The SEC and Big Ten want to saturate the Playoff. But history suggests it won’t really help them

As you have read, the Big Ten and SEC are plotting to transform the College Football Playoff into the Tony Petitti/Greg Sankey Invitational. They want their conferences to be guaranteed four automatic berths each in an expanded 14-team field, versus two for the peons in the ACC and Big 12.

Currently, in the 12-team CFP, only the champions of those conferences qualify for an automatic berth, leaving seven at-large spots. In the proposed Petitti/Sankey Invitational, the first- through fourth-place teams in their conferences are automatically in, regardless of where they’re ranked by the committee.

I went back and looked at the final College Football Playoff rankings from 2014-24 to see just how dramatically this brilliant plan would have benefitted them had it been in place all along.

The answer is: Not at all.

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Their total number of berths over that period would be barely different.

And in some cases, it would have backfired. Like in 2019, when, under the current rules, the SEC would have qualified five teams and the ACC just one. But under the SEC’s own proposal, No. 24 Virginia (9-4), the ACC’s second-place team, would be in, while No. 13 Alabama (10-2), which would have earned the last at-large berth, would be out.

Had there been a 14-team Playoff all along, but with only the five highest-ranked conference champions getting auto-berths, the yearly averages largely mirror what’s being proposed (using current conference membership). The Big Ten and SEC each averaged 4.2 entrants per season and the ACC and Big 12 averaged 2.1. The Group of 5 (1.0) and Notre Dame (0.4) accounted for the rest.

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But no one is going to be tracking 11-year averages on selection Sunday. All that matters is who should or should not have gotten in that particular season. And not once over those 11 seasons did the split among the Power 4 naturally land on 4-4-2-2.

Some years, the ACC or Big 12 would have earned more than two bids, some years fewer. The Big 12 had as many as five in 2021, two more than either the Big Ten or SEC that season.

Some years the Big Ten or SEC earned more than four bids, like in 2023, when the SEC would have had six and the Big Ten five. But some years — brace yourself — they would have had fewer than four teams. It happened to the Big Ten three times, and four for the SEC.

This occurred most recently in 2022 when the SEC’s fourth-highest team was No. 17 LSU (9-4). Under the Power 2’s plan, the Tigers would have made the 14-team field automatically, at the expense of No. 12 Washington (10-2).

That’s hardly the most extreme case of bracket manipulation working in the SEC’s favor. In 2015, No. 19 Florida would have been in as the SEC’s fourth team, along with No. 16 Oklahoma State, the Big 12’s second team. Together they would have bumped not one but two top-10 ACC teams, No. 9 Florida State and No. 10 North Carolina.

In other seasons, however, the SEC would have found itself on the wrong end of someone else’s automatic berth. Like the aforementioned 2019 Virginia example. Or the year before that, when No. 20 Syracuse (9-3) would have displaced No. 14 Kentucky (9-3). In 2023 neither the ACC nor Big 12 had a second team, in which case No. 15 Louisville (10-3) and No. 20 Oklahoma State (9-4) would have bounced No. 11 Ole Miss (10-2) and No. 12 Oklahoma (10-2).

In 2020, in a Big Ten-on-SEC crime, No. 15 Iowa (6-2) would have replaced No. 9 Georgia (7-2). Call it revenge for 2016, when the SEC would have had just two teams qualify under the current parameters. Instead, No. 14 Auburn (8-4) and No. 17 Florida (8-4) would have replaced No. 9 USC (9-3) and No. 13 Louisville (9-3).

Are you noticing a recurring theme yet? This. Is. Dumb!

This clearly well-thought-out Petitti/Sankey Invitational must have some sort of long-term payoff for the Big Ten and SEC, right? Surely if they’re going to strong-arm eight other conferences, it must mean they’re pocketing a whole bunch of extra berths.

Nope. Applying their model to the past 11 seasons, the Big Ten goes from 46 CFP teams to 47, while the SEC drops from 46 to 45. The biggest winner is actually the Big 12, which picked up two berths to go from 23 to 25. (The poor ACC fell from 23 to 21.)

There would be next to no long-term benefit to those leagues by manipulating the Playoff field. But it would have at least one long-term consequence: Destroying the credibility of the entire event.

Here’s a better plan: Hold a Playoff consisting solely of the best teams in the country that season.

Number of College Football Playoff teams per conference in a 14-team Playoff, 2014-24, using current membership

* G5 includes two appearances by Washington State

(Photo: David J. Griffin / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)