"Soul of college football is dying" - Former Heisman winner Robert Griffin III calls out SEC & Big Ten's privilege to criticize CFB's current state

On Monday, speculation abounded about a change in the college football playoff format which crowned its first winner, the Ohio State Buckeyes, in the current 12-team format.

An ESPN report revealed that one of the items on the agenda in a meeting to be held in New Orleans on Wednesday between the SEC and the Big Ten will be an expansion of the current playoff format.

The proposal has drawn mixed reactions from both fans and analysts. On Monday, in an X post, former Heisman Trophy winner Robert Griffin III called out the two premier conferences for their interference in the playoff format.

"The Soul of College Football is dying because of money. Allowing the Big 10 and SEC to get 4 automatic bids into another expanded College Football Playoff dilutes the importance of winning. 4 loss non-conference champions don’t belong in the CFP," Griffin III posted on X.

"The proposed changes open the door for a Monopoly of the sport. The business of College Football is trying to destroying it."

According to ESPN sources, the budding Big Ten and SEC partnership meeting will come up with a joint resolution about the playoffs going forth.

"I would imagine that coming out of that Big Ten-SEC meeting that they will come to the table with proposed governance, proposed format -- all of that," the ESPN source said. "I think that's everybody's expectation, but I don't expect anything radical that hasn't already been discussed."

Analyst addresses college football playoff expansion speculation

During Monday's segment of the "Josh Pate Show," the eponymous host addressed the issue of expanded playoffs and the benefits that the SEC and the Big Ten would derive from it.

"Instead of having the committee rank the teams one-through-25, and then you got your automatic qualifiers, ... just forget all about that, just wipe the slate clean," Josh Pate said. "And what will happen is that the SEC will have four guaranteed spots, the Big Ten will have four guaranteed spots and so on and so forth. That's it.

"I was never for playoff expansion. But we got it. So I had to bite the bullet on it. But given that we're here, I'll tell you, I'll end up liking this format more. Because what it does is it redirects the focus back onto the conference championship races."

The SEC and the Big Ten have cut a niche for themselves as the richest conferences in college football and were at the vanguard of the conference realignment and expansion moves. Their new partnership seems like the driver of change in the still-nascent playoff format.