SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey had a lot to say at SEC’s Media Days about the SEC and Big Ten’s differences on how to restructure the CFP.
Looks like the negotiations have entered the ‘public sentiment’ phase.
Possibly the most interesting comment is the hint that the SEC might be willing to move to a 9 game conference schedule.
I think the 4-4-2-2-1 is best for Northwestern with the B1G having 4 automatic bids.
In that model the 1st and 2nd place team in the conference will be in the playoffs.
The B1G title game will be replaced by a play-in game for spots 3 and 4 with the 3rd playing the 6th and the 4th playing the 5th placed team.
We and the less prestigious B1G football teams generally are underranked as we have to come out of nowhere ever starting in the top 10(or at worst top 25) every year like the blue bloods. It takes a big win to crack the top 25 vs. 23rd ranked Michigan can beat Slippery Rock and move from 23rd to 21st assuming 21 and 22 lose.
Taking it out of the pollsters and basing it on conference ranking cleans this up.
Also I think that a great year for us would be 5th or 6th place and I don’t see us cracking the top 3 and with 4th place the committee might overlook us for a bigger named SEC, ACC, or B12 team.
Maybe I’m just slow today, but I don’t understand what the 4-4-2-2-1 model is.
The tiebreakers for figuring out the place ordering of the top teams will be key, the odds are pretty good that if there isn’t a tie for the #1 spot in the conference there will be ties for 2, 3 and 4.
It is guaranteed bids by conference on the 16 team playoff:
4 for both the SEC and B1G
2 for both the ACC and B12
1 for the group of 5
3 open bids
That pretty much makes the committee just for ordering the rankings and not selecting the teams.