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Dan Wetzel
Throughout school soccer’s Bowl Championship Sequence period, the game’s opposition to an expanded, not to mention expansive, playoff could possibly be summarized in a single colourful quote by then-Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee.
“They may wrench a playoff system out of my chilly, lifeless arms,” Gee mentioned in 2007.
We’re pleased to report that whereas school soccer does, certainly, have a playoff, Gee remains to be very a lot alive. The 81-year-old retired simply this week after a second stint main West Virginia College.
What is lifeless and buried, although, is school soccer’s staunch resistance to extending its postseason subject. After a long time of ignoring complaints and the promise of extra income to assert that simply two groups was greater than sufficient, plans to maneuver from 12 individuals to 16 had been underway earlier than final season’s inaugural 12-teamer even came about.
A once-static sport now strikes at gentle velocity, future implications be damned.
Fireplace. Prepared. Purpose.
So perhaps one of the best little bit of present information is that school soccer’s two ruling events — the SEC and Huge Ten — cannot agree on how the brand new 16-team subject can be chosen. It has led to a pause on playoff growth.
Possibly, simply perhaps, it means no growth will happen by 2026, as first deliberate, and school soccer can let the 12-team mannequin cook dinner a little bit to precisely assess what adjustments — if any — are even wanted.
“We’ve a 12-team playoff, 5 convention champions,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey mentioned this week. “That might keep if we won’t agree.”
Good. In any case, what is the rush?
The 2025 season will play out with a 12-team format that includes automated bids for 5 convention champions and 7 at-large spots. Gone is final yr’s clunky requirement that the highest 4 seeds might go solely to convention champs — elevating Boise State and Arizona State and unbalancing the sector.
That alone was progress constructed on real-world expertise. It ought to be instructive.
The SEC needs a 16-team mannequin however with, as is at the moment the case, automated bids going to the champions within the ACC, Huge 12, Huge Ten, SEC and one of the best of the so-called Group of 6. The remainder of the sector can be at-large choices.
The Huge Ten says it is not going to again such a proposal till the SEC agrees to play 9 convention video games (up from its present eight). As a substitute, it needs a 16-team system that offers 4 automated bids apiece to the Huge Ten and SEC, two every to the ACC and Huge 12, one to the Group of 6 after which three at-large spots.
It has been dubbed the “4-4-2-2-1-3” as a result of school athletic leaders love ridiculous parlances nearly as a lot as they love cash.
Whereas the ACC, Huge 12 and others have provided opinions — principally siding with the SEC — legislatively, the choice rests with the game’s two big-dog conferences.
Proper now, neither facet is budging. A compromise would possibly nonetheless be made, in fact. The supposed deadline to set the 2026 system is Nov. 30. And Sankey truly says he prefers the nine-game SEC schedule, even when his coaches oppose it.
Nevertheless, the potential for the established order standing for a bit longer stays.
What the Huge Ten has proposed is a dramatic shift for a sport that has been bombarded with dramatic shifts — convention realignment, the switch portal, NIL, income sharing, and so forth.
The league needs to stage a number of “play-in” video games on convention championship weekend. The highest two groups within the league would meet for the league title (as is at the moment the case), however the third- and fourth-place groups would play the fifth- and sixth-place groups to find out the opposite automated bids.
Prolong this out amongst all of the conferences and you’ve got as much as a 26-team School Soccer Playoff (with 22 groups in a play-in state of affairs). This is able to dramatically change the best way the game works — devaluing the stakes for nonconference video games, for instance. And a few mediocre groups would basically get a playoff bid — within the Huge Ten’s case, the sixth seed final yr was an Iowa crew that completed 8-5.
Every convention would have extra high-value stock to promote to broadcast companions, but it surely’s not some huge windfall. Likewise, 4 extra first-round playoff video games would wish to search out tv slots and relevance.
Is anybody positive that is needed? Do we want 16 in any respect, not to mention with multibids?
Within the 12-team format, the primary spherical wasn’t notably aggressive — with a 19.3-point common margin of victory. It is very like the primary spherical of the NFL playoffs, designed principally to ensure no true contender is ignored.
Maybe final yr was an outlier. And perhaps future video games will likely be shut. Or perhaps they’re going to be much more lopsided. Would not or not it’s prudent to search out out?
Whereas there have been complaints in regards to the choice committee choosing SMU and/or Indiana over Alabama, it wasn’t some egregious slight. Arguments will occur regardless of how large the sector. Moreover, the Crimson Tide misplaced to 2 6-6 groups final yr. Enlargement means a crew with an identical résumé can cruise in.
Is {that a} good factor?
Regardless of the determination, it’s being made with little to no real-world knowledge — professional or con. Letting a number of 12-team fields play out, offering context and doubtlessly sudden penalties, positive would not damage.
You do not have to be Gordon Gee circa 2007 to favor letting this simmer and be studied earlier than leaping towards one other spherical of growth.