Between the Columns for Monday, May 19

It’s Monday morning, so it’s time for me to let you all know what’s been on my mind the past week. I’ve been going through the excellent reporting from Ross Dellenger for Yahoo Sports on the talks about expanding the College Football Playoff to 16 teams, so let’s go ahead and run through it.

1. What’s in the most recent expansion idea to begin with?

First off, the Power 4 conferences seem to be splitting off and meeting on their own without the rest of the CFP leaders, and honestly I’m surprised the SEC and Big 10 leaders are even involving the ACC and Big 12 leaders at this point.

They wouldn’t be able to make changes for the 2025-26 CFP without them, but after that, it’s supposedly all SEC and Big 10, so might as well just have the conversations on their own. They won’t be able to make changes this year without agreement from the smaller conferences anyway.

The specific expansion in question at this point is going to 16 teams, which was the expectation long term even when the expansion to 12 happened. It was always going to keep changing, so it’s no surprise that the discussions are underway.

The SEC and Big 10 seem to already be trying to throw their weight around with the initial discussions about a 16-team field, with the proposal supposedly having four SEC and four Big 10 automatic qualifiers, while the Big 12 and ACC both get two.

According to Dellenger’s reporting, NC State’s head coach Dave Doeren said “We are fighting for our spots. We believe we deserve three (automatic qualifiers) as a minimum.”

So the ACC doesn’t like being left with two, I’m sure the Big 12 doesn’t either just because a it leaves them both so far behind the SEC and Big 12 and really solidifies the power disparity among the conferences in a way that doesn't allow long-term changes to happen.

The proposal would also include one auto qualifier for the highest ranked Group of Six conference champ, leaving three at-large bids, which would likely almost always involve Notre Dame, so really two at-large bids.

The ACC supposedly wants a model with four auto qualifiers for the SEC and Big 10, three for the ACC and Big 12 and one for the Group of six, or three for the ACC and two for the Big 12.

But that leaves only one or two at-large bids, which again, would most often be taken by Notre Dame.

2. Here's how I'm feeling about it.