It’s all together. This ever-evolving process of changing paradigms that attracted college football. Whether you like it or not.
Want to blame someone for the chaos of the past four years? Despise Texas and Oklahoma.
This will not happen unless the two biggest programs in college football decide to light up the fuse in the summer of 2021 for financial stability.
It’s not the SEC that adds Longhorns and Sooners and becomes the villain of college sports. It’s not that the Big Ten will become Big America, and the ACC will become an All-Coast Conference.
It’s not about the death of the Pac-12 (as we know) but about expanding the playoff postseason for college football, which minimizes the bowl system. It’s not an endless thirst for more money from college and players.
It is therefore not surprising that the final piece of this unique moment in College Sports, the final step four years ago, has finally arrived that it was a dream.
It appears that SEC is finally moving into nine meeting games.
In one important offseason, and just weeks after the completion of the first 12-team CFP, college football is heading for more fundamental changes. This time it looks like the final move.
“There’s a lot of interest in the (9-game meeting schedule),” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said Wednesday in New Orleans.
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The fact that there is “many interest” to move from SEC coaches and athletic directors to nine games is that even the heaviest hitters in the face of college sports, even the looming appearance of effective wages, the Financial Straits indicates. ” System.
It wasn’t long ago that former Alabama coach Nick Saban was the only coach in the SEC who wanted a nine-game meeting schedule. Just like the 2022 SEC Spring Meeting, Savan said not only would need nine meeting games for the league, but he should also mandate at least one non-meeting game against another power conference opponent. There’s time.
Fast forward to Wednesday in New Orleans and now everyone is on board. The president and athletic director look at the final piece of the puzzle and see how the final paint court of college football is complete, completely rebuilt and reimagined.
The SEC, moving to nine games, can coordinate between two super conferences in college football. The Big Ten has played nine conference games since 2016, and the inconsistency between the two conferences has since been a postseason qualification discussion.
Potential changes by the SEC open up the opportunity for two meetings to build non-conference scheduling agreements. These games, and nine meeting games, are the driving factors that sell more elite games to media rights partners and then generate revenue.
The expansion of the game created the possibility of a CFP play-in game over the championship weekend, expanding the postseason format to up to 16 teams. More games, more money.
By playing nine conference games and adding non-conference scheduling agreements, the Big Ten and SEC can request more access from new college football playoff agreements that begin in 2026.
In that scenario, the Big 12 and ACC will each receive two automatic qualifying spots. Notre Dame is accessible as an independent person if selected by the Select Committee. This leaves one AT-Large spot in the 14-team format, or three spots in the 16-team format.
If you expand the championship weekend to the weekend with the college football playoffs, you’ll see an increase in the number of games that affect access from 5 (four Power Conference Championship Games, the best group of five champions).
This is an eight more impactful game for media rights partners, and a corresponding increase in revenue.
In one potential scenario, the SEC and the Big Ten each had four play-in games among the top eight teams in their respective meeting rankings, with the winners advance to CFP. The ACC and Big 12 will play two games from the top four teams in their respective meetings.
That potential plan would have been like this in 2024:
SEC: (1) Texas vs. (2) Georgia in the championship game, (8) Ole Miss at (3) Tennessee, (7) Texas A&M at (4) Alabama, and South Carolina (6) at LSU (5) .
Big Ten: (1) Oregon vs. (2) Championship Games Pennsylvania, (8) Minnesota in Minnesota (3) Ohio (7) Indiana (4) Illinois (6) (5).
The ACC and Big 12 are only playing with four teams, and can choose to name conference champions in the regular season, and use a 1-4, 2-3 format in the play-in game Masu.
The SEC is also considering a straight play-in format for the top eight teams. In other words, 1 to 8, 2 to 7, etc. The winners then move forward, and the conference champions decide at the end of the regular season.
All this change from one monumental move four years ago.
Despise Texas and Oklahoma. Or thank you.
Because the SEC will eventually reach a nine-game meeting schedule.
Matt Hayes is a senior national college football writer for the USA Today Sports Network. Follow him with X at @matthayescfb.