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New York Times
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
EA Sports College Football 26: The 5 biggest changes in game's new version
ORLANDO, Fla. — I have played an early edition of EA Sports College Football 26, and I've got some thoughts. The return of the college football video game series last year was 11 years in the making, and it mostly lived up to the hype. CFB25 was a joy, but it was far from perfect with some obvious holes. Despite its flaws, it became the highest-selling sports video game of all time in total dollars because of that excitement and execution. Advertisement So what's in store for Round 2? EA Sports announced some new features on Thursday ahead of the July 10 launch, and The Athletic got to test out the gameplay in person for a few hours. This is not a full game review, as I haven't played the whole game, but here are the five biggest changes to the franchise for CFB26. 1. Real coaches are in the game (mostly) and the coaching carousel is deeper Lane Kiffin said last year he'd be in the game for free, as coaches immediately realized its recruiting value. Now, more than 300 real coaches and their likenesses are here, including head coaches, offensive coordinators and defensive coordinators. Not everyone is signed up, either because they declined or haven't responded yet. Bill Belichick is not in the game, which is not a big surprise since he didn't make himself available for Madden either. I also didn't see Deion Sanders when playing a game as Colorado. Real coaches have their own tendencies and skills that show up in Dynasty mode. In the coaching carousel, you can see a G5 coach move up the ranks, a real college coach leave for the NFL or change coordinators. That was in the game last year, but now they're real. It's technically possible to see Kirby Smart struggle and stumble down the ranks to become a Group of 5 coordinator if things go poorly. 2. High School Mode is back in Road to Glory, and it's optional This was one of the top demands from gamers, since High School was part of RTG in the old NCAA series. Developers told me they didn't have time to fit it all in last year and felt most gamers just wanted to focus on the college experience. Indeed, they said Thursday that the feedback was mostly positive. Still, they planned to bring High School back and now they have, but players can skip it if they like. After playing it briefly, I'll tell you it looks very fun and creative, coming from someone like me who didn't like the old High School mode. You pick 10 schools and play five high school weeks. In those weeks, you're just trying to complete a few tasks in a game, like a certain kind of throw, to gain points for a 'tape score.' When you earn enough points, you get a scholarship offer. But that point threshold is different from school to school. A 'challenge' from a school is another point-boosting opportunity. You pick your star rating to start, but it can rise or fall depending on how you do in the tasks. Advertisement You can commit and decommit and see who else your suitors are recruiting. Schools also offer you certain skill bonuses that help your college player, which is the stand-in for NIL. You can get an offer from a school, but wait for them to increase the skill bonus based on your tape score. Developers said the goal is for High School mode to last about an hour of gameplay. 3. Online Dynasty Cross-Play Xbox players rejoice. We won't be left out of our PS5 friends' online dynasties any longer. Cross-play allows gamers with Xbox and PS5 to compete against each other with up to 32 players. While cross-play was already playable for single games, it's now available for Dynasty mode, which was already in place for Madden. 4. Formation subs and dynamic subs This was the biggest in-game request from gamers, and it's here. Formation subs allow you to set lineups in the pause menu for specific formations, like a power running back for short-yardage runs. Dynamic subs will allow you to make quick individual substitutions during the course of the game using the D-pad, without needing the pause menu. It pulls up a little screen to let you know the status and overall rating of players at different positions. You can also work auto-sub sliders for each position, setting up a sub when a specific position reaches a certain wear-and-tear level. Powerhouse Programs. Real World Coaches. Electric Traditions. Experience it all in #CFB26. Coming July 10. Pre-Order Now🔗: — EASPORTSCollege (@EASPORTSCollege) May 27, 2025 5. Gameplay is smoother, and a lot of the little annoyances are gone When you first start playing a game, it mostly feels the same. This isn't some big overhaul, obviously. Last year was an entirely new game, especially new for me as someone who got out of gaming when the NCAA series went away. So it's not jarring anymore to jump on the sticks and see a real college quarterback making a throw. But the more I played over the course of a few hours, I started to notice a lot of little improvements. For example, your receivers will make more catches in contact. Developers told me they realized there were too many pass breakups on hits. That's nice. Quarterback scrambles out of pass plays are much smoother and realistic-looking. Your QB doesn't need to fully stand up in his throwing stance before you can start running around. Defensive linemen now have 'block-steering' ability, where you can push an offensive lineman in a direction that you choose. It's a nice addition for people who play with a DL. Advertisement Running the ball was my favorite part of CFB 25, and it's even better in this next game. Run-after-catch was also smoother. There's a lot more you can do on defense, too. Developers heard the feedback that playing defense was too hard. It seems a bit easier with better tackling, but for the hardcores, you can now set custom DB zones (in response to custom receiver stems), you can commit to certain routes and guess the play, and you can call stunts and twists on the line by holding the play selection button and choosing from options. Other notes: — Oklahoma might be this year's most popular team, thanks to the additions of quarterback John Mateer and running back Jaydn Ott. The Sooners were a lot of fun to use. — There are more renovated stadiums, including Florida State, but Northwestern is still at the old Ryan Field. There are more, but not all, bowl stadiums. No Ireland, and still not every NFL stadium. — Trophy Room is back in Dynasty Mode. Not only can you see the trophies and awards you've won, you can click and see the all-time history of trophy winners, like Wisconsin being the first Big Ten champion in 1896. That's cool. — Rivalry games and night games will have a greater impact on Stadium Pulse shaking. The rivalry trophies are also highlighted in the game menu. Yes, even the Civil ConFliCT trophy is in this game. — Protected games are in Dynasty after being pulled at the last minute out of CFB25. — Wear-and-tear can last throughout the season in Dynasty and Road to Glory. — Thankfully, the menu screen is no longer just that drumline over and over and over. It will now include marching band covers of some real songs. — Speaking of real songs, 'Enter Sandman' for Virginia Tech was the big one, as evident in the trailer. It also added 'Mr. Brightside' at Michigan, 'Seven Nation Army', 'FE!N' by Travis Scott, 'I'm Shipping Up to Boston' at Notre Dame and the '2001: A Space Odyssey' song for South Carolina's intro, among others. Overall, my takeaway from these early pieces of CFB26 is that the game filled the major holes from CFB25. We'll have the main modes and in-game adjustments that were needed. I'll have a full review later in the summer when I get to play the whole game. During a week in which leaders in college football again argued about the future of the College Football Playoff and threats to leave the NCAA, this game was once again a reminder of the celebration of all of college football. There are so many more stadium run-out shots and new school-specific songs/chants added, along with turnover celebrations. We got Akron's tire celebration and Clemson's bus entrance in the trailer. New additions Delaware and Missouri State look as good as everyone else (and I particularly liked the Delaware playbook). CFB25 wasn't a reskin of Madden, as many gamers feared. It was uniquely college football. The early returns look like CFB26 will be that once again. (Top photo courtesy of EA Sports)
USA Today
3 days ago
- Sport
- USA Today
Lane Kiffin has 16-team College Football Playoff model. It sounds better by minute
Lane Kiffin has 16-team College Football Playoff model. It sounds better by minute Show Caption Hide Caption Kirby Smart on college football's future Kirby Smart urges leaders to prioritize the game's future over personal or conference agendas in playoff talks. MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – The man with the tan came with a plan. Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin, his skin so bronzed he looked as if he just came off the sunny beach here, entered his session with reporters on Tuesday ready to pitch his idea for a 16-team College Football Playoff. Kiffin's playoff plan looks like this: Sixteen teams. Four rounds. No automatic bids. Every team must earn at-large selection. The selection process would involve analytics, combined with a human element. This wasn't my first time hearing Kiffin's idea. He ran this plan past me when we spoke in March. At the time, I didn't love Kiffin's idea. I detect no irreparable flaw with the current 12-team playoff. I didn't hate his idea, though. And I'm starting to like it more. In the months since Kiffin first floated his idea, the possibility a 16-team playoff beginning as soon as 2026 has gained steam across conferences. While the future format continues to be debated, it's clear that expansion is likely coming, in some shape and form. I'm beginning to relinquish my grip on the 12-team playoff and accept the reality of a 16-team future. As I listened to SEC muckety-mucks debate the merits of the leading 16-team ideas at the conference's spring meetings here this week, it struck me that maybe Kiffin's proposal remains the best 16-team proposal. CFP DEBATE: How SECs Greg Sankey has chance to be hero instead of villain FRIENDLY FOES?: LSU's Brian Kelly issues schedule challenge to Big Ten Kiffin's idea certainly trumps the 4+4+2+2+1 model the Big Ten favors. That rigged math equation would preassign four auto-bids to the Big Ten, plus four more to the SEC, two to the Big 12, two to the ACC, one to the top remaining conference champion, and then leave three at-large bids. This crock of a plan would reward preseason conference prestige as much as in-season results. No thanks. Someone, please shove this Big Ten brainchild into the woodchipper, and scatter the ashes on the surface of the sun. Kiffin's plan more closely resembles the 5+11 model that the Big 12 publicly supports. The ACC also reportedly favors a 5+11 system, and some SEC coaches took a shine to the idea this week, even while SEC athletic directors collectively seem more interested in the auto-bid plan favored by the Big Ten. In the 5+11 model, the top five conference champions would secure bids, leaving 11 at-large bids. That model would produce brackets that likely would resemble Kiffin's plan, but the Ole Miss coach prefers no auto-bids. So, let's play out his idea with a look in the rearview mirror. Here's how the bracket would have looked in Kiffin's model last season, using the final CFP rankings as the guide for determining the 16 qualifiers. No. 16 Clemson at No. 1 Oregon Critics of a 16-team playoff say there aren't 16 teams deserving of playoff and that too many first-round games would be duds. But, here we have the Big Ten champion against the ACC champion. Dan Lanning vs. Dabo Swinney. This would have been appointment viewing, not a dud. No. 15 South Carolina at No. 2 Georgia SEC expansion and the elimination of divisions took the Georgia-South Carolina rivalry off the schedule in 2024. Could a red-hot Gamecocks team have upset a Georgia squad starting Gunnar Stockton? It's plausible. No. 14 Ole Miss at No. 3 Texas Conferences are so big now that teams don't play half the other teams in their own league. Here we have another matchup of two SEC teams that didn't play in the regular season. The Jekyll-and-Hyde Rebels whipped Georgia but lost to Kentucky. If the good version of Ole Miss showed its face, this game could have been a doozy. No. 13 Miami at No. 4 Penn State Are you liking these matchups yet? How about this one, pitting Cam Ward against Penn State's stout defense. In the playoff that actually happened, Penn State waltzed to the semifinals by beating SMU and Boise State. This billing with Miami would have been a better matchup. No. 12 Arizona State at No. 5 Notre Dame In the playoff, the Sun Devils gave Texas all it could handle in an overtime loss in the playoff quarterfinals. In this revised bracket, Cam Skattebo would have tested the strength of Notre Dame's defense. Chalk this up as another game I would've enjoyed seeing. No. 11 Alabama at No. 6 Ohio State Holy, moly. What a dream matchup of two college football monsters. Ohio State proved throughout the postseason it was the nation's best team. If Alabama couldn't score a touchdown against Oklahoma, I don't see how it could have solved Ohio State's defense. The game probably wouldn't have lived up to the hype. No. 10 SMU at No. 7 Tennessee The Vols looked pitiful in a playoff loss at Ohio State, but this draw at Neyland Stadium probably would have produced a much different fate. The committee flubbed by awarding SMU a playoff spot. Ten-win Brigham Young, which beat SMU during the regular season, possessed better credentials, but I digress. Alas, we'll live with the committee's choice and figure SMU-Tennessee at least wouldn't have been any worse than what we saw in the playoff with SMU-Penn State or Tennessee-Ohio State. No. 9 Boise State at No. 8 Indiana I detect upset potential. Indiana built its playoff case by consistently beating bad or mediocre teams. That's not nothing, but Boise State showed in a 37-34 loss at Oregon in September it's up for a challenge. This matchup featuring Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty would have pitted an O.G. Cinderella, Boise State, against the 2024 slipper-wearing Hoosiers. No perfect College Football Playoff plan The Kiffin plan and the 5+11 model would have produced the same qualifiers last season. In the 5+11 construct, auto bids would have gone to Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State and Clemson. Once I assigned teams to Kiffin's idea and saw the matchups, I liked his plan more. I daresay these first-round matchups, on the whole, would have been better in quality than those served up in last season's 12-team playoff. 'There's still flaws in every system,' Kiffin said, 'but the best system should be 16, and it should be the 16 best' teams. 'Get rid of automatics, and figure out a system to get the best 16 teams in.' Doesn't sound half bad. The man with the tan cooked up a worthy plan. Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@ and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
New York Times
4 days ago
- Business
- New York Times
Lane Kiffin's solution for CFP expansion, and why SEC leaders don't seem to agree
DESTIN, Fla. — Lane Kiffin, voice of reason. That's where college football is in its latest long and winding journey to a new postseason format. Looming College Football Playoff expansion has been the hottest topic at the SEC meetings this week as the conference considers the best way to ensure the rest of college football properly respects its authority. Advertisement Expansion of the CFP field from 12 to 16 teams for 2026 and beyond appears inevitable at this point, but it's the how, not the how many, that is taking a while to come together. The topic is getting everybody involved a little testy, including SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. Sankey and the rest of the conference commissioners that make up the CFP management committee are debating multiple models with various numbers of automatic bids and qualifiers, identified by combination lock codes such as 5-11 and 4-4-2-2-1-3. Several SEC coaches this week gave their opinions on what they would like to see in a playoff format, and most responded with some form of 'above my pay grade' while also noting that it is very, very difficult to play in the SEC. Thanks, Coach! Leave it to Kiffin, the Ole Miss coach and social media antagonizer, to be more direct. 'The best system should be 16 (teams) and should be the 16 best,' Kiffin said. He added that a metrics-driven selection process with no automatic qualifiers is probably the way to go, with a committee made up of members who have no obvious conflicts of interest 'Probably media people that watch the most, that are on it and don't have any other motives in it, and figure out the best 16 teams,' Kiffin said. Kiffin spoke with reporters after SEC coaches had several hours of meetings with Sankey and athletic directors, where they discussed formats and models. 'They talked about — I'll call it a 5-11 model — and our own ability to earn those berths,' Sankey said Tuesday afternoon in his daily wrap-up session with reporters. 'The question is, why wouldn't that be fine? Why wouldn't we do that? We talked about 16 with them. So, good conversation, not a destination, but the first time I've had the ability to go really in-depth with ideas with them.' Advertisement Some of the other coaches had chances to chime in on the great Playoff debate before those meetings, but the conferences at the Hilton Sandestin were certainly not the first time the topic came up for discussion. 'I think I have a good understanding of where it is and the decisions that have to be made, which I don't think those decisions get answered here,' said Georgia coach Kirby Smart, whose Bulldogs won two national titles in the four-team CFP before they lost in the quarterfinals of the first 12-teamer last season. Smart also echoed Sankey's remarks from the day before, when he talked about balancing what's best for the conference with being one of the guardians of the game. 'I'm not looking at it in a self-preservation mode, which happens a lot in college football. These meetings are that way. Conferences are that way,' said Smart, who threw in a not-so-vague reference to his former boss, Nick Saban. 'I've learned from the best in the business that you're trying to constantly sustain the game and make the game better, and not just do it for what's best for me or just for self-preservation.' Of course, Smart then noted that the SEC set a record for teams in the NCAA men's basketball tournament (14), placed a record 13 teams in the baseball Regionals and will have five of the eight teams competing in the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City this weekend. 'But when you look at what they're able to do, there's no outcry, and there's nobody beating a drum saying that it's completely unfair. They do a lot of things based on RPI. They do a lot of things based on strength of schedule, and they reward teams for that,' Smart said. 'I have a hard time seeing Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina not being in the best teams last year.' And there it is. Last year's CFP selections are currently facing re-litigation, both among fans online and as the backdrop for the actual discussions among decision-makers. Advertisement The SEC received three bids, while the Big Ten had four. The ACC snatched an extra bid with Clemson's conference title game victory, essentially bumping Alabama from the 12-team CFP, even though the Crimson Tide were 11th in the committee's final rankings. 'You kind of wonder what would happen if other people would have had the chance to play our schedule last year,' said Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, whose first Crimson Tide team beat Georgia but lost to Vanderbilt (7-6) and Oklahoma (6-7) en route to a 9-4 finish. Kiffin's Rebels, who also beat Smart's SEC champion Bulldogs, finished 14th in the CFP rankings, and South Carolina, which beat ACC champ Clemson, was one spot ahead of the Tigers at 15. There is no denying that the current composition of the SEC, with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, has created a degree of difficulty that is tough for other conferences to match. Undercutting the SEC's complaints about last year's CFP selections — and nobody complained louder (can social media posts be loud?) than Kiffin — was the fact that Ole Miss cost itself a Playoff spot by losing at home to a Kentucky team that didn't win another SEC game, and went on to finish a 4-8 season with a brutal loss to ACC rival Louisville. If Kiffin's model — let's call it 16-0 — had been in place last year, the CFP would have included six SEC teams. Problem solved, right? Not so fast. The SEC's athletic directors seem enamored with the idea of multiple automatic bids, predetermined for each Power 4 conference (four each for the SEC and Big Ten). That idea first came from Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti last year. The automatic bids would help reimagine championship weekend by adding some high-stakes intraconference play-in games (i.e., new television inventory), essentially turning the selection committee into a seeding committee. Advertisement 'We're so used to selection committees in college athletics, because we have these sports that play a lot of games. And you can make it work with the committee,' Florida AD Scott Stricklin said. 'The committee is never ideal, right? 'It really makes it hard to do it in a way without a committee, and a committee just does not seem like a very good way to do college football. So I think anything we can do to make the postseason more objective and less subjective is going to be better. Whether you could do that some other way than automatics? I don't know, but I think that's the goal. How do you make the selection of who gets in more objective and less subjective?' The new Playoff format will directly impact the SEC's decision on whether to add an extra conference game to its schedules, going from eight to nine. Without some type of assurance that adding an extra conference game won't impede teams from being in the CFP, the SEC might just stick with eight games. 'I think nine games make sense for a lot of different reasons, but it doesn't make sense for us if we're not guaranteed to be protected,' Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts said. That sounds a lot like automatic bids without calling for automatic bids. The ADs hold more sway than the coaches in these discussions, but Sankey will ultimately make an advised call on what format to support for when he gets back together with his fellow commissioners. The Big Ten has staked out its position on automatic bids, and pretty much everybody thinks it's a bad idea. But the CFP is no longer a democracy. The new contract that kicks in next year gives the Big Ten and SEC the power to push through what they want over the objections of their colleagues. There is still hope among some CFP leaders that Sankey, who has seen how an unpopular postseason system can bring scorn and scrutiny upon college football, might provide resistance to AQs. How realistic that is at this point is questionable at best. CFP uncertainty will linger into June. The next management committee meeting is slated for June 17 in Asheville, N.C. Unfortunately, Kiffin is not invited.
NBC Sports
4 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
SEC's spring meetings: The future of college sports is in the balance at Florida resort
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Nothing less than the future of college sports is being hashed out in conference rooms spread throughout a sprawling seaside resort in Florida. These are the Southeastern Conference's annual spring meetings — a gathering of school presidents, athletic directors and coaches. It might be argued that the 2025 affair carries more weight than it ever has. Among the topics are the future of the College Football Playoff, the SEC's own schedule, the transfer portal and the NCAA itself. All are influenced by the fate of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement that hovers over almost every corner of college athletics. As a reminder of what's at stake, a handful of football coaches detailed the uncertainties they faced with the start of practice closing in, one of which is still not knowing how many players they'll be able to suit up for the upcoming season. 'It's challenging when you're trying to figure out what you can do for football camp on July 30th, when we really don't have much of a resolution of what that's going to look like,' Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said. Some of the topics being discussed this week and the SEC's role in sorting them out: College Football Playoff The SEC and Big Ten will decide whether to expand the CFP from 12 to 14 or 16 teams, and ultimately will have the final say on how many automatic bids they and other conferences will receive. Among the proposals is one in which those two conferences would receive four automatic bid, and another that allots one automatic bid to five conferences and 11 at-large slots. 'The best system with 16 should be the 16 best,' said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, a critic of the system last year when his team was left out of the first 12-team field. 'I don't know exactly how that's figured out' The Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences, which are the other two members of the Power Four, will be able to offer their input — but that's all it is — along with the rest of the smaller conferences who are involved in the CFP structure. Asked about the relationship with his fellow commissioners, the SEC's Greg Sankey relayed a recent conversation he had with one of his predecessors, Roy Kramer, who had his share of contentious arguments with leaders of other conferences. 'He said, 'We'd walk out of some of those rooms, and we weren't going to talk to each other for a year. We hated each other, but we always figured a way out,'' Sankey said. 'I take great comfort in that. And I take the responsibility to figure that out.' At stake is not only what the six seasons starting in 2026 will look like, but — if the SEC and Big Ten create an unrepairable rift with the other Power Four leagues — what college football might become once the $7.8 billion contract to televise the games ends after the 2031 season. The SEC's decision on whether to add a ninth league game and a possible shift from a conference title game to a series of 'play-in' games for newly created automatic qualifying spots are also related to the CFP's next format. The transfer portal If only there weren't that little problem of the 'student' in 'student-athlete,' some of the decisions about the transfer portal would be so much simpler. Because schools try to sync the timing of the window when players can leave one school for another with the academic calendar, football finds itself having to choose between a window that opens during the playoff — around the time the spring semester kicks off — or one that opens in the spring and predates the fall semester. The playoff option might be more convenient for some coaches, who could build their roster and do offseason workouts with those players from January through the spring. But that could lead to a repeat of some of the awkward moves from last season, with players on teams contending for a title leaving for better offers. 'It's really hard to be playing in a championship setting and have to be dealing with that,' Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. 'When I brought that up as a complaint or a problem, it was told to me, 'There's no crying from a yacht.'' Ultimately, members of the American Football Coaches Association agreed that January is the way to go. The NCAA will ultimately make this decision, likely with heavy input from the new entity being formed by the Power Four conferences that will run key aspects of college sports. The NCAA's future Most people at these meetings agree that the SEC isn't looking to break away from the NCAA completely. Then again, Sankey said, 'I've shared with the decision-making working group (at the NCAA) that I have people in my room asking, 'Why are we still in the NCAA?'' This has lent urgency to the proposals being considered for even more autonomy for the Power Four, who are looking to streamline decision-making and put the most important topics — finances, litigation and infractions not related to the settlement — in their hands. The current proposal for a slimmed-down board of directors would give the four biggest conferences enough voting power to total 65% of the vote even if the other nine board members all disagreed. It does not give the Power Four enough voting power to pass a measure if one of the four dissents. That might not be enough. 'I think 68% is a number that's been on our mind, because you can't just have someone walk away at that level among four and everything stops,' Sankey said of a formula that would give three of four conferences the voting power to pass legislation. 'We need to talk through those things in depth.'
4 days ago
- Sport
SEC's spring meetings: The future of college sports is in the balance at Florida resort
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. -- Nothing less than the future of college sports is being hashed this week out in conference rooms spread throughout a sprawling seaside resort in Florida. These are the Southeastern Conference's annual spring meetings — a gathering of school presidents, athletic directors and coaches. It might be argued that the 2025 affair carries more weight than it ever has. Among the topics are the future of the College Football Playoff, the SEC's own schedule, the transfer portal and the NCAA itself. All are influenced by the fate of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit settlement that hovers over almost every corner of college athletics. As a reminder of what's at stake, a handful of football coaches detailed the uncertainties they faced with the start of practice closing in, one of which is still not knowing how many players they'll be able to suit up for the upcoming season. 'It's challenging when you're trying to figure out what you can do for football camp on July 30th, when we really don't have much of a resolution of what that's going to look like,' Texas A&M coach Mike Elko said. Some of the topics being discussed this week and the SEC's role in sorting them out: The SEC and Big Ten will decide whether to expand the CFP from 12 to 14 or 16 teams, and will ultimately have the final say on how many automatic bids they and other conferences will receive. Among the proposals is one in which those two conferences would receive four automatic bid, and another that allots one automatic bid to five conferences and 11 at-large slots. 'The best system with 16 should be the 16 best,' said Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, a critic of the system last year when his team was left out of the first 12-team field. 'I don't know exactly how that's figured out' The Big 12 and Atlantic Coast conferences, which are the other two members of the Power Four, will be able to offer their input — but that's all it is — along with the rest of the smaller conferences who are involved in the CFP structure. Asked about the relationship with his fellow commissioners, the SEC's Greg Sankey relayed a recent conversation he had with one of his predecessors, Roy Kramer, who had his share of contentious arguments with leaders of other conferences. 'He said, 'We'd walk out of some of those rooms, and we weren't going to talk to each other for a year. We hated each other, but we always figured a way out,'" Sankey said. 'I take great comfort in that. And I take the responsibility to figure that out.' At stake is not only what the six seasons starting in 2026 will look like, but — if the SEC and Big Ten create an unrepairable rift with the other Power Four leagues — what college football might become once ESPN's $7.8 billion contract to televise the games ends after the 2031 season. The SEC's decision on whether to add a ninth league game and a possible shift from a conference title game to a series of 'play-in' games for newly created automatic qualifying spots are also related to the CFP's next format. If only there weren't that little problem of the 'student' in 'student-athlete,' some of the decisions about the transfer portal would be so much simpler. Because schools try to sync the timing of the window when players can leave one school for another with the academic calendar, football finds itself having to choose between a window that opens during the playoff — around the time the spring semester kicks off — or one that opens in the spring and predates the fall semester. The playoff option might be more convenient for some coaches, who could build their roster and do offseason workouts with those players from January through the spring. But that could lead to a repeat of some of the awkward moves from last season, with players on teams contending for a title leaving for better offers. 'It's really hard to be playing in a championship setting and have to be dealing with that,' Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. 'When I brought that up as a complaint or a problem, it was told to me, 'There's no crying from a yacht.'' Ultimately, members of the American Football Coaches Association agreed that January is the way to go. The NCAA will ultimately make this decision, likely with heavy input from the new entity being formed by the Power Four conferences that will run key aspects of college sports. Most people at these meetings agree that the SEC isn't looking to break away from the NCAA completely. Then again, Sankey said, "I've shared with the decision-making working group (at the NCAA) that I have people in my room asking, 'Why are we still in the NCAA?'' This has lent urgency to the proposals being considered for even more autonomy for the Power Four, who are looking to streamline decision-making and put the most important topics — finances, litigation and infractions not related to the settlement — in their hands. The current proposal for a slimmed-down board of directors would give the four biggest conferences enough voting power to total 65% of the vote even if the other nine board members all disagreed. It does not give the Power Four enough voting power to pass a measure if one of the four dissents. That might not be enough. 'I think 68% is a number that's been on our mind, because you can't just have someone walk away at that level among four and everything stops,' Sankey said of a formula that would give three of four conferences the voting power to pass legislation. 'We need to talk through those things in depth."
