A College Football Playoffocalypse

The SEC Spring Meetings signaled a looming College Football Playoffocalypse.

Things came to a head in Destin, Florida, when commissioner Greg Sankey issued a blistering response to other conferences critical of the SEC’s consolidation of power. He also teased at leaving the NCAA completely.

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Here’s the skinny. The conferences agreed to do away with automatic byes for the 12-team playoff in 2025, moving to a straight seeding model. Now, the war over how an inevitable 16-team playoff should look is heating up.

The Big Ten and SEC are pushing for more guaranteed spots than the other conferences and the Group of Five, favoring a 4-4-2-2-1 model which gives them more automatic spots. Sankey hates that a 1 loss team like Indiana got in over SEC teams like Alabama and Ole Miss. “It’s clear that not losing is more important than playing quality opponents,” Sankey said to reporters last Tuesday.

In response to the SEC’s preferences, a 5+11 model—five conference champions, with 11 at-large teams—has gained momentum. Brett Yormark and the Big 12 like it, but without some kind of protection, they could be looking at years where seven SEC teams make it. The next battleground: how those 11 at-large bids will be decided.

But I’m worn out by it all, the ideas and the hand wringing. So I’ve made a personality test of sorts.

Here’s what your preferred playoff model says about you—and what you should do about it.

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Go Back to Computers and an AI Version of the BCS

The simplicity of two teams meeting up in the regular season might seem nice compared to what we have now. Think of how perfect the collision course between Texas and USC felt in 2005. Then think of the disaster that was 2008.

Proving that computers picking playoff teams is the last thing college football needs. If this is your choice, you’re the type of person who has ChatGPT write your emails or plan your vacation.

Suggestion: Try writing a handwritten letter to a friend or great aunt. You’re not allowed to use GROK for ideas on what to say.

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“Let’s Go Back to 4” or “Have You Heard About My Cool Idea for a 7-Team Playoff?”

You don’t understand how the world works, do you? This thing isn’t getting smaller.

Suggestion: Splash some cold water on your face and go volunteer somewhere. Don’t give anyone an ideas for how to improve efficiency or workflow.

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“We’ve Only Had 12 Teams for a Year—Can We Just Stay Here for a While?”

You’ve eaten the same turkey sandwich (with the crusts cut off) for lunch the last 16 years. Haven’t you?

Suggestion: Go get an impulsive tattoo right now. Seriously, stop reading this article and go get your favorite mythical creature or a sweet skeleton skull. That person you’ve been dating for five months? Get their name inked on your skin.

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16-Team Playoff With Guaranteed Bids for Each Conference (4-4-2-2-1)

Whether you’re an SEC truther like the Georgia fans I know or a Red Raider sad that there’s no burnt orange on your schedule, the desire for a fixed number of conference bids each year is boring, anti-competitive, and the opposite of what sports should be.

It also feels very European—too much like Champions League soccer. You’ll get teams that coast into the playoff with automatic bids, which creates complacency and stagnation.

Someone should have told you this a long time ago, but you want others to do the work for you. You’re the worst person to have in a group project.

Suggestion: Do a DIY project by yourself this weekend. No help. No brother-in-law. No YouTube. Build a fence or even a birdhouse. If you screw it up, you’ll be better for it—and you’ll no longer yearn for Penn State to go 9–3 and still make the playoff as the Big Ten’s fourth team.

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16 Teams (5 + 11 With a Committee Seeding the Field)

If this is your model, you were the type of person who told your boss a sob story every time you were late or didn’t close a deal. Managers called you “an always something” guy.

To be fair, you’re also a sucker for a sob story. This is probably what the Big 12 and ACC prefer. A committee will consider win-loss records more than anything else. They’ll bring sympathy and traditional logic.

How do you put an 8–4 SEC team in over a 10–2 Big 12 team? That’s the kind of question this model will struggle with.

Suggestion: Next time your AC goes out or your car battery dies, don’t tell a soul.

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16 Teams (5 + 11 With Some Newfangled Idea to Seed the Field—But Really It Just Benefits the Superconferences)

You pronounce “vase” with an elongated A sound and a Z at the end.

Suggestion: Stop saying it that way.

[Order THE LONGHORN ALPHABET today and teach your little ones the A to Z’s of Texas Football!]

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You’re Tired of All This and Want the Newspapers to Decide Our Champions Again

Suggestion: No notes. You might be right.

This article was originally published on Dance With Who Brung Ya.