Big Ten Commissioner Tony Pettiti not pushing for auto-bids in 24-team Playoff
By David Wasson
Published:
The continuing tug-of-war over the future of the College Football Playoff took an interesting twist Tuesday, as Big Ten Commissioner Tony Pettiti said that he is not advocating for automatic bids in a push to expand access to include 24 teams.
“I’ve never heard (SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey) say he won’t consider 24,” Pettiti said to reporters Tuesday during Day 1 of Big Ten Media Days in Chicago.
We’re not focused on auto qualifiers; the committee will pick the field of 24. There’s been a lot of movement among coaches around the country that 24 is the right number.”
The current iteration of the College Football Playoff includes 12 teams, with automatic bids for the 5 highest-ranked conference champions. The remainder of the spots are decided on by the CFP selection committee, which also seeds the teams into the bracket.
Pettiti and the Big Ten have led the charge about the desire to see the CFP expand to 24 teams, while Sankey and the SEC prefer to see a 16-team expansion – stressing that further growth would dilute the meaning of the regular season as well as necessitate the dissolution of conference championship games.
The most frequently proposed 16-team format would include spots for five automatic conference champions and 11 at-large bids.
An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
