which didn’t really seem to help either team,” Finebaum said. “And didn’t help anybody in the field, but I think it can be done that way. But if you start getting game in Atlanta and then two or three home sites, I think the weekend is gonna be a mirage.”

There were 16.6 million people who watched the 2024 SEC Championship game between Georgia and Texas. That was down from the 2023 SEC Championship Game, which saw 17.52 million tune in.