"Let's reward teams, let's not reward conferences": CFB analyst makes his stance clear on Big 10-SEC dominated CFP rule changes

The 2024 season brought the first-ever 12-team College Football Playoff (CFP). Sources close to Yahoo Sports suggest that further changes to the playoff format are imminent, potentially expanding to 14 or 16 teams, with the SEC and Big Ten each receiving up to four automatic bids.

Speaking about this news, On3's JD PicKell said on Monday:

"We look to where we are headed, I'll be in favor of no auto bids. I'm not here telling you the Big Ten and the SEC should have their automatic qualifiers. I get it because they're holding the cards, but I'm not telling you I'm in favor of it. If it were me I would say, let's go to-I'd have a smaller number of teams-but if we have to go to 14 teams, let's go 14 teams, top 14 teams that are ranked in the uh you know college football playoff rankings at the end of the season. That should be your playoff... Let's just go with the highest-ranked teams. Let's reward teams, let's not reward conferences" Said the analyst from the 7:10 mark onwards of the video above

PicKell also stated there was room to debate what could be done about conference champions. Admittedly, that would bring us back to the initial issue, as the conference champions who received a bye in the first round of the 2024 CFP looked the most lacking in the end.

Why is the CFP changing formats again?

While nothing has been confirmed yet, reports suggest that the SEC and Big Ten are interested in further expanding the CFP for this upcoming season. The reason behind this is simple: the conferences just want a bigger slice of the pie to share among its member schools. In the case of the SEC, the poor performance of its schools in the 2024 edition could be another reason for this interest. The more schools you manage to get, the higher the chances your conference has of winning the national title.

If expanded, all of the new spots would go to the SEC or the Big Ten. Reports suggest both leagues would want four automatic bids each. Even if the CFP were to expand to 16 teams, this would mean reducing at-large bids to accommodate the biggest conferences in the nation.

Both conferences are in prime position to get their wishes, as 10 FBS conferences and Notre Dame (An independent school) handed full authority over the CFP format to the SEC and Big Ten in last year's negotiations to create the 12-team playoff format.