Goodbye Playoff Bye

Thursday was a rough day for the Big 12.

We learned the 2025 College Football Playoff won't include automatic byes for the four highest-ranked conference champions. Instead, the top four teams in the CFP rankings will get those byes.

In other words, the SEC and Big Ten got their way.

If this had been in effect last year, Arizona State would’ve been sent to Ohio State in the first round instead of advancing to the quarterfinals to take on Texas in the Peach Bowl.

Under current rules, this change required unanimous approval. So why would the Big 12, ACC, and Group of Six willingly give up their last guaranteed year of first-round byes and extra cash?

For starters, they’re not losing the money. The four highest-ranked conference champs will still earn the $8 million payout they received in 2024—they just won’t get the bye that came with it.

If that sounds like a pretty lame compromise, that’s because it is…unless there’s something else coming. 

Remember, I wrote earlier this week that the Big 12 and ACC were getting a chance to pitch their playoff format proposals for 2026 and beyond. While the Big Ten and SEC won't need unanimous approval next year, the hope is that the Big 12 and ACC conceding this issue now might lead to more favorable outcomes in the next iteration of the playoff. 

Maybe it forces the Big Ten and SEC to back off of having four autobids apiece. Maybe it gets them to include a third autobid for the ACC and Big 12 at the expense of two at-large spots. 

Do my hopes for this seem a little naive considering the way the SEC and Big Ten have bent the sport to their will through sheer bullying and greed over the last four-plus years? 

Absolutely. 

Especially after reading this passage from Ross Dellenger’s latest story for Yahoo Sports:

ACC and Big 12 stakeholders have pushed for alternate models that don’t disadvantage their schools, including granting each a third automatic qualifier — a 4-4-3-3-1 concept that reduces the at-large field from three to one — or a 16-team field similar to the current format but with four additional at-large spots.

Those formats received little support from administrative groups in the SEC and Big Ten, according to those with knowledge of the talks. President and athletic director groups in both conferences are in support of the 4-4-2-2-1 model, no matter the public pushback, political pressures and, even, Notre Dame’s resistance to it.

What happened to the wave of fury we saw from ACC coaches and administrators just two weeks ago? They were ready to battle the Big Ten and SEC head-on.

Now they’re quietly giving in to the Power Two’s demands for 2025, while their proposals for the future are shot down? I hate that for all of us.

Let’s hope Brett Yormark and company still have something else up their sleeve.

What You Need to Know

• Another blow to the Big 12 on Thursday was finding out that the White House is pausing plans for the presidential commission on college sports. The pause is intended to give senators like Ted Cruz and Cory Booker more time to reach an agreement on federal legislation. There are two very important details to parse from Ross Dellenger’s reporting on the commission pause.

• First, he says Texas Tech megabooster Cody Campbell wasn’t courting Nick Saban to be a co-chair of the commission. Check out the important distinction here. 

• Second, he mentions that the SEC and Big Ten are concerned about the commission’s concepts. That sure seems to justify my optimism that a Campbell-led commission has the potential to make changes in the best interest of college sports as a whole, instead of just the Power Hungry Two. 

• In a horrible story out of Provo, Utah, BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff was accused of sexual assault in a new civil lawsuit. The incident occurred in November 2023. Retzlaff hasn’t been criminally charged, and his lawyer maintains he is “factually innocent.” You can read all of the grisly accusations here. 

• One of my favorite preseason rankings just dropped. ESPN’s Bill Connelly used his SP+ formula to rank the top 25 teams in college football. Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly kind to the Big 12—unless you’re a K-State fan.

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