SEC, Big Ten pushing for 'straight seeding' in 2025 College Football Playoff

Four months after the SEC and Big Ten held their first joint meeting in Nashville, the conferences’ commissioners and athletic directors met for their second summit Wednesday in New Orleans. Conversations on the future of the College Football Playoff were expected, with the CFP Management Committee scheduled to meet on Feb. 25 in Dallas for a review of the inaugural 12-team field.

Speaking to media members in New Orleans on Wednesday, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti said they would like to see a “straight seeding” that mirrors the College Football Playoff committee ranking while still guaranteeing spots for five champs, according to ESPN’s Heather Dinich. The four highest-ranked conference champions earned the top four seeds and a first-round bye this past season. Because of that, No. 9-ranked Boise State took the No. 3 seed and No. 12-ranked Arizona State grabbed the No. 4 seed.

Sankey declined to discuss any specifics around the future format of the playoff starting in 2026 when the CFP’s new TV deal with ESPN begins. SEC athletic directors and coaches met earlier in the week in the Big Easy, and Sankey said they discussed moving to nine conference games but have not decided, however, “there is a lot of interest,” Sankey said, per Dinich.

As Yahoo! Sports first reported over the weekend, the SEC and Big Ten control the power over future CFP expansion. Last spring during negotiations over the future of the College Football Playoff, the Big Ten and SEC threatened to break off to create their own postseason. The move ultimately resulted in the 10 FBS leagues and Notre Dame signing a memorandum handing control over to the SEC and Big Ten, Yahoo! reported.

With a format change and automatic qualifiers expected in 2026, Wednesday’s meeting sets the stage for the SEC and Big Ten to make major changes in the near future. The ACC and Big 12 declined to comment to On3 about Wednesday’s meeting in Nashville and the future format of the College Football Playoff.

Sankey was asked on Wednesday how he is accounting for the rest of college sports when making decisions. “If I was just representing the SEC, we’d still have a four-team playoff,” the SEC commissioner said, according to Yahoo’s Ross Dellenger.

Conversations over future expansion to 14 or 16 teams have ramped up in recent months, with college football’s two power conferences eyeing automatic qualifiers. A specific number of auto bids has not been tabbed yet, but proposals that have been floated include each conference receiving three to four bids with the ACC and Big 12 receiving two. Multiple SEC and Big Ten coaches have told On3 in recent weeks that they support the leagues receiving automatic bids. Both commissioners told media members on Wednesday that discussions around automatic qualifiers will continue.

Speaking to media members in October in Nashville, Sankey and Petitti pushed back on the idea of private equity needing to step in to establish a Super League. Growing to a 70-team Super League, as proposed in Project Rudy and the College Student Football League, is not needed to create parity, the commissioners agreed at the time.

“I have yet to see a single thing in any plan that I’ve learned details about that contains things that we couldn’t do ourselves and our A4 colleagues as well,” Petitti said in October. “… The notion that college football is broken is not right. … It’s not broken.”