Two simple ideas could completely change college football as we know it
We aren’t sure the television networks who cover college football are truly ready for the new era of the 12-team College Football Playoff. More precisely, we’re not sure the television networks are ready to make the adjustments they need to make in order to generate more money and make their conference partners very happy.
One aspect of our recent appearance on the Last Word On Sports media podcast really hammered home this point of fresh awareness. Fans and coaches, not just television networks and the various other people in the college football industry, don’t seem to be ready for what’s about to come.
On the Last Word On Sports media podcast, the future of college football was discussed relative to the new 12-team playoff, which begins in 2024. With 12 teams getting into the playoff, Ken Fang of Awful Announcing offered a very perceptive insight: The conference championship games aren’t going to mean what they used to mean. This makes obvious sense, right?
If 12-0 Georgia plays 11-1 Alabama in the SEC Championship Game, it doesn’t matter who wins in terms of making the 12-team field. Both teams will be in. The value of that game would be for seeding and getting a first-round bye. That’s important, but it’s not nearly as important as getting into the 12-team field.
We have two basic ideas for ESPN, Fox Sports, NBC, and CBS (as the main college football broadcasters), as well as the Power Five conferences, on how to reform the sport in ways which will print a lot of money for all parties involved. Our two ideas will be unpacked in the form of several examples, with some other side notes attached.
Let’s get started:
BACKGROUND
The SEC Championship Game, when it was created in 1992, was doubted and questioned as a meaningful entity for college football. We have to remember that if Florida had upset Alabama, knocking the Crimson Tide out of the national championship game at the 1993 Sugar Bowl against Miami, the SEC title game might never have become the commercial success it ultimately became.
However, Alabama beat Florida. The Tide made the title game and won the national championship … and the SEC got great publicity and TV ratings for its new standalone game. Everyone made money.
It’s time for a new money-making venture in college football television and scheduling.
4-TEAM PLAYOFF
In the four-team playoff era, the conference championship games are often “winner in, loser out” games — not all the time, but a good percentage of the time. In this soon-to-end era (ending this year), the conference championship games have fit the playoff model really well.
12-TEAM PLAYOFF
In the 12-team playoff era, as we noted above in the introduction, a 12-0 team facing an 11-1 team will not have any bearing on who gets in or who is left out. If the conference championship games remain in the same structure as they have existed for the past few decades, they are not going to be true “elimination” games for the playoff. They are unlikely to be “win and in” games as well.
10-2 IS THE CENTERPIECE
The main playoff debates or questions in the 12-team playoff era will come from teams with 10-2 records through 12 games. Those are the teams which will be at or near the cut line in most college football seasons. The teams which go 11-1 should be safe, especially if they are from the SEC or Big Ten. The real focus will be on 10-2 teams from the top conferences as the big at-large questions and dramas heading into the playoff selection show.
HOW THE BIG TEN AND SEC CAN ADJUST
So, if the 10-2 teams are going to be the focal point of playoff debates, not the 12-0 or 11-1 teams, the conference championship games need to change.
The Big Ten and SEC could still stage a football game in early December at the same time slots they have been using for a long while, but it would no longer be a conference championship game. It would be the “Big Ten Playoff” or “SEC Playoff.”
The game wouldn’t have the top two teams in the conference, but the third and fourth or fourth and fifth teams in the conference. The purpose would be to get one more team into the 12-team playoff. In the new era which will begin in 2024, that kind of game — not a traditional conference title game — would likely generate more ratings and therefore more money for teams and conferences.
THE GREG SANKEY DANCE WITH ESPN/DISNEY
The SEC made big news when it stayed at an eight-game conference schedule for 2024. You know that ESPN/Disney wanted a nine-game schedule with more high-end inventory, but the SEC wouldn’t just give it. There needs to be a way for ESPN/Disney to make a more attractive offer to the SEC. Reforming the conference championship game (the SEC Championship Game, in ESPN’s case) provides the gateway through which to achieve this goal.
SEC FLEX PLAN
News Joshua L Jones
The “SEC flex plan” would involve the aforementioned “SEC Playoff,” featuring the third/fourth/fifth-place teams in the conference playing for an at-large bid. That game would be the ninth SEC game for the two teams involved.
The flex plan would mean that on the same weekend as the “SEC Playoff,” the other 14 teams in the conference would play one flexed game. The top teams in the SEC would play lower-level SEC opponents in order to protect their playoff position, but if — let’s say — the No. 3 and No. 4 SEC teams played in the SEC Playoff, the No. 5 and 6 teams could meet in a potential second SEC game with playoff implications. That game could also generate a lot of money and eyeballs. Every SEC team would play a ninth conference game on the first weekend of December. This is how ESPN/Disney could get a ninth SEC game and make a lot of money for both itself and its partners at the SEC.
FOX AND THE BIG TEN
Everything we just laid out for the SEC could be done by Fox and the Big Ten. Any of the Power Five conferences could do this, though the SEC and Big Ten — because they are expected to get the most playoff bids of any conference — have the most to gain from such a push. It’s more likely that the fourth-place teams in these two conferences might still be in the playoff hunt in early December than the fourth-place teams in the Pac-12, Big 12, and ACC.
PAC-12
Though the Pac-12’s fourth-place team might not be playoff-worthy, the league could still explore the idea of having a flexed December weekend with games throughout the conference. Maybe the Pac-12 would benefit from its top two teams playing in a true (classic, traditional) conference championship game. However, the Pac-12 — also the Big 12 and ACC — could simply say that they will have an open-ended schedule for the first weekend of December and will decide on their flex schedule in late November according to what would best suit their needs.
Chances are that in a 12-team playoff, these other Power Five conferences could get two teams into the field if everything breaks right for them, so we certainly envision some seasons in which these conferences would have their second- and third-place teams meeting in a conference playoff game, not the regular-season champion (the first-place team). This is a change college football power brokers need to make.
AN ALTERNATIVE PLAN
Maybe Greg Sankey and the SEC don’t want a full December schedule of flexed games with Vanderbilt-Alabama on the docket. Maybe they want more games but not some lower-end inventory involving teams which finished 10th place or worse in the new 16-team SEC.
Here’s a different plan: Instead of having every team in the conference play a ninth game, have two SEC semifinals. The top seed plays the fourth seed and the second seed plays the third seed, unless those matchups would be repeats of regular-season meetings. The lower seeds get a chance to play their way into the playoff. The higher seeds get a chance to earn a first-round bye and get a good test heading into the 12-team playoff.
Yes, the SEC would probably need to start its season in late August to build in an added week off for teams before these final two games. That shouldn’t be overly difficult, though we admit that adding two games to the schedule is a logistical and structural problem which would require other solutions. Sankey could tell SEC schools that if they expect to play for the SEC championship, they might have to give up one nonconference (cupcake) home game.
Ultimately, the conference semifinal plan is not as good as the flex plan, but with an expanded 16-team conference, the idea of having semifinals makes more sense than it did with a 14-team conference. More high-end matchups could be created.
BOTTOM LINE
Conference championship games are going to feel out of place in the 12-team playoff era. Georgia and Alabama, Michigan versus Ohio State, Oregon and Utah or Washington, might be solidly in the playoff field before even playing a conference championship game. People will want to watch early-December games in which teams are playing what amount to elimination games for the 12-team playoff. This means having teams with 10-2 records, teams which will definitely not be first in their conferences and will likely be third or fourth.
This is where the sport needs to go. We will see if ESPN, Fox, NBC, CBS, and the Power Five conferences are able to catch the wave and create timely change which will serve college football fans well.
