SEC has leagues with backs to the wall
Literally everything I know about the Mafia, I learned in the movies. I have no idea if that makes me an expert or a dunce.
One thing I learned, when it’s dinnertime, sit with your back to the wall. Keep an eye out for anything. Trust no one.
College football conferences are sitting with their backs to the wall.
West Virginia president Gordon Gee, for example. The Big 12’s representative on the College Football Playoff ’s board of managers told the WVU student newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum, that he no longer supports the proposed 12-team playoff.
Never mind that Gee and seemingly everyone else in college football was thrilled with the idea, before the OU/ Texas/SEC news.
And never mind that the Big 12 needs the 12-team playoff more than ever, now that the conference apparently will survive in the near term, with the Thursday announcement that the Pac-12 will not expand “at this time.”
All of college football was aquiver over the Sooners and Longhorns announcing their move. Other leagues connected the dots and figure SEC expansion was related to the 12-team playoff proposal, which was hatched by a four-man committee comprised of SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Moun
tain West commissioner Craig Thompson and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick.
Gee said he has changed his mind and believes that playoff expansion is “on life support.”
The conferences planned a Sept. 28 vote on the plan, and playoff executive director Bill Hancock has said a unanimous vote is necessary to change from the current four-team playoff, which is contracted through the 2025 season.
Other conferences have expressed sudden concern about the 12-team model, and the new Big Ten/Atlantic Coast/Pac-12 Alliance reportedly had a first priority of tapping the brakes on the 12-team playoff.
The sudden apprehension about an expanded playoff is madness, of course.
Sure, a 12-team playoff will mean more SEC teams. It also will mean more Big Ten teams. And it will virtually guarantee a Big 12 team and a Pac-12 team in the field.
The Pac has produced a team in only two of the seven playoffs staged. The Big 12 has produced only OU (four times).
“I have one of the votes, and I think it nearly needs to be unanimous, and I’m not voting for it,” Gee said. “I think the Big Ten will not vote for it and the Pac-12 will probably not vote for it either.
“It’s one of those ideas that I think was very good when there was stability. When there’s instability, the idea becomes less appropriate.”
Gee is all wet about that. The 12-team plan included automatic berths for the six highest-ranked conference champions.
That means virtual certain inclusion for the likes of the Pac-12 and the Big 12 and the ACC, even if Clemson should ever slip in the latter. Plus a guaranteed spot for one of the mid-major leagues, which annually are shut out of the fourteam playoff.
Sure, the SEC figured to benefit. But the SEC is going to come out ahead no matter what playoff format is implemented.
Stay with a four-team playoff, and you might have more seasons like 2017, when the SEC placed two of the four teams.
Heck, repeat 2017 in 2021, and it would be a public-relations disaster for every league except the SEC – SEC members Georgia and Alabama, plus soon-to-be SEC member OU.
The 12-team playoff is one of the elements that makes a Sooner-less Big 12 intriguing for the remnants of the conference.
OU has won six straight Big 12 championships and is the only Big 12 school to reach the four-team playoff. In the almost 20-year history of a two-team playoff, OU and Texas were the only Big 12 members to reach the championship game.
The 12-team plan, with OU’s departure, opened a path for the likes of OSU and Texas Christian and West Virginia to make the playoff.
A win-win for everyone.
Gee himself in June said, “If all the pieces come together, it makes absolute sense. I’d like to be playing in November, knowing we have a chance to be in the playoff.”
But now, apparently, Gee would prefer his Mountaineers get to November having been long-removed from playoff contention.
“With this changing environment, we want to keep it very narrow and keep it so there is a lot of opportunity to reconfigure what we’re doing in athletics,” Gee said.
That’s code for, no one knows what the SEC is up to.
Earlier this week, Pac-12 commissioner Greg Kliavkoff and Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren said they favor playoff expansion but not necessarily the 12-team format.
“I’m a big believer in expanding the College Football Playoff,” Warren said, “but also I’m a big believer in being methodical and doing our homework.”
In other words, he’s sitting with his back to the wall, with his eyes glued on the SEC.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.