It’s been months since Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti unveiled his plan for a 16-team College Football Playoff format that presets access for the Power 4 conferences, in an effort to improve upon the current system. After another chaotic bracket release day featured passionate criticisms of the inconsistencies within the selection committee’s process, it’s a good time to revisit Petitti’s idea, the reasons behind it and how it would have been implemented this year.

In Petitti’s plan, the conferences would receive an unequal number of automatic qualifiers (AQs) based on their historical strength. The Big Ten and SEC would have four automatic Playoff bids apiece, the ACC and Big 12 each would receive two and the top Group of 5 champion would also get a bid. Then the selection committee’s rankings would determine the final three spots.

It’s worth noting that Petitti’s plan has been publicly touted to no avail and doesn’t have much of a chance of revival. The SEC, ACC and Big 12 prefer a 16-team field modeled off the current 12-team format, which consists of five conference champions and seven at-large teams. The Big Ten and SEC bilaterally will decide the next CFP system, but other leagues still have a voice, and the other Power 4 commissioners have not warmed to the entrenched conference-power tiers Petitti’s plan could establish. The commissioners recently moved their deadline with ESPN to set the format for 2026 back to Jan. 23.

Petitti, who rarely talks publicly, has said the Big Ten’s qualifiers would be decided through three games: a championship involving the top two teams at a neutral site and on-campus play-ins with Nos. 3 and 4 hosting Nos. 6 and 5, respectively, during the first weekend in December. The three winners plus the championship runner-up would earn the conference’s automatic bids. The SEC has discussed a similar format if guaranteed bids were to become the norm.

“The idea that you go to 11 at-larges (in a 16-team Playoff) and then you say that’s not an invitational, it’s exactly what it is,” Petitti told The Athletic this summer. “The committee is inviting 11 teams to play. There’s no other way to get in.”

Critics decry the plan as preferential toward the Big Ten. Petitti frames it as a way for teams to earn a postseason berth by making the six-team conference tournament.

“We are risking knocking a team out,” Petitti said. “There is some team that could be in position that loses a play-in game. Our coaches have bought in and our ADs to the idea that those play-in games are the equivalent of making the postseason. You are playing in a Big Ten tournament to get to the next tournament, and they agree with that.

“I think this idea that somehow the Big Ten just wants it handed to them … what we’re talking about is the opposite.”

So, what if the leagues had gone forward with this format beginning this season? Let’s take a look.

The Big Ten and SEC would hold three games to determine their four spots, while the Big 12 and ACC could have their regular-season champion and highest-ranked non-champion qualify. Then after those games, the CFP committee would seed the tournament and choose the final three at-large teams.

The Big Ten’s “tournament” would have included its championship matchup of No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Indiana in Indianapolis; No. 3 Oregon hosting No. 6 Iowa (a rematch of an 18-16 Ducks win) and No. 4 USC hosting No. 5 Michigan (a rematch of a 31-13 Trojans victory). The SEC’s six-team field would involve No. 1 Alabama vs. No. 2 Georgia at Atlanta; No. 6 Oklahoma at No. 3 Texas A&M/Ole Miss and No. 5 Texas at No. 4 Ole Miss/Texas A&M (depending on tiebreakers). Big 12 champion Texas Tech and runner-up BYU would earn spots, while the ACC could send its champion Duke and Miami. Tulane would take the G5’s automatic bid.

Let’s say all home teams won and the committee was left to choose three spots among the play-in losers, plus other at-large squads. That includes a pool of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Utah, Oklahoma and Texas. The committee would weigh play-in losses like a regular-season result, instead of granting the grace it does currently for a conference championship game defeat. In this case, Notre Dame waltzes in and Oklahoma joins the field, too. But if Texas were to lose, that would be its fourth defeat, so two-loss Vanderbilt seizes the final CFP spot. The field would look like this:

Indiana (Big Ten auto) vs. 16. Duke (ACC auto)
Ohio State (Big Ten auto) vs. 15. Tulane (G5 auto)
Georgia (SEC auto) vs. 14. USC (Big Ten auto)
Texas Tech (Big 12 auto) vs. 13. Vanderbilt (at-large 3)
Oregon (Big Ten auto) vs. 12 BYU (Big 12 auto)
Ole Miss (SEC auto) vs. 11. Notre Dame (at-large 2)
Texas A&M (SEC auto) vs. 10. Miami (ACC auto)
Oklahoma (at-large 1) vs. 9. Alabama (SEC auto)

In this setup, the SEC would collect two of the three at-large spots and host four of the eight first-round games for a total of six participants. In a 16-team CFP made up of five conference champions and 11 at-large teams, the SEC would place seven members in the field. The Big Ten would have three, the Big 12 would qualify two and the ACC, American, Sun Belt and Notre Dame each would have one spot. Petitti’s “4-4-2-2-1” plan would get USC and Duke into the field, while the selection committee-heavy “5-11” plan would flip those two for Texas and James Madison.

Given the lack of on-field interaction among the leagues during the season outside of roughly one nonconference game per school, it’s difficult to fully judge how conferences compare. That’s why Petitti wants the leagues to decide for themselves who should qualify for the Playoff. And history says that the SEC and Big Ten deserve the most spots.

“This is very tricky, because in a professional league, it’s all one structure, right?” Petitti said this summer. “So when you come up with a structure, it doesn’t benefit or disadvantage anybody. It’s all the same. This is more like (European soccer’s) Champions League, where you have different leagues that are coming together to play a tournament. And so what’s the structure of how you qualify? Because what we do is different. It’s not a central organization, and it comes with perceived differences and real ones.”

As conferences grow, their members’ schedules vary in strength more widely, and the play-in method offers a different way to determine the most worthy CFP qualifiers. Petitti’s plan has flaws and detractors, but at least it’s a plan. There’s not much confidence in the status quo.