Sherrone Moore calls for Big Ten to get 'as many automatic qualifiers as everybody else'

A year after helping Michigan secure the 2023 College Football Playoff national championship as an assistant, first-year head coach Sherrone Moore watched bitter rival Ohio State repeat the feat this past season.

But not without a wry smile on his face knowing his Wolverines were the last team to beat the Buckeyes, which bouncebacked from its regular-season-ending loss in The Game — Michigan’s fourth-straight win in the heated rivalry series — to becoming the Big Ten’s second-straight national champion.

Now, as the rest of the college football world debates what’s next for the College Football Playoff, including potentially adding both additional teams and more automatic qualifiers, Moore is only worried about what it means for the Big Ten.

“I love the format, I love more people playing in it. It’s awesome to see,” Moore said Feb. 28’s episode of Next Up with Adam Breneman. “And yeah, I think our conference is the best one in the country and we should get as many automatic qualifiers as everybody else. I welcome that. It should be more than one.”

The future of the CFP beyond the 2025 season remains in limbo as a joint partnership between the Big Ten and SEC attempts to push through a proposal that would assure their respective conferences each receive four automatic Playoff bids while the other leagues, namely the ACC and Big 12, receive two automatic bids with the remaining bids going to either Notre Dame and/or the highest-ranked Group of Five team depending on whether or not the Playoff expands to 14 or 16 teams.

But after sitting out the first 12-team Playoff this past season, Moore is doing everything he can to get Michigan back into the mix.

“You just want to play and get in. Obviously, this year it showed you just have to get hot at the right time and you’ve got to be ready to play whenever. But that’s what you want if you’re a real football guy, a real football coach,” Moore told Breneman. “Yeah, you’re going to take loses at some point, but can you bounce back from them? Can you go win when you need to go win? And, obviously, Ohio (State) did that. Just the whole Playoff system, I mean, Notre Dame got to the national championship after losing earlier in the year, and all of a sudden they’re in the national championship.”

Urban Meyer claims SEC, Big Ten getting four automatic qualifiers for CFP

College Football Playoff expansion is on the horizon while the Big Ten and SEC look for a bigger piece of the pie. The two conferences reportedly want four automatic bids into the field, leaving the ACC/Big 12 with two a piece, a Group of Five representative, and an at-large spot — mainly for Notre Dame.

To this point, nothing has been finalized as non-Big Ten and SEC conferences fight back on the idea. But if you ask Urban Meyer, this is already a foregone conclusion. Four bids will be going to each of the Big Ten and SEC when the field grows greater than 12.

“I made a phone call when I saw this and it is going to happen,” Meyer said via The Triple Option. “This is not maybe. Remember, in the fall, that the commissioner of the SEC and the commissioner of the Big Ten get together. Those are the big dogs and it really is unchallengeable. So what drives the big dogs? College football is now synonymous with money. It is money and then you starting throwing — you get $4 million to qualify, $6 million for the semi.”

On3’s Griffin McVeigh contributed to this report.