On the eve of the College Football Playoff expansion talks, Kevin Warren of Big Ten assured that Power 5 champions should get

INDIANAPOLIS – College Football Playoff management committee preparing to continue discussions on Saturday on expanding the current four-team format, Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren told ESPN he still firmly believes that Power 5 conference champions should automatically qualify for the competition. place in the future.

Saturday’s meeting is the seventh one-on-one meeting with 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame sports director Jack Swarbrick since the proposed 12-team format was unveiled in June. Automatic bidding is still one of the links.

“It’s just very important that we have automatic qualifiers for five conferences,” Warren said Friday. “It’s just the requirements of the schedule … and I strongly believe that if you are crowned the Big Ten Champion, you should have a chance to compete in the national championship. … I feel it strongly as I stand here today.”

The original proposal proposed a 12-team model that includes six top-ranked conference champions as well as the next six top-ranked teams. The format was developed by a working group that included Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Swarbrick and Mountain West Conference Commissioner Craig Thompson.

Thompson told ESPN this week “there is no big difference” between the originally proposed and the so-called “five plus one” model, which would guarantee a place in the playoffs for the Power 5 conference champions and one Group of 5 champion.

Still, some Group 5 commissioners have expressed public support for the original model, as it is a step towards removing the label they all hate while preventing the possibility of rewarding the lower Power 5 champion in the playoffs. This year, Pac-12 champion Utah was ranked 11th in the final CFP finish, followed by ACC champion Pitt in 12th place.

“I fought for two years in that room – biasedly – to get into the top six and six, I represented 60 institutions, so I’m not ready to just walk away and give it up,” Thompson said. “And on the same note, what has given certain other conference masters a guaranteed place, if they haven’t achieved it in six, seven years, why do they deserve that guaranteed entry? Just because they won that league?”

The CFP could expand in 2024 at the earliest, but for it to change before the agreement expires after 2025, it would have to be approved by all conferences.

American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco told ESPN “some of the differences need to be closed in some way. it would be a legal playoff game. If you can name me someone who does that somewhere, let me know. “