DESTIN, Fla. — Lane Kiffin, voice of motive.
That’s the place faculty soccer is in its newest lengthy and winding journey to a brand new postseason format.
Looming Faculty Soccer Playoff enlargement has been the most well liked matter on the SEC conferences this week because the convention considers the easiest way to make sure the remainder of faculty soccer correctly respects its authority.
Enlargement of the CFP discipline from 12 to 16 groups for 2026 and past seems inevitable at this level, however it’s the how, not the what number of, that’s taking some time to come back collectively. The subject is getting everyone concerned a bit testy, together with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.
Sankey and the remainder of the convention commissioners that make up the CFP administration committee are debating a number of fashions with numerous numbers of automated bids and qualifiers, recognized by mixture lock codes akin to 5-11 and 4-4-2-2-1-3.
A number of SEC coaches this week gave their opinions on what they wish to see in a playoff format, and most responded with some type of “above my pay grade” whereas additionally noting that it is vitally, very tough to play within the SEC. Thanks, Coach!
Depart it to Kiffin, the Ole Miss coach and social media antagonizer, to be extra direct.
“The perfect system must be 16 (groups) and must be the 16 finest,” Kiffin mentioned.
He added {that a} metrics-driven choice course of with no automated qualifiers might be the best way to go, with a committee made up of members who don’t have any apparent conflicts of curiosity
“Most likely media folks that watch essentially the most, which might be on it and don’t have every other motives in it, and determine the perfect 16 groups,” Kiffin mentioned.
Kiffin spoke with reporters after SEC coaches had a number of hours of conferences with Sankey and athletic administrators, the place they mentioned codecs and fashions.
“They talked about — I’ll name it a 5-11 mannequin — and our personal capacity to earn these berths,” Sankey mentioned Tuesday afternoon in his every day wrap-up session with reporters. “The query is, why wouldn’t that be high quality? Why wouldn’t we do this? We talked about 16 with them. So, good dialog, not a vacation spot, however the first time I’ve had the power to go actually in-depth with concepts with them.”
A number of the different coaches had possibilities to chime in on the nice Playoff debate earlier than these conferences, however the conferences on the Hilton Sandestin have been actually not the primary time the subject got here up for dialogue.
“I feel I’ve a superb understanding of the place it’s and the selections that must be made, which I don’t assume these selections get answered right here,” mentioned Georgia coach Kirby Sensible, whose Bulldogs received two nationwide titles within the four-team CFP earlier than they misplaced within the quarterfinals of the primary 12-teamer final season.
Sensible additionally echoed Sankey’s remarks from the day earlier than, when he talked about balancing what’s finest for the convention with being one of many guardians of the sport.
“I’m not taking a look at it in a self-preservation mode, which occurs so much in faculty soccer. These conferences are that approach. Conferences are that approach,” mentioned Sensible, who threw in a not-so-vague reference to his former boss, Nick Saban. “I’ve realized from the perfect within the enterprise that you simply’re attempting to consistently maintain the sport and make the sport higher, and never simply do it for what’s finest for me or simply for self-preservation.”
In fact, Sensible then famous that the SEC set a report for groups within the NCAA males’s basketball match (14), positioned a report 13 groups within the baseball Regionals and can have 5 of the eight groups competing within the Girls’s Faculty World Collection in Oklahoma Metropolis this weekend.
“However once you take a look at what they’re capable of do, there’s no outcry, and there’s no one beating a drum saying that it’s fully unfair. They do a whole lot of issues based mostly on RPI. They do a whole lot of issues based mostly on power of schedule, they usually reward groups for that,” Sensible mentioned. “I’ve a tough time seeing Ole Miss, Alabama, South Carolina not being in the perfect groups final yr.”
And there it’s.
Final yr’s CFP picks are at the moment dealing with re-litigation, each amongst followers on-line and because the backdrop for the precise discussions amongst decision-makers.
The SEC obtained three bids, whereas the Massive Ten had 4. The ACC snatched an additional bid with Clemson’s convention title sport victory, basically bumping Alabama from the 12-team CFP, regardless that the Crimson Tide have been eleventh within the committee’s ultimate rankings.
“You type of surprise what would occur if different individuals would have had the possibility to play our schedule final yr,” mentioned Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, whose first Crimson Tide workforce beat Georgia however misplaced to Vanderbilt (7-6) and Oklahoma (6-7) en path to a 9-4 end.
Kiffin’s Rebels, who additionally beat Sensible’s SEC champion Bulldogs, completed 14th within the CFP rankings, and South Carolina, which beat ACC champ Clemson, was one spot forward of the Tigers at 15.
There isn’t any denying that the present composition of the SEC, with the addition of Texas and Oklahoma, has created a level of problem that’s robust for different conferences to match.
Undercutting the SEC’s complaints about final yr’s CFP picks — and no one complained louder (can social media posts be loud?) than Kiffin — was the truth that Ole Miss value itself a Playoff spot by shedding at house to a Kentucky workforce that didn’t win one other SEC sport, and went on to complete a 4-8 season with a brutal loss to ACC rival Louisville.
If Kiffin’s mannequin — let’s name it 16-0 — had been in place final yr, the CFP would have included six SEC groups.
Drawback solved, proper?
Not so quick. The SEC’s athletic administrators appear enamored with the thought of a number of automated bids, predetermined for every Energy 4 convention (4 every for the SEC and Massive Ten). That concept first got here from Massive Ten commissioner Tony Petitti final yr. The automated bids would assist reimagine championship weekend by including some high-stakes intraconference play-in video games (i.e., new tv stock), basically turning the choice committee right into a seeding committee.
“We’re so used to choice committees in faculty athletics, as a result of we’ve these sports activities that play a whole lot of video games. And you may make it work with the committee,” Florida AD Scott Stricklin mentioned. “The committee is rarely ideally suited, proper?
“It actually makes it exhausting to do it in a approach and not using a committee, and a committee simply doesn’t appear to be an excellent method to do faculty soccer. So I feel something we will do to make the postseason extra goal and fewer subjective goes to be higher. Whether or not you could possibly do this another approach than automatics? I don’t know, however I feel that’s the aim. How do you make the number of who will get in additional goal and fewer subjective?”
The brand new Playoff format will straight impression the SEC’s choice on whether or not so as to add an additional convention sport to its schedules, going from eight to 9. With out some kind of assurance that including an additional convention sport received’t impede groups from being within the CFP, the SEC may simply keep on with eight video games.
“I feel 9 video games make sense for lots of various causes, however it doesn’t make sense for us if we’re not assured to be protected,” Texas A&M athletic director Trev Alberts mentioned.
That sounds so much like automated bids with out calling for automated bids.
The ADs maintain extra sway than the coaches in these discussions, however Sankey will finally make an suggested name on what format to help for when he will get again collectively along with his fellow commissioners.
The Massive Ten has staked out its place on automated bids, and just about everyone thinks it’s a foul concept. However the CFP is not a democracy. The brand new contract that kicks in subsequent yr offers the Massive Ten and SEC the facility to push by what they need over the objections of their colleagues.
There may be nonetheless hope amongst some CFP leaders that Sankey, who has seen how an unpopular postseason system can deliver scorn and scrutiny upon faculty soccer, may present resistance to AQs.
How practical that’s at this level is questionable at finest. CFP uncertainty will linger into June. The subsequent administration committee assembly is slated for June 17 in Asheville, N.C.
Sadly, Kiffin is just not invited.
(Picture: James Gilbert / Getty Pictures)
