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Rece Davis rips Big Ten’s 24, 28-team College Football Playoff idea: ‘This is absurd’

Amid an offseason of chatter about future College Football Playoff expansion, multiple reports said last week the Big Ten was considering a 24 or 28-team model. Saturday morning, ESPN’s Rece Davis called that idea “absurd.”

ESPN’s Pete Thamel reported last week the idea – which was in the “very early stages” – would include the elimination of conference championship games and creating more automatic bids for the Power Four conferences, according to ESPN. It would include seven spots for the Big Ten and SEC and five bids apiece for the ACC and Big 12. That would leave two bids for non-P4 conferences and two at-large spots.

The idea quickly met pushback from across college football. Davis compared it to a negotiation on selling a house because of how “absurd” he said it sounds.

“I’m just going to say this flat-out: I don’t believe they’re serious about this,” Davis said on College Football Countdown. “I believe this is like when you go to sell your house, and you say, ‘I’m going to ask $1 million more than I’m willing to settle for.’ They’re trying to get something back on the other side because on its face, this is absurd. It’s absurd, on its face. So they have to be looking for something else. That’s my guess.”

News of the Big Ten’s expansion idea came just before the College Football Playoff announced a new “record strength” metric to further emphasize strength of schedule. The SEC then announced it’s expanding its conference schedule to nine games starting in 2026 – a focal point of the expansion talks.

The SEC has been supportive of a 5-plus-11 model, featuring the five highest-ranked conference champions and 11 at-large teams. However, On3’s Brett McMurphy reported the Big Ten would not support that idea unless the SEC moves to a nine-game conference schedule. The conference instead pushed a 4-4-2-2-1 format with four bids apiece for the SEC and Big Ten and two each for the Big 12 and ACC.

But in light of the SEC’s decision to go to nine games, Rece Davis called that a power play with the strength of schedule argument. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti previously said there isn’t a “magic metric” to determine strength of schedule, though, and Davis said that’s where he agrees.

“And I almost feel like the SEC’s play to go to nine games in the regular season is saying, ‘Okay, let’s see what you do with the strength of schedule metric.’ But the other thing is, all these schedules are going to be unequal, so there’s no way – I agree with Petitti on this, 100% agree, there’s no magic metric. Somebody’s going to be mad regardless of the answer, right?”