Big 12 commissioner upbeat about conference future in College Football Playoff

Is there a perfect system for picking college football playoff participants?

The past and future playoff format was a topic of discussion at the annual Fiesta Bowl Spring Summit at the Hyatt Regency Gainey Ranch in Scottsdale on Wednesday. The event brought together representatives from all 16 Big 12 schools for the first time since the sweeping realignment which will feature the additions of the "Four Corners" schools - Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah for the coming school year.

Basketball and football coaches met with Big 12 representatives earlier in the week.

Wednesday's panel discussing the college football playoff included Bill Hancock, who has served as executive director of the CFP since its inception, Utah Athletic Director Mark Harlan, Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark and Nebraska football coach Matt Ruhle. It was moderated by ESPN Senior College Football Writer Heather Dinich.

The CFP will expand from four to 12 teams in the coming season, with the potential to go to 14 as early as 2026. As far as Yormark is concerned, more is better. He also has advocated the wildly popular NCAA men's basketball tournament expanding past the current 68 teams.

12-team vs. 14-team College Football Playoff format

"If we end up going to 14 and we can further enhance the championship experience for more teams and more student-athletes, that's great," Yormark said. "I'm going to continue to bet on the Big 12 that we're going to take some of those at-large spots. In theory, more is more. More is good, but the proof is in the details and I'm excited to see how this year plays out at 12."

But Yormark said he'd like to see the pros and cons of the 12-team format before trying to tweak it.

The 12-team format will call for automatic bids for the winners of the top five ranked conferences, rounded out by seven at-large bids, with the top four seeded teams getting first round byes.

The 14-team format being floated would provide three automatic bids to the Big Ten and SEC and two bids to the ACC and Big 12, with one spot reserved for the highest-ranked Group of Six team, rounded out by three at-large bids.

Support for an expanded playoff has taken off in recent years, furthered even more by this year's exclusion of Florida State, which won the ACC, went undefeated but did not receive a berth.

Backlash from the public leading to expansion

Hancock, who just left his executive director role, said the pivotal factor in the committee's decision was the season-ending injury to FSU quarterback Jordan Travis. He called the backlash he and the committee received "vicious" to the point where the committee members were assigned extra security until the furor died down.

Asked about which years have been the toughest to settle on four teams, Hancock said the past season along with the first in 2014 including Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State.

Asked about misconceptions the public has with the selection process Hancock said one is that the committee selects teams to avoid rematches. He said that is not the case because that would conflict with the "integrity" of the process.

While the Big 12 took a hit with the departure of Oklahoma and Texas, Yormark remains positive. He continues to lobby for his conference, which won't have the same pull as the so-called powers in the SEC and Big Ten. The Big 12 is set to receive fewer revenue shares than the Big Ten, SEC, and ACC starting in 2026. The conference is set to earn a 15% share of CFP revenue ($12 million per team annually), well below the Big Ten and SEC (29%) and just below the ACC (17%).

"I certainly wasn't happy with the distribution," Yormark said. "I guess you could say in some respects I was satisfied. It was fine, but certainly not happy about it. I don't think our athletics directors or coaches are (happy) either, but we're going to continue to invest for the right reasons. We're going to continue to build football. It's at the core of what we do, and I'm excited about our future."

Yormark asked for a look-in provision in the CFP contract in 2028, which would allow for a re-evaluation of the contract's economics, thinking by then his conference will have bolstered its case for more equal treatment.

"I'm a believer that if you create value, you need to be rewarded," he said. "When you look at the first 10 years of the CFP, we didn't perform probably as well as we would have liked. That's OK. History might not repeat itself, and that's why we have that look-in. I made a point to get that in there because I'm betting on the Big 12 and betting on our future. Hopefully, between now and '28, we can perform at the level we'll be really proud of and then we can exercise that look-in based on our performance."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: NCAA CFP expansion a hot topic at Big 12 Scottsdale meeting