Along with mocking Big Ten fans during Saturday’s College Football Countdown pregame show on ESPN, Rece Davis shredded a College Football Playoff proposal from the conference.
Recently, the Big Ten floated the idea of a CFP expansion to 24 or 28 teams. In the 28-team proposal, the Big Ten and SEC would each receive seven auto bids, the ACC and Big 12 would each receive five auto bids, and there would be two auto bids for non-Power Four conferences and two at-large teams. Conference championship games would be eliminated.
ESPN college football reporter Heather Dinich appeared on College Football Countdown to share more about notable CFP changes for the 2025 season, as well as changes that those in the college football world would still like to see made. Dinich noted that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti doesn’t believe there’s a “magic metric” for the CFP selection committee to properly do its job, and that’s what led to floating the 28-team idea.
“Some of it can certainly be traced back to Indiana’s place in the Playoff with the No. 68 strength-of-schedule on selection day, no Power Four non-conference wins, no wins against top-25 opponents, and a loss to Ohio State,” Dinich began. “And even going into last season, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said [he wants] to see how the selection committee evaluates three-loss teams that played a more difficult schedule against teams from other conferences, a la the ACC and the Big 12, who have fewer losses, but played weaker schedules. And so this whole offseason, for the past six months, they have been working to try to help answer that question.
“But if you ask the Big Ten, this is important; they did not solve the problem. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti told me at Big 10 Media Days in Las Vegas, ‘People think there’s some sort of magic metric that’s going to help the selection committee do its job, and I don’t think it’s out there.’ That’s why the Big Ten has turned its attention to a 24- or 28-team playoff model in 2026 and beyond.”
Davis went off in response, calling the expansion idea “absurd.”
“I’m just going to say this flat-out- I don’t believe they’re serious about this,” Davis said. “I believe this is like when you go to sell your house, and you say, I’m going to ask a million dollars more than I really will settle for. They’re trying to get something back on the other side. Because on its face, this is absurd. It’s absurd on its face. So, they have to be looking for something else; that’s my guess.
“And I almost feel like the SEC’s play to go to nine games in the regular season is saying, okay, let’s see what you do with the strength-of-schedule metric. But the other thing is, all of these schedules are still going to be unequal. So, Heather, there’s no way; I agree with Petitti on this- 100 percent agree. There’s no magic metric. Somebody’s going to be mad regardless of the answer, right?”
Dinich replied, “Well, you are right, and that there is no magic metric.”
“I know you’re not agreeing. I saw the look on your face- you didn’t like it when I said ‘absurd,'” Davis said with a laugh. “That’s okay. It’s too much. It’s too much.”
“I would believe that the Big Ten is serious about this 28-team model,” Dinich said. “I would believe that. And I think that even though the SEC has gone to a nine-game league schedule, that is not convincing people in the Big Ten to buy into the 5+11, 16-team model. Because, Rece, of what you said earlier- it’s still going to be extremely difficult for the selection committee with the SEC losing three games, if they’re playing nine conference games. You’re going to see far more, I think, three-loss teams in the SEC. That bolsters the Big Ten’s notion that automatic qualifiers are the way to go.”
Davis concluded with an impassioned explanation of the “fallacy” of the idea.
“Here’s the fallacy with it, Heather, — and thank you very much — in my judgment, and reasonable minds can differ for sure,” Davis said. “The fallacy is that expanding the playoff in, say, Major League Baseball, even the NBA, is a way to try to juice the regular season; to try to give the regular season some meaning. I would say that better than any sport we have in the country, the regular season in college football already has that juice. It already has the meaning. And if you do this, sometimes you can go too far in your size of your playoff to undermine the regular season.”
“Don’t believe me? Have a look at college basketball. I rest my case,” Davis concluded.
It’s easy to see Davis and the College GameDay crew tackling this topic in the coming weeks.
About Matt Clapp
Matt is an editor/writer at The Comeback and Awful Announcing.
He can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.