Throughout school soccer’s Bowl Championship Collection period, the game’s opposition to an expanded, not to mention expansive, playoff could possibly be summarized in a single colourful quote by then-Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee.
“They are going to wrench a playoff system out of my chilly, useless palms,” Gee stated in 2007.
We’re completely happy to report that whereas school soccer does, certainly, have a playoff, Gee continues to be very a lot alive. The 81-year-old retired simply this week after a second stint main West Virginia College.
What is useless and buried, although, is school soccer’s staunch resistance to extending its postseason area. After many years of ignoring complaints and the promise of extra income to assert that simply two groups was greater than sufficient, plans to maneuver from 12 individuals to 16 had been underway earlier than final season’s inaugural 12-teamer even came about.
A once-static sport now strikes at mild pace, future implications be damned.
Hearth. Prepared. Purpose.
So perhaps the very best little bit of present information is that school soccer’s two ruling events — the SEC and Huge Ten — cannot agree on how the brand new 16-team area can be chosen. It has led to a pause on playoff enlargement.
Perhaps, simply perhaps, it means no enlargement will happen by 2026, as first deliberate, and school soccer can let the 12-team mannequin prepare dinner somewhat to precisely assess what modifications — if any — are even wanted.
“Now we have a 12-team playoff, 5 convention champions,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey stated this week. “That might keep if we won’t agree.”
Good. In spite of everything, what is the rush?
The 2025 season will play out with a 12-team format that includes automated bids for 5 convention champions and 7 at-large spots. Gone is final 12 months’s clunky requirement that the highest 4 seeds may go solely to convention champs — elevating Boise State and Arizona State and unbalancing the sector.
That alone was progress constructed on real-world expertise. It ought to be instructive.
The SEC needs a 16-team mannequin however with, as is at the moment the case, automated bids going to the champions within the ACC, Huge 12, Huge Ten, SEC and the very best of the so-called Group of 6. The remainder of the sector can be at-large picks.
The Huge Ten says it is not going to again such a proposal till the SEC agrees to play 9 convention video games (up from its present eight). As a substitute, it needs a 16-team system that offers 4 automated bids apiece to the Huge Ten and SEC, two every to the ACC and Huge 12, one to the Group of 6 after which three at-large spots.
It has been dubbed the “4-4-2-2-1-3” as a result of school athletic leaders love ridiculous parlances nearly as a lot as they love cash.
Whereas the ACC, Huge 12 and others have supplied opinions — largely siding with the SEC — legislatively, the choice rests with the game’s two big-dog conferences.
Proper now, neither facet is budging. A compromise may nonetheless be made, after all. The supposed deadline to set the 2026 system is Nov. 30. And Sankey really says he prefers the nine-game SEC schedule, even when his coaches oppose it.
Nonetheless, the potential of the established order standing for a bit longer stays.
What the Huge Ten has proposed is a dramatic shift for a sport that has been bombarded with dramatic shifts — convention realignment, the switch portal, NIL, income sharing, and many others.
The league needs to stage a number of “play-in” video games on convention championship weekend. The highest two groups within the league would meet for the league title (as is at the moment the case), however the third- and fourth-place groups would play the fifth- and sixth-place groups to find out the opposite automated bids.
Lengthen this out amongst all of the conferences and you’ve got as much as a 26-team Faculty Soccer Playoff (with 22 groups in a play-in scenario). This is able to dramatically change the way in which the game works — devaluing the stakes for nonconference video games, for instance. And a few mediocre groups would basically get a playoff bid — within the Huge Ten’s case, the sixth seed final 12 months was an Iowa group that completed 8-5.
Every convention would have extra high-value stock to promote to broadcast companions, but it surely’s not some huge windfall. Likewise, 4 extra first-round playoff video games would wish to seek out tv slots and relevance.
Is anybody certain that is crucial? Do we’d like 16 in any respect, not to mention with multibids?
Within the 12-team format, the primary spherical wasn’t notably aggressive — with a 19.3-point common margin of victory. It is very like the primary spherical of the NFL playoffs, designed largely to verify no true contender is neglected.
Maybe final 12 months was an outlier. And perhaps future video games shall be shut. Or perhaps they’re going to be much more lopsided. Would not it’s prudent to seek out out?
Whereas there have been complaints in regards to the choice committee selecting SMU and/or Indiana over Alabama, it wasn’t some egregious slight. Arguments will occur regardless of how massive the sector. Moreover, the Crimson Tide misplaced to 2 6-6 groups final 12 months. Growth means a group with an identical résumé can cruise in.
Is {that a} good factor?
Regardless of the resolution, it’s being made with little to no real-world knowledge — professional or con. Letting a number of 12-team fields play out, offering context and doubtlessly surprising penalties, certain would not harm.
You do not have to be Gordon Gee circa 2007 to favor letting this simmer and be studied earlier than leaping towards one other spherical of enlargement.