This week marks Big Ten media days in Las Vegas. Much of the discussion at the event has been around the future format of the College Football Playoff, and how it will affect scheduling philosophies moving forward.
On Tuesday, Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti kicked off the event by arguing for his conference to get a guaranteed number of bids in the new CFP. Later that day, Ohio State head coach Ryan Day echoed Petitti’s sentiment.
““Until there’s continuity between conferences, if you’re in the Big Ten, it would make no sense to have anything other than a case to have four automatic qualifiers and an expanded pool of teams,” Day said, via Yahoo Sports. “When you play nine conference games, it’s not the same as someone who plays eight conference games. If you’re going to be compared against that, it’s just not the same.”
Day’s sentiment about the number of conference games echoes that of Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti. In his media days press conference, Cignetti called out the SEC for only playing eight conference games while the Big Ten plays nine.
Petitti and Day are hoping for a playoff system in which each conference is guaranteed a certain number of playoff bids regardless of regular season results. For USC and other Big Ten teams, that would likely be beneficial. It would give them more room for mulligans during the season, especially in nonconference games. For schools from smaller conferences, however, it would seemingly give them even less margin, since there would likely only be a few bids left for schools outside of the Big Ten and SEC.
Those changes will not go into effect until 2026 at the earliest. For this upcoming season, the CFP will utilize the same format as last season, with the exception that first-round byes will simply go to the four highest-ranked teams, rather than the four highest-ranked conference champions.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: Ohio State’s Ryan Day echoes Tony Petitti’s comments on College Football Playoff format
Reporting by Adam Bradford, Trojans Wire / Trojans Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
