But if they can routinely find seeds in the 7-10 neighborhood, more reasonable matchups, sometimes at home, would be quite adventurous. Road games against Alabama/Ohio State types. If the Big 12, ACC and Pac-12 typically get shunted to the lower end of the 16 seeds, they will encounter little success. Maybe BYU-Cincinnati would have been entertaining. Oregon was coming off a three-game stretch in which it had been thrashed twice by Utah.
Michigan had just beaten Iowa 42-3 in the Big Ten title game. Using the 2021 season as an example, the four added games would have been OU at Alabama (16-seed, 1-seed), Iowa at Michigan (15-2), Oregon at Georgia (14-3) and Brigham Young at Cincinnati (13-4). That would give the playoff 15 games instead of 11, which would increase profits, but wouldn’t likely make for better football games. Then bowls would host the quarterfinals and semifinals, before a national championship game.Ī 16-team playoff could have much the same format, except seeds 1-8 would host games. The 12-team proposal included byes for the four highest seeds, with seeds 5-8 hosting games against seeds 9-12. That's my responsibility to move people along.”
“And so now, as I look at the future, I was clear at that time trying to take a step back, because we weren't unanimous for the format. "People rejected that, not me," Sankey said. Last week at SEC Media Days, Sankey reminded reporters that much compromise was needed to arrive at the 12-team model and that he might not be in such a compromising mood next time.