What's next: College Football Playoff must be revamped after conference realignment

The look of the expanded College Football Playoff will have to change after the Pac-12 was decimated by the latest phase of conference realignment

Back when the College Football Playoff announced its intention to expand the postseason format from four to 12 teams, there was still such a thing as the Power Five and the conference structure was still seemingly intact. Then came a tidal wave of conference realignment that forever changed the face of the sport, and with those changes come new calls to re-examine the structure of the expanded playoff.

As part of that new playoff, each Power Five conference champion was set to receive an automatic bid into the postseason. But after the Pac-12 was virtually decimated by realignment, and left with only four teams starting next summer, two CFP commissioners now say the model must be revamped to reflect that change.

The future 12-team playoff set to debut next season calls for six automatic bids, one from each Power Five conference and another from a Group of Five league, followed by six at-large bids to be ranked by the CFP selection committee.

What is a possible solution? The most popular at this early stage appears to be to reduce the automatic bids by one, to five overall, combined with an addition of one more at-large bid, bringing that number to seven. But the idea is yet to be discussed by the College Football Playoff in any important detail just days after the latest realignment moves.

One voice apparently in favor of changing the future playoff structure is SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who noted that including the West Coast in the postseason was one of the reasons he supported automatic bids in the CFP agreement in the first place.

"I think it is wise for us to take a step back and reconsider what the format might look like, given these changed circumstances," he said on The Paul Finebaum Show.

"We have not met on that, and I have not had any meaningful conversations, but I think we have to acknowledge that it is on everyone's mind, pending the outcome of some of these membership movements."

He added: "Right now, we still have 10 FBS conferences, but there are obviously questions on whether or not that will remain. That could create a thought in my mind and in others' of some level of adjustment being made."

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