Paul Finebaum Believes It's "Bad Move" to Start Automatic CFP Bids

The CFP could again be changing. The current format was only introduced in the 2024 season, and there is speculation that this format is primed for another shift.

These current speculated changes come from the meeting between the Big Ten Conference and the SEC. One of their proposals was automatic berths into the Playoff for their conference's teams.

On Friday, College Football analyst Paul Finebaum gave his opinion on this proposal on that days edition of "Get Up."

"I believe they are completely wrong about guaranteeing bids... There's something inherently wrong about stacking the deck before the season. The SEC and the Big Ten are by far the best leagues, and last year, the SEC only got three, and there were three schools hanging on on the ledge. Ultimately you could have a year... more in the Big Ten than the SEC where you had two or three elite teams and then your automatic third or fourth or maybe your fourth uh is is an 8-4 team that probably doesn't belong in there so I think it's a it's a bad move right now." (2:11)

Under the plans proposed by the Big Ten and SEC, in a future expanded playoffs, these conferences would want four automatic spots each. In practice, this would mean that the top four teams from these conferences would win spots no matter how their season went.

As Finebaum explained, this could lead to a situation in which a team with an 8-4 record would make the CFP over other better-performing teams solely because they play in a specific conference.

This would also mean that (providing the Playoff expands to 16 teams as has been suggested in the past) half of those teams would come from the two strongest conferences, effectively closing the door for many other teams.

However, the general strength of the teams in the SEC and Big Ten means that, if the CFP rankings are used to assign the Playoff teams as they are now, there is still going to be six or seven programs from these conferences. This fact alone makes the notion of automatic berths for these two conferences redundant and is only seen as a way to widen the gap between them and the rest of College Football.

Could the SEC play nine conference games to help their CFP bid?

Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC, gave his thoughts on their proposal after the meeting on Wednesday. Speaking to ESPN, he said:

"I think there's a lot of interest," Sankey said according to ESPN. "People change, positions change ... understanding the selection committee's perspective and how the criteria is applied is an important element."

Another thing that was discussed was the SEC expanding to nine conference games in the regular season. This is something that they currently have no plans for. But, if the Playoff were to be further expanded, an extra conference game would help the SEC in their hunt to get as many teams as possible into the CFP.

Playing one extra game against an opponent that the committee is likely to see as "strong" (as most of the SEC are) will give programs an extra boost up the rankings if they win. Come selection Sunday, this could be the difference between making the CFP or not.