Why SEC reversed course on AQ-heavy College Football Playoff format and what it means for Big Ten relationship

Headed into the start of SEC spring meetings, the Big Ten believed it had a partner in its push to transform the College Football Playoff into something more akin to the NFL.

The Big Ten and SEC have grown significantly closer over the last year, having orchestrated a takeover of the College Football Playoff that gives them say over whether and how the format will change for 2026 and beyond.

The two conferences strengthened the bond with historic conference meetups -- first in Nashville in October 2024 and then in New Orleans in February. At those meetings, the Big Ten's preference to move to more automatic qualifiers -- four each for the Big Ten and SEC, two each for the ACC and Big 12 -- began to resonate with an SEC contingent that had previously resisted.

Those involved in the discussions and participants in the meetings say once Big Ten leaders laid out the reasoning for a move to more automatic qualifiers -- chief among them taking away power from a perceived inconsistent selection committee process and allowing for better non-conference scheduling -- it gained traction within the SEC. The Big Ten believed a move to more automatic bids would lessen the selection committee "conflicting itself week-to-week," according to one source familiar with the discussions, and allow for consistency that it didn't think was possible for a 13-person group that changed its membership year-over-year.

"Make it about how you compete against your conference and take out any sort of perceived bias or politicking and campaigning and let it play out how each conference thinks is best for them," is how one Big Ten source explained the pitch.

Still undecided, SEC holds the key to College Football Playoff as 5+11 format gains steam

It helped that the Big Ten caught the SEC in a perfect storm during that February meeting after the conference experienced three schools (Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina) just miss the playoff cut in a process SEC leaders felt didn't properly weigh the challenge of playing in the conference. The idea of dramatically lessening the selection committee's power didn't sound so bad now after the SEC only got three teams into the first year of the 12-team CFP.

Big Ten sources described those shared meetings with the SEC, which featured both commissioners and athletic directors from all member schools, as "critical" in garnering support for a move to a 16-team playoff with more automatic qualifiers. At Big Ten meetings in late May in California, multiple Big Ten sources were bullish about where things stood between the two conferences in their push for playoff expansion. The concern wasn't what the SEC would do but instead trying to build a consensus with the ACC and Big 12, which had both opposed the 4-4-2-2-1-3 model despite a firmly held belief that they didn't need either to ultimately achieve their goals.

The key, then and now, was the SEC.

And as the SEC kicked off its annual meetings down in Sandestin, Florida, last week, there was no reason for concern. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey was careful with his wording in describing the idea but didn't exactly hide his support of it, either. He said the SEC was "interested but not committed," a typical Sankey move to nod at what he wanted but give himself cover.

Yet as the week at the beach closed, the SEC was trending away from the 4-4-2-2-1-3 model and instead was rallying around the Big 12's preferred 5 + 11 model that featured the top five-ranked conference champions receiving automatic bids and the other 11 going to the top ranked at-large teams. It was a stunning reversal that caught multiple Big Ten sources off guard and could set up a potentially fascinating heavyweight battle between the two most powerful conferences if the SEC becomes entrenched on the 5+11 idea.

How did we get there? It begins with a powerful group that is often overlooked in these discussions.

SEC coaches forcefully against AQs, 9 conference games

Six of the 10 highest-paid football coaches in America reside in the SEC, including the game's highest-paid coach, Georgia's Kirby Smart. National championship-winning coaches like Smart are almost demigods in their community, revered for their success on Saturdays and their ability to bring in millions of dollars in revenue when everything is going well.

But when it comes time to making big decisions that could shape their everyday reality, even the powerful, outspoken coaches like Smart and Ole Miss' Lane Kiffin rarely get what they want. Just look at Smart's impassioned speech about the transfer portal last week and why nothing has changed despite overwhelming support at the FBS head coach level.

What one must remember is that what's most important to a football coach could be just one of the many issues their athletic director is dealing with at any given time. Go up another level and think about everything a university president or chancellor must contend with daily. The higher up the food chain you go, the more attractive extra revenue that an expanded CFP and a move to nine SEC conference games might look.

This time was different, though.

The SEC football coaches coming out so strongly against AQs, both publicly and privately, caught SEC leaders by surprise, according to multiple sources. The joint conversation between athletic directors and football coaches became heated at times, as some ADs, banking on the extra $5 million or so in revenue a ninth SEC game would bring, became frustrated over the tides turning against their preferred outcomes. The majority of the coaches vehemently opposed the idea of a play-in weekend, believing it would diminish the importance of the SEC Championship Game. The play-in playoff concept, a key component of Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti's playoff plan, is another potentially sizable source of new revenue that some ADs would like to get their hands on.

"Having football coaches in the room was really good," Mississippi State AD Zac Selmon told CBS Sports. "We're considering all options and what's best for our institutions and the SEC."

Selmon said his position on automatic qualifiers "evolved a lot" after the joint meetings with the Big Ten but that he still wrestled with whether that was the best path for the SEC, a notion only amplified down in Sandestin after discussing with his colleagues.

"I grew up in sports, and if you want to win a championship, you have to go earn it, and I still think that's exactly how it is in the SEC," Selmon said. "If you get into the CFP, you've earned your way there, and you should.

"In some years, we could have a model where there's seven SEC teams in the expanded CFP. Is that good for the game? I don't know, but it shows the strength of our league. There's still work to be done on what options, but I always feel comfort knowing Commissioner Sankey has done an unbelievable job carrying the load. The same for us at Mississippi State with Mark Keenum, the chair of the (CFP) Board of Managers. I still think there's work to be done on the entire ecosystem just because of the disparity in our league is a gauntlet."

How will selection process change?

From the start of the SEC's week on the Gulf Coast, it felt like a targeted attack on the current CFP selection process.

Multiple coaches came out against a process that led to more Big Ten (4) than SEC (3) teams in the playoff.

"There's no outcry, saying it's unfair when the SEC gets 13 of 16 teams in (the NCAA) basketball tournament by using RPI," Smart said. "I have a hard time thinking Ole Miss, South Carolina and Alabama were not part of the best teams in the country."

Lane Kiffin, who advocated for simply taking the 16 best teams and getting rid of automatic bids altogether, wanted the selection process tweaked.

"Somehow, the formula of how they figure out the teams has to change," Kiffin said. "I'm not just saying that because we lost three games and didn't make it; I'm saying that because other sports do a much better job of figuring out the quality of the team over just the losses, figuring out the quality of wins that they have, their strength of schedule that they play."

When pressed on what specifically he'd like to see done to emphasize those things, including from an analytics or formula standpoint, Kiffin admitted he didn't really have an answer.

"You got to use some of the indexes," he said. "I'm not going to pretend I understand them all and which ones are the best, but I know other sports have figured that out better than us."

Therein lies part of the problem moving forward. The SEC doesn't like how the selection committee handled last year's playoff field. Guess what? The Big Ten has similar concerns, which is why it is trying to deemphasize the committee's impact with the introduction of more automatic qualifiers. In the Big Ten's plan, the committee would primarily focus on seeding. It would only have to select three at-large teams -- if it expands to 16 teams -- rather than the seven teams it currently picks.

Conversely, if a 5 +11 model is adopted, it'd give the committee more power -- and put even more pressure to get it right -- in picking 11 of the field's teams.

The limited amount of data points available in football makes it challenging to come up with college football's version of NET or RPI. Still, it is clear that changes can -- and likely will -- be made to an ambiguous process to find the best teams that doesn't officially take strength of schedule into account. As former Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese, a member of the inaugural CFP selection committee, told CBS Sports in December: "They said, 'We want to get the best teams.' But no one told us how to find the best teams."

Florida AD Scott Stricklin, another former member of the selection committee, was even more forceful in his rebuke of a system he once willingly participated in, saying, "A committee is not ideal to choose a postseason. I question whether it is appropriate for college football."

Selmon wants "more clearly defined metrics" and to make the selection process less subjective. He doesn't know the exact formula to fix the problems but is confident it can be done.

"I can pick up my phone and have food delivered here in five minutes. I could probably buy a house in about 10 minutes. We've got super computers that can look at things that are going on in Vegas with odds. They can be pretty dialed in," Selmon said. "So I think we need some more objective metrics to say this is what the pathway looks like before we can fully get to a system everybody feels good about regardless of what seat you're sitting in, what league you're in, and think this is for the good of college football."

At the conclusion of the SEC spring meetings, the conference handed out a seven-page packet entitled, "A Regular Season Gauntlet," that highlighted "no other conference has a regular season as grueling as the SEC's." Within the packet, the SEC pointed out different metrics used, whether the metrics were objective or predictive and where the conference ranked. The intent was obvious: The SEC, using a variety of metrics, believes it has been the clear best conference over the last decade and that more of those metrics need to be factored into the selection process.

As Sankey put it," "I do think there's a need for change. How do you explain some of the decisions that have been made?"

What now?

On Monday, Sankey reiterated his long-held belief that the SEC doesn't need automatic qualifiers. Appearing on the "Dan Patrick Show," the SEC commissioner, who has been the unwitting face of the automatic qualifiers debate, made clear that's not his preference.

"I'd give no allocations," Sankey said. "This whole 5-7 thing that exists now, I'd just make it the 12 best teams. I was clear on that. When we get into rooms, we make political compromises, if you will."

Sankey and the other conference commissioners are expected to have a call Tuesday to further discuss the latest CFP discussions. They'll meet in person on June 18 in Asheville, North Carolina. Sankey told the SEC presidents and chancellors last week it was important to collaborate with the other conferences and that the SEC couldn't "bulldog" a format on the others, as one SEC president told CBS Sports.

A week ago, expansion to 16 teams with multiple AQs per power conference felt increasingly like a foregone conclusion. With it came a possible Big Ten-SEC scheduling alliance and a play-in weekend where the conferences could create additional must-see television programming.

Now, the 5 + 11 model has more steam than ever. It seems more and more doubtful that the SEC will move to a nine-game conference schedule in 2026. (The Big Ten, according to Yahoo Sports, has already voiced private displeasure over moving to 5+11 if the SEC sticks to eight conference games.) SEC football coaches harshly rejected the play-in championship weekend idea.

Will the SEC maintain this stance and throw cold water on its burgeoning relationship with the Big Ten? Or, as time passes and decisions get made without coaches in the room, will the SEC eventually make its way back to a model that guarantees it four spots in the playoff?

Only time will tell, but the industry is already grappling with the aftershocks of the SEC's week in Sandestin that could be the most impactful spring meetings in a long time.