CFP talks stall, dimming hopes of expansion before 2026

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — College Football Playoff expansion talks remain stalled and the possibility of implementing a new format by the 2024 season dimmed Monday after three days of meetings failed to produce an agreement.

“We have entrenched issues that are no closer to be resolved, ” Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby said Monday.

While Bowlsby said it looked increasingly unlikely that an expanded playoff would come before the end of the current CFP contract that expires in 2026, it was not ruled out altogether.

“We’re going into overtime,” Executive Director Bill Hancock said, hours before No. 1 Alabama and No. 3 Georgia played for the College Football Playoff national championship.

Everybody involved supports expansion, but they are hung up on the how and when.

Hancock said the management committee, comprised of 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame’s athletic director, are still stuck on the same lingering issues: Whether conferences should have automatic qualification into an expanded field, and which ones; how bowls will be used as sites in a new system; and athlete health and welfare issues related to more games.

Mississippi State President Mark Keenum, who heads the Board of Managers that has final say over the College Football Playoff, said he remains optimistic an agreement can be reached in time to add playoff spots by the 2024 season.

“I think we’ll get there,” Keenum said.

A proposal for a 12-team playoff has been on the table since June. That proposal calls for the six highest ranked conference champions, regardless of conference, to be in the playoff field along with the next six highest ranked teams.

There was hope initially an agreement could be reached soon enough to have it implemented for the 2024 season, two years before the current CFP contract with ESPN expires.

“I think it was received favorably. Since then we’ve spent time on it, some don’t like it now,” said Bowlsby, who was part of a four-person committee that spent two years working on the 12-team plan.

Expansion before end of the contract has been estimated to be worth an extra $450 million dollars for the conferences to split.

Unanimous consensus among the management committee members is needed to alter to the current deal. Bowlsby said a vote was taken this weekend among the management committee members, but declined to reveal how it broke down.

Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren has said he supports a 12-team format that provides automatic access for only power five conferences champions. American Athletic Conference Commissioner Mike Aresco has said he is adamantly opposed to any format that gives Power Five conferences special access.

The initial proposal was presented to the presidents Monday.

Hancock had previously tried to set a deadline of sorts, saying if the commissioners could not come to a consensus on a new format by these meetings, expansion could not happen until after the current deal is complete. The playoff field would remain at four teams until 2026.

But Keenum said the commissioners will get together again in the next few weeks to keeping working on a plan that everyone can support.

The meetings in Indianapolis were the seventh in-person since the 12-team format was made public in June.

Bowlsby compared the process since to the movie “Groundhog Day,” where every day repeats for the main character and called it “frustrating.”

“Everybody is more concerned about their own silo than everybody else’s,” he said.