SEC, Big Ten will push for changes to CFP seeding in 2025
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference will push for changes in the way College Football Playoff teams are seeded next season to coincide more with how teams are ranked by the CFP selection committee, commissioners for both leagues said on Wednesday.
“I’m prepared to vote for seeding change,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said. “But it has to be unanimous.”
Last college football season was the first under the expanded 12-team CFP format.
While it was largely viewed as a success that might even be expanded to more teams, a provision that gave byes to the four highest-ranked major conference champions drew scrutiny after all four of those teams — Arizona State, Boise State, Georgia and Oregon — lost their CFP openers in the quarterfinals.
Ohio State and Notre Dame each won three playoff games before the Buckeyes knocked off the Fighting Irish in the title game.
Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said both conference are in favor of going to “straight seeding,” so that “there’s no difference between rankings and seedings.”
“The committee just puts in for the 12 teams next year — just says, ‘These are the 12 teams in the order that they fall,’ based on their judgment and the criteria they’re given in the selection room," Petitti said. “That would give the committee more flexibility to really do the job in probably a much clearer way for fans.”
Sankey and Petitti were in New Orleans on Wednesday for joint meetings with all of their league's athletic directors.
They declined to get into other potential changes — such as expanding the field — that they might recommend for the playoff format in 2026, when such changes could be considered.
“That’s something that we owe our colleagues (in other conferences) first,” Sankey said after declining to discuss any such proposals publicly.
However, as Mississippi athletic director Keith Carter left a downtown hotel following the meetings, he said he expects to see the field expanded eventually.
Petitti and Sankey stressed that they spent most of their time this week reviewing the experiences of teams from their conferences which participated in the 12-team playoff this past season — information that might inform recommendations in the future.
“That’s the first thing we have to do,” Petitti said. “What that informs going forward is what it’ll do.”
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