On Jan. 8, the morning of the 2024 College Football Playoff National Championship, the commissioners and conference presidents who oversee the organization (known as the CFP Management Committee) met in Houston to finalize what was thought to be a formality. The goal: address the final access point for the expanded 12-team playoff field starting next season.
In the wake of realignment and the demise of the Pac-12, it has been thought that the 6+6 model would become a 5+7 model with the number of conference champion automatic qualifiers decreasing from six to five. (The four highest-ranked such teams would receive byes into the second round.)
“I would be shocked if we don’t have a 5-7 playoff,” said CFP Board of Managers chairman Mark Keenum, president at Mississippi State, on that day. “The Pac-12 Conference has asked to wait a couple of weeks.”
Four weeks later, there has been no movement on the issue, and there really isn’t a Pac-12, either. What’s left of the conference — Oregon State and Washington State — might as well be considered the “Pac-2.” The plucky leftovers from the Pac-12 asked to delay the vote during that Jan. 8 meeting.
The two schools — battered and bruised after being left out in conference realignment — could essentially control the CFP on any issue going forward over the next two years. All CFP decisions must be made unanimously through the end of the current media rights contract, which concludes after the 2025-26 playoff.
As a result, less than 11 months until the 12-team playoff kicks off, the CFP is once again stuck in the mud. It helps the Pac-2 cause that Washington State president Kirk Schulz just happens to be the Pac-12 representative on the board.
“What I know for certain is that Kirk wants to use that…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/behind-the-pac-2s-attempt-to-leverage-the-college-football-playoff-amid-final-expansion-negotiations/
Author : Dennis Dodd
Publish date : 2024-02-05 19:55:54
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