The College Football Playoff format change discussion seems to be an eternally relevant one. After the shift from the BCS to the four-team playoff, it didn't take very long for the talk to change to how the playoff should be expanded. Now that it has been expanded, further expansion is the name of the game, as well as a format change.
In case you haven't been keeping up with the discussion, the latest impasse is over automatic qualifiers for each conference. The SEC and Big 10 have been intransigent in their stance that they each deserve more automatic qualifiers than the other conferences, given the higher average quality of team in those two compared to even leagues like the Big 12.
Meanwhile, the Big 12, ACC, and others all understand that this would be a significant step towards making official a status that has been unofficially perceived by most fans of the sport: that they are second fiddle to these bigger leagues. That's not something you'd want to enter into willingly, but given the leverage that these two leagues hold, many wondered if it would happen anyway.
Conference commissioners starting over in playoff format discussions per Brett McMurphy
According to a report from Brett McMurphy, however, it appears that the model these bigger leagues were demanding eventually lost steam, meaning discussions are now back to square one.
Conference commissioners have decided to “start over” on determining 2026 College Football Playoff format, sources said. Big Ten & SEC initially wanted 4 AQs each w/2 each to ACC & Big 12. However, ACC & Big 12 pushed back. SEC coaches later publicly did not support 4 AQ model…
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) June 18, 2025
As McMurphy notes, the attitude from the coaches didn't necessarily match up with that of the conference commissioners. The SEC coaches, at least, voted in favor of only 5 automatic qualifiers— the same number that the current format has.
The deadline for changes is December 1, as McMurphy also points out. Whether these commissioners with such starkly competing interests can get something figured out by that time is a question that many will be asking right up until an announcement is made.
If these past few months is anything to go by, though, this is an ill portent. The compromises made seem to make no one happy more often than not, and the naysayers only grow louder with each story like this that comes out.