Greg Sankey says SEC not settled on preferred CFP format - ESPN

DESTIN, Fla. — SEC commissioner Greg Sankey opened the league's annual meetings Monday by saying he's open-minded about the format of the College Football Playoff, while leaving some breadcrumbs about what he thinks are priorities in the conference's decision-making.

With SEC athletic directors, presidents and coaches converging in Destin this week, the future of the College Football Playoff in 2026 and beyond is one of the central issues facing the league.

That's in part because the playoff format decision is kinetic, as it impacts the SEC's football schedule going to nine games and some type of down-the-road scheduling partnership with the Big Ten.

«We're not committed to any particular format,» Sankey said.

With conversations among CFP leaders about format having appeared to splinter off to just the four power conference commissioners, a 16-team model looms as the most likely for the future of the sport. Sankey remains noncommittal on how the SEC thinks that should work, as college football enters the final year of its current postseason format.

The most discussed model has been one where the Big Ten and SEC would get four automatic bids each, and the ACC and Big 12 two each.

But Sankey stressed that the so-called 4-4-2-2-1-3 model, which distributes one automatic bid to the non-power leagues and three available at-large bids — potentially for Notre Dame — has not been decided on in his room.

«We'll see how that conversation manifests itself this week and we'll look a little bit more deeply at different ideas,» he said, «which will put me at some point in a better position to answer those questions.»

Sankey did dive into some traits in the CFP system that he'd like to see, including a prioritization of the regular