Kirby Smart & Georgia’s Unfair CFP Advantage Announced as Major Loophole Confirmed in SEC’s Expansion Plea

The CFP model has undergone significant restructuring and reorganization, transitioning from four-team playoffs to twelve in a single year, and this trend is expected to continue in the near future. Well, you don’t need to stress over the 2025 rules and orders, but as we proceed to 2026, there might be another wave of changes that can shake things off inside the college football reality like nothing. The SEC and Big 10 are in control of determining a paradigm shift through a joint memorandum. What could that even mean? Yes, it’s the real embodiment of the underlying fear we all have since the system stepped into the top-12 trap last year.

The question it begs is: Doesn’t it trigger more inequality between teams in the form of a covert dark side? Well, even the obvious answer is yes, every single intel, right now, is hinting toward that ‘inequality’ without any mercy.

The Power 2 supremacy will pose a danger to the future of the NCAA framework

This new format is designed to provide more opportunities for teams to compete for the coveted national championship. The top four seeded teams will receive a bye week, while the remaining eight teams will battle it out in the first round for a chance to advance to the semifinals. Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger dropped a bombshell suggesting executives from 10 leagues and Notre Dame signed a mutual deal that allowed the SEC and Big Ten to decide how the 2026 playoff structure would look once the current contract expires. We all could easily guess that the decisions are meant to give them a severe competitive edge over the others. They are reportedly proceeding toward the top 14 or top 16 frameworks in the near future and granting both of the conferences more automatic bids. ACC and Big 12 will receive two bids each, while the Power 2 will get four each.

Explaining the unfair advantage of the Power Two, Spencer McLaughlin noted, “They’re completely powerless; they have no ability to stop this because the ultimate kind of trump card in this situation that the Big 12 and ACC don’t want to have triggered. They have no access to a playoff involving the Big 10 or SEC at all.”

The final decision could be coming in the next few weeks, and it will clearly make the rich richer. You can get a glimpse of the massive disparity by looking at ACC’s recent season record. They didn’t even have a team in the final four teams of CFPs. But in 2018, Clemson won the title. The forced downfall is pretty real with the minor conferences. Should they just break off from the NCAA and rewrite history?

Spencer responded with a sigh, “Should they just break away from the NCAA and form their own kind of super league? That would be even worse, but this isn’t great. I was against the original expansion of the college football playoff because I didn’t think that it would stop. I have long said and continue to believe that within the next decade or two, you will see a proposal for or outright change in division one college football FBS, a 24-team college football playoff, and that’s what people might want.”

The rest of the proposal is, however, more beneficial than not for Kirby Smart and Georgia.

Kirby Smart lands on the greener side of the future college football playoff era

Smart’s contract extension through the year 2033 has already made him the highest-paid coach in college football with an annual $13 million salary cap. If the further expansion model proves successful, it could be a significant advantage for the Bulldogs, as it would alleviate the pressure of winning early games and allow them to focus more on achieving the ultimate goal.

The last thing that the new expansion model proposed was the SEC increasing their number of conference games from eight to nine. The SEC executives were reluctant to do that earlier as it could enhance the risk of adding more losses for the SEC’s top teams, which would affect their playoff chances. But with the extra bids clause, the risk has perfectly been balanced out. For Georgia, they can have more chances to host a playoff game in Athens after an easy playoff entry each year.

Although it’s safe to say that Smart is far from being a fan of the CFP decision-making, he would certainly enjoy the projected dominance that is guaranteed with the new playoff model.