PAC-12 now skeptical of 12 team playoff

This is why we are VERY fortunate to be getting in a power conference.

This 12 team playoff thing is now developing detractors…and in the end, it’s possible that only P5 teams will have a shot at it.

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Becoming a big fan of Heartland C.S.
They gave the AAC the cold shoulder in their week 2 rankings.
" 9. AMERICAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE"

Calm down big guy the ink isn’t dry yet and we’re still there 2 more years.

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I think it will be good to re-evaluate the 12 team proposal. The article did not mention it, but I think the idea of the SEC stacking the playoffs is a big concern. I hope this could lead to a conference limit on teams in the playoff to allow for more diverse conference access.

It will be interesting to see the votes. I wonder if the Big 12 will go with the SEC or the alliance since Bowlsby was big in drafting the new proposal.

I was never a fan of the 12 team format to begin with, but that is because I despise byes for some teams and not others. Those would end up going only to certain blue blood teams.

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I think this is all just posturing/negotiating with the SEC. SEC probably wants a limit 6 slots, the other conferences want them limited to 4 slots. So it likely ends up at 5 as the limit. Just a guess. There is going to be too much money on the table, and the SEC can already get half the playoff slots.

I will add that, with Bug 12 expansion, a slot for a 6th conference champion no longer makes sense. The fusion between P5 and G5 just got even bigger. And if we are 2nd in the Big 12 one year and in line for a playoff spot, we sure aren’t gonna want Ciastal Carolina or Appalachian State taking our spot.

There was never going to be a playoff that improved the chances of an AAC team over what they have now.

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4 team playoff.
Power 4 conferences
Big 12 misses out.

Called this weeks ago.

The two spoken main points of concern are:

  1. Autonomy Five conferences are not hard-coded into the model (horror of horrors, they have to earn it by not being worse than both the AAC and MWC. The Big 12 might have come around to this point of view and maybe that’s what they’re banking on.

  2. 12 is too many. This should have the MWC and AAC concerned. “Our teams can make the playoffs” is a recruiting selling point that the Pac-12 and Big 12 probably want to be able to use against MWC/AAC teams, in addition to concerns about too many games.

  1. TV contract issues.

  2. This one isn’t spoken here, but they may want conference caps on how many teams from a specific conference can get in. With both the four team model and the putative 12-team model, the other conferences were deferential to the SEC but I think those days are done.

They want the Big 12 votes, so I think we’re okay either way. As of right now my guess is that the AAC and MWC are okay, too. I think they may get the hard-coded conferences, though. A compromise might be a 9-team deal where the G5 gets a play-in like the first four basketball tourney games.

Even with realignment, I think it’s going to be hard for them to do take-backs at this point. Especially as long as Boise State is with the have-nots. (It’s not inconceivable that the Big 12 is under some pressure to add them for this reason.)

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Maybe they go to 8. Top 5 conference champions. 3 at large. No cap so SEC could get all 3 at large.

Assuming the change to Big 12 already happened, right now if would be: Alabama, Oregon, Iowa, Clemson, Cincy, Georgia, OU, aggy - so Big 12 gets a team but as the 8 seed and SEC gets 4 teams.

Yes I think they should limit the number of teams a conference can get in to the playoffs to 4 teams.

I think they need wait until time to negotiate a new contract. This allows all the realignments to be finalized and the issues of NIL, transfers, and scholarship limits are settled.

You are probably correct, sir. And the coded reason why Alpha Bowlsby mentioned a conference with 24 teams being conceivable. You wanna threaten us? We’ll ### out-vote you.

How would that be put on paper?

That’s a serious question.

There are only 53 P5-1 schools (counting ND), and they are far from united.

Cutting out the Big 12 makes everything they haven’t done before (like cutting out the G5, breaking apart from the NCAA, etc) that much more difficult.

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This points to the cartel being the cartel. This is not about sport but about money.

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“Four team playoff, involving the champions of the Pac-12, Big Ten, SEC, and ACC.” It’s really not that hard if they want to do it; College Football is very much a sport of free association.

Basically this.

It’s all about the timing for me. They announced a 12 team playoff possibility which was all the rage then seemingly instantly UT and OU takes over the news with their move to the SEC. ACC / Big 10 and Pac 12 join an alliance without the Big 12. Big 12 announces they expand and one of the main talking points I’ve seen and heard everywhere except here is “how is this big 12 still a power conference?”

Most conversations regarding power conferences outside the big 12 schools have shifted to there being a Power 4.

The writing is on the wall to me but I really hope I’m wrong.

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Most of the major media outlets still refer to the Big 12 and other conferences as Power 5. They still refer to every other conference as the Group of 5.

Hell if anything I’ve been hearing more people say there’s actually a Power 2 ( SEC & Big 10 ) and everyone else is the middle class except for the group of 5 conferences. But they’d till refer to the SEC, Big 10, ACC, Big 12, and PAC 12 as the power 5. They still have bowl tie ins, and the Big 12 is better than the old Big East by a mile. Cinci, UH, BYU can grow into national brands in the Big 12.

I doubt the Big 12 loses its power status. There’s no way they would pass up a B12 Conference champion for the playoff unless it was a 2-3 loss champ.

And playoff expansion will happen. It’s only a matter of when not if

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I would go with an 8 school playoff. P5 schools and 3 G5 with the top g5 getting in and the bottom 4 G5 in a playoff. 1 school per conference, champions only. the SEC can cry and moan all they want, but they’re 14 schools against the rest of the field. Depending on how desperate the SEC is for this 12 school playoff with no conference cap, there could be room for some Big XII horse trading of votes with either the SEC or the Alliance…

The logistics are easy enough to figure out, but the consensus isn’t.

For example, the SEC would be Not Okay with that plan.