While the great divide in college football continues to grow because the Super 2 in Big Ten and SEC against the rest of the country, the battleground is more than just the format of the College Football Playoff.
Until the CFP establishes an objective criteria about who advances to its “invitational,” there will be a continued divide amongst all FBS schools and conferences.
Following Big Ten Media Days, the conference is united in its stance for at least four automatic qualifiers.
Another stance that remains consistent within the league is Penn State coach James Franklin’s takes on scheduling consistency and with Notre Dame.
Franklin entertained a question about scheduling consistency and if playing rival Pitt was on the horizon, but Franklin sidestepped the Pitt question to emphasize his points.
“The thing that I struggle with is the same thing I’ve been talking about for a long time, and this doesn’t change: Everybody has to play the same number of conference games,” Franklin said.
“Like, this ain’t that hard,” he said. “Everybody should be playing eight or everybody should be playing nine (conference games). I was in that other conference (the SEC) when that whole discussion about going to nine games was voted on. Everybody should either play a conference championship game or everybody shouldn’t. Everybody should be in a conference.”
Scheduling Consistency
In 2011, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delaney announced that the conference would play nine-games starting in 2017.
“It gives us a clearer sense of conference,” Delany told ESPN in 2011. “We don’t expand to play each other less. We expand because we like to play the teams and the schools that are involved in the conference. It also gives a clearer sense of a champion by having more competition, not less.
“And over time, it not only builds a brand but builds value.”
The conference would make the move to nine conference games a year earlier than the announced date. This was the same year as Penn State’s most recent conference championship.
Franklin recognizes that is a situation he and the rest of his Big Ten coaching peers have to deal with. Franklin even remarked it was arguably “the worst decision the Big Ten ever made.”
Considering today the Big Ten has three networks to feed premium content to on at all three key Saturday time slots, coupled with the expansion to 18 teams, nine conference games is essential, in my mind, to make all this viable.
But it does create a competitive imbalance across the nation.
The Big 12 began playing nine conference games in 2011 but the ACC and SEC still have eight-game conference schedules.
From an SEC point of view, the ninth conference game is a valuable piece of inventory that ESPN would covet. But from a conference point of view, there needs to be compensation for that premium content.
With the proverbial tug-of-war between the Super 2 conferences over ideologies having no end in site, despite understanding the SEC’s stance the argument of having to play an additional conference game, is a tougher road for Big Ten teams.
Typically the caliber of athletes and depth of teams in a conference like the Big Ten is a tougher road. When you potentially add in tough coast-to-coast swings for some teams that dynamic is really only matched in the Big XII.
I wouldn’t agree with Big Ten Commissioner Tony Pettiti that a 6-3 record in conference play is “a great record’ to go along with an 8-4 record is postseason worthy in college football, as of this writing.
Franklin’s key points on consistencies nationally in scheduling begin to ring true in Pettiti’s comments. If the Big Ten had a season where six teams are equal and beat each other up and had have a plethora of two, three, maybe even four-loss teams, the rigor of navigating through a Big Ten schedule would be worth the guaranteed spots.
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Notre Dame
If one team seems to create its own set of rules, it is the team from South Bend, Indiana.
Penn State was one of the biggest winners when the CFP expanded to 12-teams but Notre Dame was arguably its biggest.
Notre Dame, in the new format as an independent, can host a CFP First Round game – much like it did last season against Indiana, has access to first round byes and isn’t handcuffed by conference tie ins if ranked amongst the first four – meaning it is a wild card in CFP Quarterfinal games to play anywhere.
When Notre Dame has success on the field, like it did last year, financially it doesn’t have to share any of it. Notre Dame made $20 million from last year’s National Championship run – receiving $4 million for qualifying for the CFP, $4 million for advancing to the Quarterfinals, $6 million for making the Semifinals and $6 million for reaching the National Championship.
Additionally, Notre Dame received $3 million in each round to cover expenses.
Compare that to the Big Ten splitting up the money equally, Oregon, Indiana, Penn State and national champion Ohio State made an additional $2.56 million.
Conversely, if Notre Dame doesn’t make the CFP, they don’t make any additional money.
Although Franklin didn’t allude to the financial disadvantages he certainly hit on the field disadvantages.
Franklin’s segue from SEC and ACC scheduling inconsistencies was stating everybody should be in a conference.
Prior to Penn State’s matchup against Notre Dame, Franklin said everyone should be in a conference and double downed on it at Big Ten Media Days.
“Everybody thought I was slighting Notre Dame,” Franklin said in his continued explanation of having consistency in college football,”he said. “I’ve been saying that for 10 years. If I didn’t say it in that moment when I was asked a question, I’d be a hypocrite. I’m going to say it now because I’ve been saying it the whole time, and that’s not a knock, but you’re asking a group of people to get into a room and decide the best 12 or 16 teams in college football, and you’re not comparing apples to apples.”
Although Notre Dame is obligated to six annual matchups with ACC teams, the illusion of Notre Dame independence was extinguished during COVID when it seemed Notre Dame wouldn’t play football it caved and joined the ACC during 2020.
Had they not played, maybe I wouldn’t hold it much against them, but it showed Notre Dame would play in a conference if push came to shove.
The 2025 Notre Dame schedule isn’t an easy one, while the school plays 10 Power 4 opponents – six from the ACC, and two each from the Big Ten and SEC, they play Navy, who won 10 games a season ago along with Boise State, who Penn State played in the CFP Quarterfinal at the Fiesta Bowl.
You could argue Notre Dame plays a much tougher schedule than Penn State, but there isn’t any guidelines for how Notre Dame puts a schedule together, there isn’t specific dates they are tied to with the schedule, this gives a competitive imbalance when you compare what teams in conferences have to contend with.
Former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said in 2023 the only way Notre Dame would join a conference is if there was no media partner and no fair path to the playoffs.
Franklin has to see both sides of the coin for Notre Dame where it is fair and not.
Franklin has to live with the disadvantages Penn State is in that Notre Dame has advantage with.
In virtually all sports, there is a level competitive balance when it comes to scheduling and structure, but in major college football people it doesn’t exist. That is what perplexes Franklin and will continue to do so.
He is right on so many levels, scheduling should be universal, playing in a conference should be universal. These are the basic fundamentals that need to get right before the sport figures out its College Football Playoff format.
