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College football’s power brokers are butting heads over the future playoff format, with commissioners taking public shots at each other during this week’s spring meetings. SEC commissioner Greg Sankey fired the first salvo, declaring he doesn’t need “lectures from others about good of the game” — a thinly veiled jab at ACC’s Jim Phillips and Big 12’s Brett Yormark.
When reporters asked Yormark for his reaction Friday as the Big 12 meetings wrapped up in Orlando, he responded with a touch of sarcasm: “I agreed with Greg’s follow-up statement that I’d be entertained by it, and I was.” He quickly pivoted to a more diplomatic tone, adding, “We all have thick skin here. But the neat thing about our relationship amongst the commissioners is we’re going to battle. That’s part of life. We’re going to agree to disagree. We’re kind of in that mode right now, but I have a lot of respect for my peers, and I know they have a lot of respect for me and Jim, and we’ll end up in the right place.”
That “right place” is increasingly looking like the 5+11 format.
This model — which would give automatic bids to the four Power Four conference champs plus the highest-ranked Group of Five champion, with 11 at-large spots determined by the selection committee — gained serious momentum this week after SEC and Big Ten coaches threw their weight behind it. It’s a shift from the Big Ten’s previous stance supporting a more complex 4+4+2+2+1 structure (four auto-bids each for SEC and Big Ten, two for ACC and Big 12, one for the top mid-major, and three at-large spots).
Yormark isn’t hiding his preference for the simpler approach. “Certainly the public is voting yes for it, which I think is critically important, and it’s a very good sign,” he said. “And yes, the Big Ten and the SEC are leading the discussions, but with leading those discussions, they have a great responsibility that goes with it — to do what’s right for college football and not to do anything that just benefits two conferences. I have a lot of faith in the process, and I think we’ll end in the right place.”
What’s surprising is that Yormark and the Big 12 are backing a format that would guarantee them just one automatic bid instead of pushing for the alternative that would lock in two spots. Their reasoning? They’d rather earn it on the field.
“The 5+11 might not be ideal for the conference, but it’s good for college football and it’s what’s fair,” Yormark explained. “And we don’t want any gimmes. We want to earn it on the field, and that was the direction of the key stakeholder group — the ADs and the coaches — and I feel very comfortable with that. And I feel the same way, and I’ve been very outspoken about it.”
CFP executives have until December 1 to make their final decision on the format that will shape college football’s future championship path.
