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At this point, I find myself rooting for the 5+11 Playoff model to win out. That is, 5 Playoff bids to the highest-ranked conference champs and 11 at-large bids for a 16-team field.
If you haven’t been following the back-and-forth between conference commissioners, first of all, cheers to you. You’ve stayed out of the Playoff muck. That goes double for all of you who have held back from a social media argument involving the merits of the SEC-Big Ten push for a 4-4-2-2-1 model, which had those 2 conferences getting 4 automatic bids apiece while the Big 12 and ACC would’ve had 2.
(Let’s take a quick minute here to explain the 4-4-2-2-1 model. Some of you at home might be saying, “Wait, Connor, that only adds up to 13.” You would be correct. The “1” in that model is an auto-bid for the highest-ranked Group of 5 champion. The remaining 3 spots are at-large bids.)
But with that Dec. 1 date now less than 6 months away to determine what the 2026 Playoff will look like, there does seem to be some real urgency to get this done. Hence, why the conversations are where they are. Multiple outlets reported that SEC coaches favored a 5+11 model, which would go against what Greg Sankey pushed for at SEC Spring Meetings. Take that for what it is. Administrators still have a ton of power, and they still have a ton of incentive to push for those 4 automatic bids in a Playoff pool worth $1.3 billion.
For the sake of today’s discussion, let’s pretend that a 5+11 model will be in place for 2026. Who does that benefit the most and the least?
Let’s dig into some winners and losers if we get the 5+11 model for 2026:
Winners
Who would benefit the most from the 5+11 model? Let’s start with a bit of a curveball:
The Big Ten and SEC
Yes, it’s ironic. It’s ironic that the 2 conferences who have been fighting for 4 auto-bids apiece would actually stand to benefit a great deal from a 5+11 model. The 11-year history of the Playoff reflected that:
Is it crazy to think that the Big Ten and SEC would potentially combine for 10-11 bids in a given year with a 5+11 model? Not at all.
Shoot, just think about last year. Instead of having that trio of 9-3 SEC teams cry foul about getting left out of the field, they would’ve all earned a spot in the 16-team Playoff. And as The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman pointed out, the Big Ten would’ve actually cost itself bids in the last 4 years if it had gone with the 4 auto-bids instead of the 5+11 model.
So why then would the Big Ten and SEC be opposed to this? The potential variance. Big Ten and SEC administrators don’t want the possibility of a subjective selection committee determining that there could be years in which there are only 3 worthy Big Ten or SEC teams. Is that a bit of paranoia ahead of the post-House settlement era? Absolutely. That’s perhaps why SEC coaches have viewed this through a different lens. Being able to finish top 4 in the SEC with 3 at-large bids sounds more challenging than just being a top-16 team in a given season.
Of course, this assumes that the Big Ten and SEC both stick with their current number of conference games. That’s always been determined by the Playoff for the SEC. Is there a world in which we could see a 16-team field with a 5+11 model that pushes the SEC to a 9-game conference schedule? It’s possible, but based on how these conversations have gone so far, I wouldn’t assume that’ll be the result (more on that in a bit).
One thing that does seem obvious? A 5+11 model would still benefit the 2 conferences who have been running the Playoff.
Notre Dame
You had me at “11 at-large berths.” It’s simple for Notre Dame. The more at-large berths, the better. A 4-4-2-2-1 model would only give Notre Dame 1 of 3 potential spots that are up for grabs. We tend to think that the Irish has it easy because it doesn’t have a conference title game to play in. I disagree with that. In the 12-team Playoff, it wouldn’t surprise me if a 10-2 Notre Dame team could get left out of the field.
Last year after the Northern Illinois loss, the thinking was that the Irish had to win out. To its credit, that’s exactly what happened. But it’s a whole lot easier for Notre Dame to not have to be worried about if a non-top-16 Big Ten or SEC team gets one of those 8 potential auto-bids.
The Irish already benefitted from Playoff changes with the move to straight seeding. Now, Notre Dame can earn a Round 1 bye. Perhaps in 2026, it’ll have the ability to secure one of those 11 at-large bids.
The Group of 5
Wait, you mean to tell me that the little guy could benefit from the 5+11 model? Yes. Again, just like with Notre Dame, it’s all about more at-large berths and potentially getting multiple teams into the field. For the Group of 5, it’s not about winning a national title. That’s not a realistic projection. Winning a Playoff game and getting some of those Boise State-Fiesta Bowl/UCF-Peach Bowl vibes with a path to the national title is what this is all about.
By having the 5 highest-ranked conference champs make the field in the 5+11 model, the Group of 5 is essentially still getting the same auto-bid that it had in the 12-team Playoff with a bit more wiggle room for a second team.
If we had the 5+11 model in 2020, it would’ve given us a 16-team field that looked like this:
- 5 highest-ranked conference champs: Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Cincinnati
- 11 at-large teams: Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Florida, Georgia, Iowa State, Indiana, Coastal Carolina, North Carolina, Northwestern, Iowa, BYU
That would’ve been 3 Group of 5 bids (remember that BYU was a non-Power Conference independent before it joined the Big 12). Sure, 2020 was extremely unique in every way. But in 2021, Cincinnati and BYU would’ve been 2 non-Power Conference teams in the 16-team field (that’s not including a Notre Dame team who played a Power Conference schedule).
It’s worth noting that both BYU and Cincinnati are now part of the Big 12. The Group of 5 has lost teams and players galore to Power Conferences during the 2020s. It’s never been harder for one of those schools to be among the nation’s best, but fortunately for them, the 5+11 model would mean that a path to the national title has never been more accessible.
Losers
Now let’s look at the other side of the coin and discuss potential losers in a 5+11 model:
The Big 12
The Big 12 could likely be in jeopardy of having just 1 team in the field of 16 … which would’ve been the case last year. As in, the first year in which Oklahoma and Texas were out of the conference. A coincidence? Time will tell.
Time has told us that the current Big 12:
- A) Accounted for 1 Playoff win (which was followed by a 65-7 loss)
- B) Last won a national title in 1990 (Colorado)
- C) Had 0 top-20 teams in the 247Sports roster talent composite rankings for 2024
- D) Signed 0 top-20 recruiting classes in last 2 years of 247Sports rankings
- E) All the above
It’s “E.” It’s always “E.”
That’s what the Big 12 is working against. It’s still an entertaining product that can go in a variety of ways. The fact that nobody has a regular-season over/under above 8.5 wins is incredible. It speaks to the parity of the conference.
But a 5+11 model could further distance itself from the pack if there are years in which the SEC has a 6-1 or 5-1 advantage.
The same could prove to be true for the ACC, but the reason why the ACC wasn’t listed here was because the ACC got multiple bids in Year 1 of the 12-team Playoff, and it got some much-needed respect from the selection committee by not punishing SMU for suffering its second loss in a conference title game. Plus, unlike the Big 12, the ACC hasn’t watched its 2 biggest traditional powers get poached by other conferences. At least not yet.
That matters, too.
Supporters of either a 9-game SEC schedule or an annual Big Ten-SEC challenge
If a 5+11 model is indeed the play and those 4 guaranteed bids aren’t there, my expectation is that the SEC will stay at an 8-game conference schedule and there won’t be the Big Ten-SEC challenge that Brian Kelly talked about at SEC Spring Meetings. The SEC staying at an 8-game conference would be against the Big Ten’s wishes. That, we know. The Big Ten went from an 8-game conference schedule to a 9-game conference schedule back in 2016. While it watched its conference champ get left out of the 4-team Playoff in each of those first 3 seasons, it did bring home a lucrative TV contract by adding that extra game.
It’s possible that the money that the SEC would receive from ESPN with an extra conference game would entice administrators enough to pull the trigger on such a move. It’s also possible (and more likely) that coaches push back on that and argue that getting through an 8-game SEC schedule is still more difficult than getting through a 9-game conference schedule elsewhere.
It wouldn’t make sense for the Big Ten-SEC challenge to happen if they’re playing a different amount of conference games. From the Big Ten’s side, they’re now guaranteeing that they play 10 Power Conference games as opposed to just 9 for the SEC. In other words, there’s nothing incentivizing the Big Ten to make that change.
For fans of the sport who want to see more competitive games, that’s a loss. Then again, an expanded 16-team Playoff with a 5+11 model would create even more late-season drama to crown a national champ.
Like all things in college football these days, change isn’t so black and white.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
