Big Ten and SEC meeting to join forces

Conference realignment and structuring is far from over. The Pac-12 expanded recently, but leave it to the two big conferences to start talking about forming an alliance.

A move such as this one has long been anticipated in college athletics.

Next week athletic directors from the Big Ten and SEC will meet in Nashville, Tennessee to discuss scheduling alliances and their preferences for automatic bids into the College Football Playoff formats. This is simply a continuation of discussions that started back in February when both of these conferences were pushing for a 14 team playoff format when the new contract begins in 2026.

These two conferences are pushing for automatic bids from the four major conferences and first round byes for each of the conference champions. The Big 12 and the ACC would each get a automatic bid and the last spot would be given to the top-ranked Group of Five champion. Once those bids are taken up then that would leave three at-large bids for the next three highest ranked teams to take up.

Even though the Big Ten and SEC had been talking about a 14 team playoff the discussions cooled off due to Notre Dame and the 10 FBS Commissioners agreeing to let the 12 team format play out this season before venturing into further talks down the line.

When the discussions move forward on a scheduling alliance it will center around a nine game conference schedule according to ESPN. The Big Ten already plays a nine game conference schedule, but the SEC does not currently do that. If the SEC plays a little hard ball about going to a nine game conference schedule then the other athletic directors may push back on that particular detail.

In essence this new joint venture between these two big conferences boils down to making sure a University of Vermont does not have a say in what an Ohio State or Ole Miss does at their respective schools. Some school athletes are trying to unionize at different Division 1 schools and the SEC and Big Ten don’t want what is happening at those schools affecting what is happening at Oregon for example.

Realignment issues are not done by a long shot, but it’s coming down to the two biggest conferences making decisions that affect everyone else. How that thought goes over with the Big 12, Pac-12, ACC, and the Group of Five schools remains to be seen. Whether or not the fans like this thought of the SEC and Big Ten doesn’t matter to the conferences because it’s going to happen whether we like it or not.

At least at this time and moment.