{"id":872495,"date":"2026-04-23T06:03:31","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T06:03:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/872495\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T06:03:31","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T06:03:31","slug":"mike-elko-9-game-sec-schedule-makes-for-a-little-bit-difficult-path-to-12-team-college-football-playoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/872495\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Elko: 9-game SEC schedule makes for ‘a little bit difficult’ path to 12-team College Football Playoff"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following years of discussion, the SEC is officially moving to a nine-game conference schedule in 2026. But with the College Football Playoff<\/a> staying at 12 teams rather than growing to 16, Texas A&M<\/a> head coach Mike Elko<\/a> said he has some concerns.<\/p>\n

Elko told Paul Finebaum he expects the schedule to come up during the SEC\u2019s spring meetings in Destin next month as the conference prepares to add a game. While he\u2019s not sure what the discussion will entail, he sounded confident the topic would come up when conference officials get together.<\/p>\n

Because the CFP didn\u2019t expand<\/a> after talks broke down, Mike Elko said it\u2019s tougher to make the bracket with a longer conference schedule. He expressed his trust in SEC commissioner Greg Sankey to come up with a plan, though.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what the conversation will be like,\u201d Elko said on The Paul Finebaum Show on Wednesday. \u201cObviously, we feel like it\u2019s a little bit challenging to play nine SEC games and only have 12 [teams] in the playoffs. I think it obviously makes our path a little bit difficult. It\u2019s where it is. So from that perspective, there\u2019s nothing you can do about it except get your team ready and try to go compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m sure there will be a lot of conversations about what the future of this whole thing looks like in Destin. I\u2019ve got a lot of trust in Greg and respect for Greg and the job that he does. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll have a good plan to set forth for the conference.\u201d<\/p>\n

Discussions went on during the 2025 season about expanding the College Football Playoff from 12 teams to 16 in 2026-27. However, those talks stalled, and the bracket will stay the same this year. There are some changes, though. Notre Dame<\/a> will now get an automatic spot in the bracket if it\u2019s one of the Top 12 teams in the final rankings and the Power Four conferences are also guaranteed bids. Last year, ACC champion Duke<\/a> missed out on the bracket.<\/p>\n

But the SEC\u2019s decision to go to nine games drew concerns from the league\u2019s coaches. That includes Georgia<\/a> coach Kirby Smart<\/a>, who told David Pollack in December that he thinks the new schedule could cost the conference a spot in a 12-team CFP.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne more loss,\u201d Smart said<\/a>. \u201cI think it\u2019s going to end up affecting, unless we increase the playoffs. But if we don\u2019t increase the playoffs, it\u2019s going to cost us probably a playoff spot.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following years of discussion, the SEC is officially moving to a nine-game conference schedule in 2026. But with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":872496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,25585,49,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-872495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-mike-elko-95-south-brunswick","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116452511265933869","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/872496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}