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After months of speculation surrounding a 24-team College Football Playoff model, all eyes now shift to next week’s SEC spring meetings, where one of college football’s most powerful conferences could ultimately determine the future of the sport’s postseason.
FOX Sports lead college football analyst Joel Klatt spent this week at the Big Ten spring meetings in Rancho Palos Verdes, California, where CFP expansion dominated conversations among coaches, athletic directors and conference leaders. According to Klatt, the takeaway from those meetings was clear: support for a 24-team playoff is much stronger than many initially believed.
While the Big Ten has discussed expansion possibilities for months now, commissioner Tony Petitti publicly offered his strongest support yet this week for a 24-team CFP format.
The latest proposed model would eliminate automatic qualifiers in favor of a selection-based format featuring the 23 highest-ranked teams and one Group of 6 representative. That framework has recently gained traction across the ACC and the Big 12, both of which have shown support for the proposal.
But despite growing momentum, the spotlight now turns to the SEC, which will hold its annual spring meetings in Destin, Florida. According to Klatt, those meetings could become one of the most pivotal moments yet in the CFP expansion debate.
“I had multiple coaches tell me that 90% of the coaches in the SEC and 100% of the athletic directors in the SEC favor a 24-team model for CFP expansion,” Klatt said in a clip released from an upcoming episode of “The Joel Klatt Show.”
That runs counter to the belief that the SEC was firmly opposed to a 24-team model. In fact, Klatt said there is a growing sense within Big Ten circles that next week’s SEC meetings could feature significant disagreement.
“That makes this next week in Destin so interesting because there is a sentiment, at least among the Big Ten coaches, that the meetings between Greg Sankey — the commissioner of the SEC — and his coaches are going to be contentious,” Klatt said.
Support for the 24-team model has continued to grow beyond just the Power 4 conferences. The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), a highly influential group of coaches in college football, has also backed the proposal. That group includes Georgia head coach Kirby Smart, arguably the most influential coach in the SEC and one of the sport’s most powerful voices.
That’s why next week’s meetings in Destin could become a turning point for the future of college football.
“The coaches are gonna be pushing for one thing, and Greg [Sankey] has publicly stated something very different,” Klatt said. “They might not have a consensus down there in those rooms.”
Ultimately, though, the final decision might not rest solely with coaches or conference commissioners.
As Klatt pointed out, it’s the university presidents who have the ultimate say. Sankey, who has served as the commissioner of the SEC since 2015, works for the president of the SEC.
“If the athletic director and coaches get their presidents on board, Greg Sankey is not going to fend off all of his bosses,” Klatt said. “He has 16 bosses in the SEC.”
Petitti indicated this week that if the SEC were to support the 24-team format, implementation could happen as early as the 2027 season.
Whether Sankey and the SEC can come to an agreement remains unclear. But after months of speculation, the center of the college football world is about to shift to Destin, where the next chapter of CFP expansion could take shape.
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