Week in and week out, the SEC is the toughest conference in college football to navigate. However, the Big Ten has been reluctant to agree to both conferences earning four automatic bids into the proposed 16-team College Football Playoff format if the SEC continues to play eight conference games while the Big Ten plays nine. Games like this Week 13 cupcake for the Crimson Tide are the crux of the argument.
SEC’s late-season cupcake games could hold up CFP expansion
Though the Big Ten has won back-to-back national titles, it’s impossible to argue that the SEC isn’t at least on the same level, if not clearly and historically superior. So, while it’s not an entertaining product, the SEC doesn’t have much incentive to lose their late-season cupcakes that inflate win totals and help clear the bar of bowl eligibility across the league. Especially because the CFP playoff committee has shown them that win total trumps all.
Last season, by most analytical metrics, Alabama was a more highly-rated team than SMU, or even Indiana, for that matter, and neither of those teams had wins that rivaled Alabama’s victory over Georgia or demolition of LSU. Still, the Tide were left out because the committee couldn't see past the three in the loss column, and it likely wouldn’t have made a difference if last season’s Week 12 win was over Mercer or another SEC opponent, because the loss column is what the CFP committee valued the most.
So, the power brokers in the sport left the most recent CFP expansion talks at a stalemate, with everything back on the table for the new format. Greg Sankey won’t budge on expanding the SEC schedule to nine games, and the Big Ten won’t stop demanding it. Eastern Illinois won’t cause Alabama any issues on the football field in Week 13 of the 2025 season, but the fact that this matchup exists is preventing the leagues from agreeing on a future CFP format.
Last season, the first year of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff was a rousing success. Sure, the importance of the biggest regular season games was diminished because a single loss was no longer a disqualifier, but with eight more spots available in the CFP, the sheer volume of important football games late in the season massively increased. 12 is the perfect number, and expansion to 16 teams would simply be a money grab (which is all the expansion to 12 teams was in the first place), so if Alabama playing an FCS opponent in November keeps the CFP at 12, then that’s a good thing.