The recent conference realignment across college football created plenty of buzz for the 2024 season.
But it also may have created scheduling and College Football Playoff problems.
Tony Petitti, the commissioner of the BIG 10, said in a recent statement that he is worried about the number of big games his conference teams will play, per Adam Rittenberg of ESPN. Given how loaded the BIG 10 has become, with new additions UCLA, USC, Washington, and Oregon, it becomes difficult to play meaningful games across the board, not just at the end of the season.
With many teams in the BIG 10 likely to hover around the top of the college football standings, wins and losses to one another in the BIG 10 carry more weight. As a result, there is potential for BIG 10 teams to fall further in the standings and potentially miss an opportunity to play in the newly expanded College Football Playoffs.
“When you’re as deep as we are, we’ve got to do things to make sure that we have the access to the postseason that we think we deserve and has to be earned on the field,” Petitti said.
Petitti and his fellow conference commissioners will meet on Feb. 21 in Dallas to discuss the issues.
But the issue of playing meaningful games across their schedules and earning a College Football Playoff berth is just the first of many potential problems to come from these newly formed “super conferences.”