Kirby Smart on college football’s future
Kirby Smart urges leaders to prioritize the game’s future over personal or conference agendas in playoff talks.
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. – The man with the tan came with a plan.
Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin, his skin so bronzed he looked as if he just came off the sunny beach here, entered his session with reporters on Tuesday ready to pitch his idea for a 16-team College Football Playoff.
Kiffin’s playoff plan looks like this:
Sixteen teams. Four rounds. No automatic bids. Every team must earn at-large selection. The selection process would involve analytics, combined with a human element.
This wasn’t my first time hearing Kiffin’s idea. He ran this plan past me when we spoke in March. At the time, I didn’t love Kiffin’s idea. I detect no irreparable flaw with the current 12-team playoff. I didn’t hate his idea, though. And I’m starting to like it more.
In the months since Kiffin first floated his idea, the possibility a 16-team playoff beginning as soon as 2026 has gained steam across conferences. While the future format continues to be debated, it’s clear that expansion is likely coming, in some shape and form. I’m beginning to relinquish my grip on the 12-team playoff and accept the reality of a 16-team future.
As I listened to SEC muckety-mucks debate the merits of the leading 16-team ideas at the conference’s spring meetings here this week, it struck me that maybe Kiffin’s proposal remains the best 16-team proposal.
Kiffin’s idea certainly trumps the 4+4+2+2+1 model the Big Ten favors. That rigged math equation would preassign four auto-bids to the Big Ten, plus four more to the SEC, two to the Big 12, two to the ACC, one to the top remaining conference champion, and then leave three at-large bids. This crock of a plan would reward preseason conference prestige as much as in-season results. No thanks. Someone, please shove this Big Ten brainchild into the woodchipper, and scatter the ashes on the surface of the sun.
Kiffin’s plan more closely resembles the 5+11 model that the Big 12 publicly supports. The ACC also reportedly favors a 5+11 system, and some SEC coaches took a shine to the idea this week, even while SEC athletic directors collectively seem more interested in the auto-bid plan favored by the Big Ten.
In the 5+11 model, the top five conference champions would secure bids, leaving 11 at-large bids.
That model would produce brackets that likely would resemble Kiffin’s plan, but the Ole Miss coach prefers no auto-bids. So, let’s play out his idea with a look in the rearview mirror.
Here’s how the bracket would have looked in Kiffin’s model last season, using the final CFP rankings as the guide for determining the 16 qualifiers.
No. 16 Clemson at No. 1 Oregon
Critics of a 16-team playoff say there aren’t 16 teams deserving of playoff and that too many first-round games would be duds. But, here we have the Big Ten champion against the ACC champion. Dan Lanning vs. Dabo Swinney. This would have been appointment viewing, not a dud.
No. 15 South Carolina at No. 2 Georgia
SEC expansion and the elimination of divisions took the Georgia-South Carolina rivalry off the schedule in 2024. Could a red-hot Gamecocks team have upset a Georgia squad starting Gunnar Stockton? It’s plausible.
No. 14 Ole Miss at No. 3 Texas
Conferences are so big now that teams don’t play half the other teams in their own league. Here we have another matchup of two SEC teams that didn’t play in the regular season. The Jekyll-and-Hyde Rebels whipped Georgia but lost to Kentucky. If the good version of Ole Miss showed its face, this game could have been a doozy.
No. 13 Miami at No. 4 Penn State
Are you liking these matchups yet? How about this one, pitting Cam Ward against Penn State’s stout defense. In the playoff that actually happened, Penn State waltzed to the semifinals by beating SMU and Boise State. This billing with Miami would have been a better matchup.
No. 12 Arizona State at No. 5 Notre Dame
In the playoff, the Sun Devils gave Texas all it could handle in an overtime loss in the playoff quarterfinals. In this revised bracket, Cam Skattebo would have tested the strength of Notre Dame’s defense. Chalk this up as another game I would’ve enjoyed seeing.
No. 11 Alabama at No. 6 Ohio State
Holy, moly. What a dream matchup of two college football monsters. Ohio State proved throughout the postseason it was the nation’s best team. If Alabama couldn’t score a touchdown against Oklahoma, I don’t see how it could have solved Ohio State’s defense. The game probably wouldn’t have lived up to the hype.
No. 10 SMU at No. 7 Tennessee
The Vols looked pitiful in a playoff loss at Ohio State, but this draw at Neyland Stadium probably would have produced a much different fate. The committee flubbed by awarding SMU a playoff spot. Ten-win Brigham Young, which beat SMU during the regular season, possessed better credentials, but I digress. Alas, we’ll live with the committee’s choice and figure SMU-Tennessee at least wouldn’t have been any worse than what we saw in the playoff with SMU-Penn State or Tennessee-Ohio State.
No. 9 Boise State at No. 8 Indiana
I detect upset potential. Indiana built its playoff case by consistently beating bad or mediocre teams. That’s not nothing, but Boise State showed in a 37-34 loss at Oregon in September it’s up for a challenge. This matchup featuring Heisman Trophy runner-up Ashton Jeanty would have pitted an O.G. Cinderella, Boise State, against the 2024 slipper-wearing Hoosiers.
No perfect College Football Playoff plan
The Kiffin plan and the 5+11 model would have produced the same qualifiers last season. In the 5+11 construct, auto bids would have gone to Oregon, Georgia, Boise State, Arizona State and Clemson.
Once I assigned teams to Kiffin’s idea and saw the matchups, I liked his plan more. I daresay these first-round matchups, on the whole, would have been better in quality than those served up in last season’s 12-team playoff.
“There’s still flaws in every system,” Kiffin said, “but the best system should be 16, and it should be the 16 best” teams.
“Get rid of automatics, and figure out a system to get the best 16 teams in.”
Doesn’t sound half bad.
The man with the tan cooked up a worthy plan.
Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network’s national college football columnist. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.
