Conference Championship Weekend May Expand in New CFP

The SEC changed college football forever when the first-ever conference championship game was played between Alabama and Florida at Legion Field in 1992. As the sport undergoes drastic changes, particularly in the postseason, prepare to see big changes coming to conference championship weekend.

There are a lot of moving parts, so I’ll try my best to be as succinct as possible.

The SEC and Big Ten are going to make this a 14 or 16-team CFP as soon as the latest contract expires and they get full control of the CFP format in 2026. It’s not a done deal, but it’s inevitable.

Since they will be calling the shots on the format, they want to decide how the teams will be chosen. The biggest criticism of the first 12-team CFP was the seeding process. The highest-ranked conference champions were given byes, even though Arizona State and Boise State were ranked No. 12 and No. 9, respectively.

They want to fix this problem and give teams in their leagues more opportunities to play in the lucrative CFP games. In one proposed format, the Big Ten and SEC will each get four automatic qualifiers, two will go to the ACC and Big 12, and one to the Group of Five, leaving the rest for at-large bids.

By adding more automatic qualifiers, it will take more power out of the CFB selection committee’s hands. The issue is tiebreakers. They are so confusing that the Big Ten did not realize Oregon had clinched a spot in the Big Ten Championship game until a Tuesday.

The Conference Championship Game Problem

They want more CFP games, but the season’s longevity is already taxing on the health of players. Getting rid of the conference championship games would be a step in the right direction, but conference commissioners can’t afford to lose money.

Instead of getting rid of conference championship games, they want to play MORE games that weekend.

Under this proposal, lower-seeded teams will determine who gets an automatic bid by actually playing football games, rather than relying on convoluted tiebreakers. In the SEC, that means we could see as many as four games during championship weekend instead of one.

It’s hard to imagine in writing. That’s why Pete Nakos and the On3 social team put together the hypothetical matchups that could have occurred if this format was in place last fall.

This is all still hypothetical. There will be plenty of arguments on what’s best for the sport in hotel meeting rooms in the coming weeks and months.

I can’t say what’s best for the sport, but I can say that conference championship weekend is typically underwhelming. There aren’t that many games and those are typically blowouts. As someone who loves more high-stakes games, this shake-up could be wildly entertaining.

Got thoughts? Continue the conversation on KSBoard, the KSR Message Board.