The Big Ten is willing to require its teams to play 10 games against power-conference opponents, the scheduling concession the SEC has demanded, if it delivers the SEC's support for a 24-team College Football Playoff, a Big Ten official told CBS Sports on Thursday.
The official said the conference is "comfortable" adhering to the standard. The SEC laid out its conditions for a larger field in a memo to CFP executives last week, according to Yahoo Sports' Ross Dellenger. The requirement, described in the memo as 10 "qualifying events," counts games against power-conference opponents or Notre Dame.
The development is the clearest sign yet that the two leagues holding veto power over the sport's postseason are moving toward each other rather than away for the first time since expansion talks began in early 2025. The SEC has long supported a 16-team field or remaining at 12. The Big Ten has wanted 24, and successfully recruited support from the ACC and Big 12 in the spring. Because any format change requires the Big Ten and SEC to sign off, that standoff has frozen the format at 12 teams for the upcoming season.
What "10 qualifying events" means for smaller programs in the Group of Six conferences is unclear.
In January, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti blocked a move to 16 teams during CFP meetings ahead of the national championship game in Miami, killing expansion even though the rest of the CFP Management Committee backed it, Yahoo! Sports reported. This spring, the positions reversed: the ACC, the Big 12 and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua backed a 24-team model built almost entirely on at-large bids, leaving Sankey alone with his 16-team model.
The ACC, Big 12 and SEC require their members to play at least 10 games against power opponents, including within their conference. All four leagues currently play — or are transitioning to — a nine-game conference schedule, though the Big Ten does not mandate an additional non-conference game against a power opponent. Sankey told colleagues the SEC must recoup roughly $100 million it would lose by eliminating its conference championship game.
CFP executives worry that expanding to a 16-team field would not fully recoup money lost from TV contracts tied to conference championship games. A 16- or 24-team field will require conferences to end those games.
A 24-team field creates 12 additional games and opens the door for the CFP to negotiate with multiple broadcast entities. ESPN controls sole rights for the playoff, up to 14 teams.
Playoff leaders face a Dec. 1 contractual deadline to decide whether the 12-team field expands in time for next season. CFP executives spent two hours on a call Tuesday discussing whether to trigger a mandatory 30-day negotiating window with ESPN, a required step before the playoff can take its rights to the open market, per Dellenger. But that could happen soon, sources told CBS Sports.
Another hurdle is the Army-Navy game. Navy has opposed moving the game to the first Saturday in December, when conference title games are typically played, to make room for eight first-round playoff games in the second week of December. President Donald Trump also signed an executive order calling for protecting the game's broadcast window.
