If the Big Ten ultimately gets its way and the College Football Playoff eventually adopts a 24-team field, the expectation is Power Four conference championship games will go the way of the dinosaurs. It’s a sobering thought for SEC traditionalists, and one of several reasons the other nine FBS leagues favor a 16-team expansion option instead.
An internal Big Ten document released to league power brokers that detailed its 24-team proposal described conference championship games as “artificial,” and argued teams that play them assume unnecessary risk compared to teams that don’t still make the Playoff without that additional matchup.
The Big Ten’s proposal would instead replace the first weekend in December, when conference title games are traditionally played, with eight first-round CFP home games to be followed by eight more the second weekend in December. The eight remaining teams would move to bowl sites for the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds before the CFP championship game in early-to-mid January.
While the SEC, as a whole, has been opposed to such a move, there’s a feeling of inevitability that the Playoff will eventually move toward a much larger field, which could ultimately force conferences to make hard decisions when it comes to playing an additional conference game. Legendary Florida and South Carolina head coach Steve Spurrier is among those that can already see the writing on the wall.
“There’s talking about eliminating the championship game. … They’d have to just go back to what’s your record in conference play and then it comes down to who had the easiest schedule,” Spurrier joked during last week’s Another Dooley Noted Podcast with Pat Dooley. “That’s what we used to do all the time, prior to ’92, we finished 6-1 and lost to Tennessee, but they finished 5-1-1 and said, ‘We beat you guys, we should be the champ.’ No you shouldn’t be, you lost and tied a game, and we didn’t have any ties. … I guess we’ll go back to that possibly when they eliminate the conference championship game (in football).”
The SEC became the first college football conference of any level to play a championship game in 1992 after expanding two 12 teams with the additions of Arkansas and South Carolina. The brainchild of legendary SEC commissioner Roy Kramer, the SEC Championship began in 1992 with Spurrier’s Gators losing to eventual national champion Alabama, 28-21. Spurrier ultimately coached in eight SEC title games throughout his legendary coaching career, including the first five in a row, with Florida winning four straight between 1993-96.