Report: Group of 5 looking to create exclusive playoff after Big Ten, SEC 'strong-arming tipping point'

The new-look College Football Playoff has dominated headlines, with the format set to change twice in the coming years. Group of Five teams have still been left with only one guaranteed spot though, leaving the Big Ten and SEC to likely take up a majority of the spots. A move that has been called the “tipping point” for G5 administrators, change could be coming.

“Group of 5 administrators have had preliminary discussions in recent months about a G5-only postseason playoff or even wide-scale G5 realignment with the involvement of private equity,” Chris Vannini of The Athletic reports.

“The initial idea circulated among administrators earlier this year, but once the Big Ten and SEC threw around their weight to reshape the new College Football Playoff contract and grant themselves far more guaranteed revenue and almost all of the control, that served as the tipping point for many administrators to chart their own future sooner rather than later.”

Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger reported on the revenue conferences would potentially receive from the new College Football Playoff contract, one signed exclusively with ESPN.

The Big Ten and SEC would each receive 29% of the base revenue, while the Big 12 and ACC get 17.1% and 14.7%, respectively. That leaves 9% left for the G5 conferences, 1% for Notre Dame and less than 1% for UConn, Oregon State and Washington State.

Vannini says some G5 administrators want to replace bowl games with a playoff of their own, while others would like to realign conferences geographically and share their own revenue equally “like a pro sports league.” Former Tennessee head coach Derek Dooley has been pitching the idea to the conferences on behalf of private equity firms.

No matter which route gets considered, the conferences do not want their respective futures to be dictated by what the Big Ten and SEC plan to do in the future.

“We’re taking some leadership here to control our own destiny so that Tony Petitti and Greg Sankey don’t make that decision for us,” a G5 athletic director told The Athletic.

Exactly how a G5-only playoff or realignment would look was not included in the report. The conferences in discussion at the moment are the American, Conference USA, Mountain West, MAC, and Sun Belt. Whether or not somebody like Oregon State and Washington State — who have a scheduling agreement with the Mountain West — are included was not revealed either.

On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report