Big Ten Media Days: Tony Petitti pushing for four automatic bids
"It's really simple math," Petitti said at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the first day of the Big Ten Media Days gathering. "With 18 schools (in the Big Ten) and nine conferences (eligible for FBS playoffs), we're losing nine more games to start."
Nine- vs. eight-game conference scheduling is a debate predating any iteration of the playoff, beginning in 2006 when the FBS season expanded to 12 regular-season dates.
Petitti's position that playing more conference games than the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference puts Big Ten teams at greater risk of stumbling has merit when referring to the Bowl Championship Series and four-team playoff for reference.
Most notably, teams from the old Pac-12 -- one-third of which the Big Ten absorbed -- routinely missed out on national-title opportunities because of conference losses.
Ironically, though, the 2024 season played out much differently: It was the SEC's eight-game schedule and playoff hopefuls Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina being tripped up that impacted the bracket.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten's Indiana Hoosiers reached the playoff despite finishing the regular season with no Top 25 wins and two defeats total of conference opponents that produced winning records.
The commissioner defended Indiana's playoff inclusion, noting that, "when Indiana's schedule was made ... (there) were the two teams that played in the (national) championship game the season before, Michigan and Washington."
Be that as it may, the Hoosiers finished with a Sagarin strength of schedule ranking of No. 66, easily the worst of the power-conference playoff teams. The nine-game slate did not hurt the Big Ten in 2024, but Petitti inferred the Big Ten beat the odds.
To adjust the odds going forward, Petitti's math factors into a postseason equation the commissioner has touted throughout the 2025 offseason: 16 equals four times two.
With talk of expanding the College Football Playoff to 16 entrants after just one year of the 12-team format, Petitti is pushing for a format that grants both the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference four automatic bids. That ensures the two most prominent leagues in the sport comprise half of the field every year.
The Petitti plan also includes the concept of a play-in round where conference championship games currently reside on the football calendar, the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday. He presented the idea as something "fans will really gravitate to ... providing games that are do-or-die on the field."
Petitti's suggestion faces resistance, including from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. At his conference's media days last week, Sankey pushed for a playoff format with automatic qualifiers for five conference champions -- as exists now in the 12-team Playoff -- and 11 at-large berths.
As for Petitti's position on when to reformat the postseason, the commissioner sounds content on slow-rolling it.
"I'm not going to put any deadline on it," he said.
--National champs tabbed as unlikely underdogs
Before a rematch on Aug. 30 in Columbus, plenty will be made of Ohio State's 28-14 win over Texas in January's Cotton Bowl, which propelled the Buckeyes to the national championship game against Notre Dame.
At Big Ten media days, however, Ohio State coach Ryan Day made clear the marquee matchup on Week 1 is a new chapter.
"The team we have currently wants to leave their own legacy behind, and they made that clear a week after the national championship game," Day said. "We've said it before, we're not defending national champions, because we're not defending anything ... We're looking to attack."
It's not uncommon for spokespersons of highly regarded and championship-winning teams to claim to be an underdog, even if the role does not fit. But despite rolling through the inaugural 12-team playoff with four double-digit-point wins, Ohio State was unveiled at Big Ten media days as an underdog in its own conference.
The Buckeyes garnered 431 total points and 10 first-place votes in the league's preseason media poll, sitting in second behind Penn State with its 435 points and 11 first-place votes. Reigning Big Ten champion Oregon is third at 405 and two.
Ohio State returns the Preseason Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year in wide receiver Jeremiah Smith, but the quarterback targeting Smith remains undecided. Day said at his session on Tuesday candidates Julian Sayin and Lincoln Kienholz head into August in a dead heat.
The two are vying to replace Will Howard, who passed for 289 yards and a touchdown in the Cotton Bowl win over Texas. The new QB1 will share a backfield with new primary running backs, too, as Quinshon Judkins -- who scored two Cotton Bowl touchdowns -- and TreVeyon Henderson, who went 75 yards on Howard's touchdown pass vs. the Longhorns, are gone.
The roster turnover at skill positions explains Ohio State's polling at No. 2, but hasn't entirely relegated the Buckeyes to the role of underdogs. As of Tuesday, they are consensus three-point favorites vs. Texas.
--'Stand up' for the Big Ten
Ahead of December's Citrus Bowl, a lion's share of attention focused on whether participating South Carolina should instead have been preparing for a playoff game. Overshadowed was an Illinois team that had its best regular season since 2007.
The Illini proceeded to beat the Gamecocks, 21-17, for the program's first 10-win finish since 2001.
With the win, Bret Bielema's squad contributed its own measure of bragging rights for the Big Ten in its ongoing war of perception with the SEC.
"I learned early in life, right, if you don't stand up for yourself, no one else will," Bielema said on Tuesday. His stance is that the Big Ten is in a position to tout its quality off the field, but that starts by backing it up on the field.
Big Ten teams have some high-profile opportunities to do just that opposite the SEC early in the 2025 campaign, starting immediately with a playoff rematch between Ohio State and Texas. The showdown between the reigning national champion Buckeyes and preseason SEC favorite Longhorns sets the stage for three straight weeks of noteworthy Big Ten vs. SEC matchups.
In Week 2, Michigan travels to Oklahoma. Week 3 features Wisconsin visiting Alabama.
--Field Level Media
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