College Football Playoff: 12-team format proposal won’t be decided before September

The influential College Football Playoff management committee has reviewed the 12-team postseason format proposed last week and moved the recommendation into a feedback phase, playoff executive director Bill Hancock said.

The committee meetings occurred Thursday and Friday in Chicago, near the Big Ten Conference offices, and marked the first time the group had convened in person since before the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

From here, the management committee will meet next week with the board of managers to authorize the collection of feedback from several on-campus groups, including university administrators, athletics directors, coaches and student-athletes.

"We just need time to review this with our folks here on campus," Hancock said. "That was the prevailing theme of the meeting. We just need more time."

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Among the topics discussed this week was how the 12-team proposal would create a scenario where one or more teams may play upwards of 17 games to win or play for the national championship. Fifteen games is the most one team could play in a single season under the current postseason format.

"This is a big deal," said Hancock. "Everyone needs to have a voice in what happens. There just hasn’t been time for that voice to be heard."

The playoff management committee consists of commissioners from each of the Football Bowl Subdivision conferences and Notre Dame athletics director Jack Swarbrick. The committee reviewed the proposal offered last week by a four-person working group that offered a revolutionary change to the current format: an expansion combining the six top-ranked conference champions and six at-large bids, with no automatic qualifiers and no cap on the number of participants from a single conference.

"Generally, the people in (the) room liked what they saw," Hancock said, with positive reviews of the more inclusive bracket, which will have space for at least one team from the Group of Five conferences.

With the board of managers meeting set for next week, the timeline from proposal to implementation is beginning to take shape.

Along with collecting feedback, the next stage in the process will include "feasibility assessments" of the new format. There has been no talk of a backup plan should the 12-team proposal come under too much scrutiny to be approved, Hancock said.

Instead, the backup plan should the proposal fall through would be to revert back to the current postseason model.

"There hasn’t been talk of a Plan B," said Hancock. "I think Plan B or Plan C, whatever, is what we have. We’re fortunate to have a four-team event that we all like."

Approval of the expanded bracket would not occur before the start of the season. In terms of implementation, the soonest the 12-team field could go into effect is the 2023 season due to contracts currently in place, Hancock said.

"Not to say it’ll happen then, but that’s the earliest that it could," he said.

"The process will move forward. We said this is just the beginning and it is very much the beginning of a process that will not conclude before September."

Follow colleges reporter Paul Myerberg on Twitter @PaulMyerberg

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College Football Playoff: 12-team format won’t be decided before Sept.