Paul Finebaum labels reaction to SEC, Big Ten discussions 'shameful'

There has only been one season of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, and now there are talks about tweaking that format. Leading those discussions have been two conferences, the SEC and the Big Ten.

There has been mixed reaction to some of the changes being discussed, though there is a vocal group against them. For analyst Paul Finebaum, the negative reaction the the discussions being held by the SEC and Big Ten is shameful. He explained why on Always College Football.

“I’m not surprised by what they’re doing,” Paul Finebaum said. “What I am surprised by is some of the reaction as if this just snuck up on the world of college football, and the Big Ten and the SEC tried to ransack or hijack this in the middle of the night, like Baltimore moving to Indianapolis 30 years ago.”

There have been several reported changes that the SEC and Big Ten are discussing. One of those is expanding from 12 teams to either 14 or 16 teams. That would come with multiple automatic qualifiers per league. That would include four automatic bids for both the SEC and the Big Ten, and in the process, it would likely devalue conference championship weekend.

In the first and only year to this point of the 12-team model, the Big Ten got four teams into the CFP while the SEC got three teams in the field. Ohio State, a Big Ten school, would win the national championship while only one SEC school, Texas, won a game.

“It’s been coming for a very long time, and the reality is it’s a financial move and it’s a security move,” Finebaum said. “And for many of our colleagues to act like the Big Ten and the SEC are simply destroying the sport I think is about as shameful as some of their comments about how shameful what the SEC and Big Ten are doing.”

While Finebaum might feel the reaction to the SEC and Big Ten discussing changes to the CFP, there has been adamant pushback. That includes Rece Davis, who said he’s not a fan of automatic berths, Michael Wilbon, who said it was “loathsome,” and Robert Griffin III, who blasted the idea.

When ESPN’s Heather Dinich directly asked SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey what he wanted to see for the CFP in 2026 and beyond, he gave an interesting response.

“No,” Sankey said. “I think that’s something that we owe our colleagues first, and I think I’ve been consistent in that observation for us.”

Given that answer, it’s perhaps unsurprising that Pete Thamel has also reported that he doubts seeding will change before the 2025 College Football Playoff.