New at ⁦@SatDownSouth: Preference ⁩of #SEC presidents is to stay at 16 teams. https://t.co/xjne5qPPQA

— Matt Hayes (@MattHayesCFB) July 11, 2022

So everything is set it appears. The BiG apparently may go to 17 for ND but they appear to be set otherwise.

Quote:

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Potential future moves on the expansion front could change that "need," two SEC sources say, but conference presidents believe the SEC is positioned well for the future growth of college football.
"I don't see any (expansion) move as threatening to us," an SEC source told SDS.
When asked if Notre Dame to the Big Ten would be a threatening move, the SEC source said, "Why? I'll put our product vs. anyone's product. So we're going to just add schools to add schools? There's no value in that."

While Notre Dame could, it appears the Irish first want to test the market to determine independent value. ND's current NBC contract ($15 million annually) expires in 2025, and one industry source believes Notre Dame's value could "at least be doubled" with NBC, CBS and multiple streaming sites bidding.

While there may be a few remaining schools outside Notre Dame that could make sense for the SEC (Florida State, North Carolina), the preference of conference presidents is to keep college football intact moving forward, an industry source said.

Sankey said the SEC presidents would move forward with the current 4-team model, and would take an 8-team model with all at-large selections but the preference was a Playoff that gave access to all of FBS.
The message was clear: college football is better with all involved.
"We talk about value all the time. Well, there's great value in college football as a whole," another SEC source said. "I don't think any of us, in any conference, can ignore that. There's too much empirical data that shows it."

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SEC seems to be playing good guy,i f they are advocates that everyone have access to the play off. They were also for expansion in the spring.

The more I read about realignment the more I am convinced that ND will remain independent. They like it that way & no one offers them enough reasons to change their minds. And I don't really blame them.

It looks like now we could be actually transitioning to essentially a P4 map with no 3 either being a combo of the ACC some current Pac members or more geographically logical a combo of the XII and some current Pac members. With the top 2 not equal to 3 and 4. But that was already the case between 1 &2 and 3, 4, and 5.

PartyBear said:

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SEC seems to be playing good guy,i f they are advocates that everyone have access to the play off. They were also for expansion in the spring.

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I would say smart guy rather than good guy, but yes, the SEC certainly could've burned down the current order of things by going with greed over vision and assuming an extremely aggressive posture. They have not done that.

The reality is that the man in a gold house doesn't have to hustle for food when the food comes to you. When you're living a subsistence lifestyle and fighting for scraps, yeah, you don't have that luxury.

I assume the rest of college football is breathing a small sigh of relief that this, should it prove to be the case in action. Instead of UCLA/USC completely reordering all of college football, it seems like it'll be more of a few deck chairs changing places and ultimately more of a sign that the Big 10 is trying to catch up with the SEC rather than put a stick of dynamite underneath the current world order.

I think this is great news for now. But I would say we might be smart to expand now if we can (thinking 4 corners schools) and leave space for ACC runoffs in the future. There's no guarantee that the B1G and SEC will stay where they are in the future.

And yes, the main thing to me is making sure we have reasonable access to the expanded playoff. That's gotta be priority 1 for Yormarck.