Big 12 Should Accept the Unfair CFP Deal & Back the ACC's Survival

In this episode, we dive into the proposed expansion of the College Football Playoff (CFP) to 16 teams — and the controversy surrounding automatic bids. With the SEC and Big Ten potentially locking down four auto-bids while the ACC and Big 12 only get two, is this an unfair power grab or a strategic necessity?

I break down why the Big 12 might be wise to accept the deal despite the imbalance, and why its long-term future could depend on the survival of the ACC. Plus, a message for fans: rooting for the collapse of other conferences may backfire. This episode is a must-listen for college football fans, realignment watchers, and those tracking the future of the CFP.

Keywords: College Football Playoff expansion, CFP 16 teams, Big 12 football, SEC power, ACC survival, college football realignment, automatic bids CFP, NCAA football podcast

Transcript

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The Talking Heads in College Football are discussing a new college football playoff format that would feature 16 teams and even more auto bids. Is this a good idea for the Big 12? We're going to get into that and much more in today's podcast. From Oklahoma stake to Colorado, Arizona's sake to Cincinnati, we've got Big 12 covered from end zone to buzzer-beater. This is First and 12, we're all assessed past to all 16 teams. Fall in every episode.[Music] Hello, my name is Adam Gibby. You are listening to the Big 12 Blitz. The first and only podcast that covers all 16 teams in the conference with equal time. If you like this podcast, please like, subscribe, leave that review, it helps out the show a ton. And let's get right into it. There have been multiple reports that there is support for a new college football playoff format that would feature 16 teams and that would feature four autobids for the SEC and the Big 10, two for the ACC and Big 12 and then one for the G5. In addition, there would also be some at large to fill out their remaining 16 spots. Now at first, my initial reaction is this is an absolutely terrible idea. We're giving more power to the Big 10 in the SEC by giving them twice as many autobids as any other conference. But the more I break down, what this actually means. And the more I step back and kind of look at the real reality of our college football is, I think this might be the answer because let's be honest, if we continue down the same path that we are, even with 16 teams where there's only four autobids, sorry, correction, five autobids and the rest at large. The SEC and Big 10 are going to get there four anyways and then they might get number five and six in the big 12 in the ACC and every other conference in the country may also still only get one bid. We looked back at last year's rankings. There would have only been one team from the big 12 in a 12 team format and in a 16 team format, one has to seriously wonder whether or not IOS state would have gotten in or not. By having two teams automatically get in, that does give opportunity for the conference to win a national championship. And that's something that I think is valuable. I think that's something that carries a lot of weight. Is it fair? No, of course not. But is it more fair than the system we have right now? Perhaps. I think in a perfect world, you don't have any autobids. And if you do, you only have the conference champions. Make everybody else earn it. I don't know why the SEC and Big 10 are afraid of not having more, sorry, than having more than less than four autobids. Why are they afraid of that? Because they're probably going to get a fifth one anyway with the at large spots. Yet this is the reality we live in. I think by doing this though, I think there's a little bit of risk. But I think there's risk on both sides. If the ACC of Jim Phillips and Brett Yarmark came together and agreed to this format, and I do believe they are the only two that hold anything up, then they are essentially forfitting waving the white flag saying yes, Big 10 SEC, you're bigger, you're better, you're better than us. You are who runs college football. You deserve twice as many bids as we deserve, despite having the same amount of teams in your conference. And yet, that still means two teams. The risk though is that by doing that, by formally in a way, waving the white flag and saying you are bigger than us and we admit it, what's stopping the SEC and Big 10 from in a couple of years just saying, you know what, we're breaking away. We're done. We get all the autobids. In fact, we'll be the only conferences I play. We'll play the national championship between our two conferences and guess what, Fox ESPN, they're going to follow us. ACC, you want the CW? Yeah, go play your own championship. Big 12, we'll give you ESPN plus. We'll give you a FS1. Yeah, you guys go play your own championship. In fact, go play each other. We don't care because we're going to have our own championship and it's going to be on Fox, ABC and ESPN. And we're going to dominate. So that's the risk if you admit that they're bigger than you. However, the playoff also could provide an opportunity for the big 12 in the ACC. If the big 12 had two teams in every single year, the ACC had two teams in every single year. And one of those team was able to win a national championship or maybe the big 12 in ACC combined for two out of three years. Now that leverage is no longer in the same category as it was before for the, for the Big 10 and SEC. No longer can they say, hey, we're the best. Well, you've lost. You have a one in, you know, one of you has a one in a row. And over three years in the other one of you only won once in the last three years. Meanwhile, the big 12 has two championships or the ACC has two championships. And so I think that that's the risk, you know, that could play out in your favor. Now the flip side is if the big 12 and ACC come together and say, no, no deal. We're not giving you more auto bits. Then does that cause the chain reaction of the big 10 and SEC to say, well, you don't give us what we want to find. We'll do what we want. And again, we'll have all the TV money markets with us, especially starting in 2031 the new TV contracts come out. That's the danger. And so I think Jim Phillips, Brett, your mark had to be very, very careful when they play their cards. They want there to be parity. They want it to be fair as you do as a listener as most fans of college football do. But you have to play your cards correctly. And I'm just glad I'm not the one being paid to do that because that is a hard decision. Then do you put your foot down, stand up to the SEC, stand up to the big 10 and say, no, we're not doing that. We're not doing what you want because it gives you an advantage. I think they want to do that. I think we all want to see them do that. But it's not going to happen because it risks losing everything. We saw the pack 12 fall apart just two years ago because of something like this. They dug their feet into the sand and said, we want more money than the big 12. We want more money than the ACC. We want the same money as the big 10 and SEC. And they dug their feet into the ground and they would not budge. And guess what? The conference fell apart and the pack 12 is now nothing compared to what it used to be. They are no longer a power conference. They will probably only get a team in the playoff once every couple of years. And then they're probably not going to be relevant anytime soon. That's the danger that the big 12 is running right now. And so if you're a Houston fan, if you're a West Virginia, a fan, UCF, BYU, Utah fan, you have to be cautiously optimistic that Brett, your mark knows what he's doing. You also should be a fan of the ACC. And I realize that's something that is foreign to a lot of people. Because for years it's been, hey, we're the third best conference. The ACC is nothing. Talk down the ACC, talk down the ACC. We're the big 12. We're the third best conference. Well, guess what? We can't do this alone. We cannot do this alone. The conference cannot survive by itself. The big 12 and ACC need to have the same kind of relationship that the big 10 and SEC have. If they're going to stand up to the big boys, they need to do it at the same time. They can't do it by themselves. Because if one conference falls, the other one's going to fall too. It's just going to happen. If the ACC dissolves in North Carolina and Clemson go to the big 10 in Miami and Florida state, go to the SEC. The big 12 has no argument to say, well, we're still the third best. Well, yeah, you're the third best, but guess what? Nobody cares because all the other big brands around the country are in the SEC in the big 10. And guess what? There is no team in the big 12 as of today that carries the same weight as a lot of the teams in the big 10 and SEC. There is no Tennessee. There is no Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State. Our biggest brands are BYU, Texas Tech, and maybe TCU. I mean, there's big brands. Don't get me wrong. Oklahoma State is a well-known team. Utah is a well-known team. UCF is a sleeping giant, but there is no team in the conference that could stand up to Clemson and be viewed as the bigger brand, at least in 2025. There's no team in the conference who can measure up against Florida State or Miami. And so as big 12 fans, we need a hope that one of two things happen. Either those big brands come to the big 12, which after the last summer, I'm not sure it's ever going to happen, or we need a hope for the success of the ACC. We need a hope for an ACC versus big 12 national championship game. We need to cheer for the big ACC if they are playing against an SEC or big 10 school. That is what big 12 fans need to be doing. And whether you consider yourself a big 12 fan or not, maybe you're just a fan of Cincinnati football, or maybe you're just a fan of Houston basketball. Well, guess what? Without the ACC being a power conference, without the big 12 being a power conference, you're never going to see success again. It just won't happen. Is there one off one year? Yeah, maybe. But for the most part, you are not going to see that because all the money is going to go to the big 10 and the SEC. Okay? You want to know why the UFL ratings are tanking right now? It's because they're not the NFL. They're just not. I personally enjoy the UFL. I think it's a fun league. I think it's a bright idea. Give us football in the spring, but it's not taking off because it's not the NFL. The big 10 and SEC break off, they will be the college NFL in every other league. The big 12, the ACC, the Mountain West, the pack 12 or pack eight, whatever they are, the American, the max USA sunbelt, they will become nothing. They will become the FCS football. And that is a scary thought because most of our teams aren't going to make the cut. If any of them, the ACC and, or sorry, the big 10 and the SEC may just say, hey, we're done. We have 32 teams between the two conferences. That's going to be your, that's going to be your league. We have teams as far as USC, to Rutgers, Florida, in Washington. We got teams everywhere in between. We got Texas. We got Michigan. We got Ohio State, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, who were good. Yeah, we got Vanderbilt. Yeah, we got Rutgers, Maryland, and whatever. Indiana, they had a good year. Northwestern is still here. Why not? Kentucky, they're good at basketball, but they're going to stick around, right? You know, they're not going to take the top 32 actual brands and call it football. They're not going to do that. They're not going to kick Vanderbilt or Arkansas out of the SEC. It's not going to happen. This new format, 4-4-2-1, maybe the best interest of big 12 in ACC. Is it admitting that they're not the biggest brands? Yes. Does everybody know it? Yes. Has it been officially said? I don't know if it has, at least not out in public. This would be the first time that it would be publicly made of the ACC in big 12 way, even a Y-flag. But sometimes you got to lose a battle to win the war. And if you're a fan of the big 12, this may just have to be a battle we lose. If you like today's episode, please leave a review, five star review, share it with your friends. As we continue to go, I am going to have comment sections. We're going to open it up to you. I want to talk about things you want to talk about as a fan of your favorite big 12 school. Yeah, we're going to cover all 16 teams. Now, are we going to have an episode on UCF? Absolutely. Are we going to talk about Cincinnati in that episode? Maybe not, but as this show continues on, as we continue to grow, continue to get more listeners, we are going to cover every single team and allow you the fan to feel part of this community. The big 12 is a beautiful conference. It's the most unified conference in all football. And that needs to be something that is shared. Again, if you like today's episode, please like and review. I will see you next time. Have a great day.(upbeat music)