As the SEC and Big Ten seek to consolidate power, the Big 12 stands firm on fairness in the fight over College Football Playoff access.
At a time when the SEC and Big Ten are maneuvering for control over the College Football Playoff, the Big 12 is betting on a different approach: earning it on the field.
At this week’s spring meetings in Orlando, Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark doubled down on his league’s support of the 5+11 model—a playoff structure that would grant automatic bids to the five highest-ranked conference champions, with 11 at-large spots rounding out the 16-team field.
The alternative, a 4-4-2-2 model backed by the Big Ten, would guarantee four spots each to the SEC and Big Ten and only two to the ACC and Big 12. That format, in Yormark’s words, “just doesn’t speak to who we are as a conference.”
Instead of fighting for guaranteed access, the Big 12 is embracing risk. Yormark and his athletic directors say they’d rather compete for spots than be handed fewer by default. “I’m willing to earn it on the field,” Yormark said. “And so are my coaches, and so are my ADs.”
The league knows the odds. Under the 5+11 model, the Big 12 might earn just one bid in a given year. But it might earn four in another. What it won’t do is accept second-class status locked in by contract. Utah AD Mark Harlan summed up the mindset: “Then Big 12, let’s win more games. Let’s get after it.”
Meanwhile, the SEC and Big Ten continue their strategic chess match. The SEC wants to finalize a CFP format before making a decision on a ninth conference game. The Big Ten, already at nine, is waiting to see what the SEC does. And all of it is tied to power—and money. The two super-conferences already control a majority of future CFP revenue. What they decide in the coming months could shape the postseason for years.
Yormark is under no illusions. The Big 12 can’t out-muscle the SEC and Big Ten. But it can take the moral high ground—and make a public case for a more competitive system. “Fairness” has become the conference’s rallying cry. Coaches like Texas Tech’s Joey McGuire echoed it in Orlando: “It’s hard for me to just say, because you have a certain patch on your uniform, you get more than somebody else’s patch.”
This is the Big 12’s pitch: Let the results speak. Don’t build a system that locks in privilege. Don’t turn the Playoff into a closed shop. And if that means going to war with the sport’s power brokers?
So be it.
