Oregon, UW had ‘inbound interest’ to join Big Ten
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Adam Rittenberg, ESPN Senior Writer
ROSEMONT, Ill. — Oregon and Washington‘s “inbound interest” to join the Big Ten in the wake of Colorado‘s departure from the Pac-12 to Big 12 largely spurred the Big Ten to consider adding both schools last month, league commissioner Tony Petitti told ESPN.
The Big Ten had been focused on integrating new members USC and UCLA in 2024 and wasn’t considering further expansion as of late July. But Colorado’s departure to the Big 12 on July 27, before Pac-12 schools saw a streaming-based media rights proposal, changed the landscape, Petitti said.
The Big Ten voted unanimously to add Oregon and Washington on Aug. 4.
“Oregon and Washington, they had really intent, they were working hard to make it an option for them,” Petitti said in his first extensive comments about the expansion additions. “They really, really wanted to be in the Big Ten. We felt that throughout the whole process.”
Oregon and Washington will join the Big Ten in 2024 but not receive full media rights shares, like USC and UCLA will. Both are set to receive between $30-35 million annually, according to sources, a share that will increase by $1 million during the Big Ten’s media contract with Fox, NBC and CBS, which runs through the 2029-30 athletic season.
Petitti said the existing Big Ten members had “receptivity right in the beginning” about adding Oregon and Washington, but wanted to see how scheduling, finances and other issues would be sorted out. The scheduling benefits for USC and UCLA in having two more members on the West Coast factored into the Big Ten’s decision.
“We all felt that whatever aspect we looked at, it made us better,” Petitti said. “It just became that process of trying to figure out how. My job is to make sure the conference is as great in the future as it is today. There are opportunities to protect that and make sure that we are going to get better.”
Petitti said the Big Ten is not looking at expanding beyond 18 members at this time. The league is focused on its 2024 and 2025 football schedules, which will maintain the principles of the “Flex-Protect Plus” model announced in June. Oregon and Washington will play annually as a 12th protected game for the league, chief operating officer Kerry Kenny told ESPN, and other protected games are possible.
The Big Ten is “days, if not weeks” away from announcing home-and-home opponents for the 2024 schedule, and then will finalize the specific dates. The league will eliminate divisions after the 2023 season and have its top two teams play in its championship game.
Kenny said the Big Ten’s priorities with its schedule are to maximize opportunities to access the expanded College Football Playoff, play every team as much as possible, and balancing geography with travel and competitive trends.
“We’re making sure that we don’t have outliers in terms of the hardest schedule or the easiest schedule for any of our teams, and working through how to balance the competitive tiers,” Kenny said. “You’re going to see a lot of what people seemingly liked with the Flex-Protect Plus. We’re going through different options of what that could look like to see how we balance not just the travel component of our Eastern and Central time zone schools, but also the frequency of how we can get everybody to play both at those four [West Coast] schools.”
Pettiti agreed with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey that the CFP format must be assessed following the substantial realignment that took place during the summer. The original 12-team format called for the six highest-rated conference champions and six at-large spots.
“Those circumstances are different,” Petitti said. “It’s our job to make sure that whatever was created makes sense. I will say my No. 1 [goal] is access. Something as big and important as the College Football Playoff, as big and strong as the Big Ten is, my focus is giving as many teams the opportunity in a given season, when they’ve earned it, to compete for a national championship.”
The CFP management committee will next meet Sept. 25 at the Big Ten’s offices. Petitti said he doesn’t know a timetable for when the format will be finalized but said there is “a calendar that gives you a sense of when you have to make decisions, because eventually, we’re going to be playing the games.”
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Heather Dinich, Senior College Football Insider
ATLANTA — No major decisions were made regarding the future format of the 12-team College Football Playoff on Sunday, but “tweaks” to the 2025 season haven’t been ruled out, CFP executive director Rich Clark said.
Sunday’s annual meeting of the FBS commissioners and the presidents and chancellors who control the playoff wasn’t expected to produce any immediate course of action, but it was the first time that people with the power to change the playoff met in person to begin a review of the historic expanded bracket.
Clark said the group talked about “a lot of really important issues,” but the meeting at the Signia by Hilton set the stage for bigger decisions that need to be made “very soon.”
Commissioners would have to unanimously agree upon any changes to the 12-team format to implement them for the 2025 season.
“I would say it’s possible, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen or not,” Clark said on the eve of the College Football Playoff National Championship game between Ohio State and Notre Dame. “There’s probably some things that could happen in short order that might be tweaks to the 2025 season, but we haven’t determined that yet.”
A source with knowledge of the conversations said nobody at this time was pushing hard for a 14-team bracket, and there wasn’t an in-depth discussion of the seeding process, but talks were held about the value of having the four highest-ranked conference champions earn first-round byes.
Ultimately, the 11 presidents and chancellors who comprise the CFP’s board of managers will vote on any changes, and some university leaders said they liked rewarding those conference champions with byes because of the emphasis it placed on conference title games.
Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, the chair of the board of managers, said they didn’t talk about “what-ifs,” but they have tasked the commissioners to produce a plan for future governance and the format for 2026 and beyond.
Starting in 2026, any changes will no longer require unanimous approval, and the Big Ten and the SEC will have the bulk of control over the format — a power that was granted during the past CFP contract negotiation. The commissioners will again meet in person at their annual April meeting in Las Colinas, Texas, and the presidents and chancellors will have a videoconference or phone call on May 6.
“We’re extremely happy with where we are now,” Keenum said. “We’re looking towards the new contract, which is already in place with ESPN, our media provider, for the next six years through 2032. We’ve got to make that transition from the current structure that we’re in to the new structure we’ll have.”
Following Sunday’s meeting, sources continued to express skepticism that there will be unanimous agreement to make any significant changes for the 2025 season, but a more thorough review will continue in the following months.
“The commissioners and our athletic director from Notre Dame will look at everything across the board,” Clark said. “We’re going to tee them up so that they could really have a thorough look at the playoff looking back after this championship game is done … and then look back and figure out what is it that we need.”
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Andrea Adelson, ESPN Senior Writer
ATLANTA — ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said Sunday that the league will have conversations among coaches and athletic directors about whether to make changes to its conference championship game format.
The conversations are a result of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff, and ensuring conference champions and the teams that play in conference championship game remain important.
This past season, SMU entered the ACC championship game as the regular-season champion but lost to Clemson in the ACC title game and had to sweat it out before selection day before earning a spot in the 12-team field.
Phillips said the ACC could consider giving its regular-season champion a bye, and have the teams that finish second or third in the league standings play in the ACC championship game.
He said another possibility is having the top 4 teams play on the final weekend of the regular season: first place versus fourth place, and second place vs. third place, with the winners playing the following weekend in the ACC championship game.
Phillips said he will have conversations with league head coaches on a conference call next week to get their feedback on the plan — specifically pointing to comments SMU coach Rhett Lashlee made leading up to the game in which he indicated the Mustangs might be better off not playing to protect its spot in the field.
Phillips also said these conversations will continue at the league’s winter meetings next month in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he has mentioned this is a topic among league athletics directors.
“The conference championship games are important, as long as we make them important, right?” Phillips said. “Do you play two versus three? You go through the regular season and whoever wins the regular season, just park them to the side, and then you play the second-place team versus the third-place team in your championship game. So you have a regular-season champion, and then you have a conference tournament or postseason champion.
“That’s one of the options, depending on how you treat the conference champions, or that championship game, you may want to do it different.
“I have alluded to that in some of our every-other-week-AD calls, and these are some of the things moving forward. We want to have a recap of the regular season, postseason, and what do we think moving forward?”
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