Syracuse Football: Conferences starting over on 2026 CFP format, and I'm stunned (lol)

Is anyone else getting tired of the constant back and forth between the various conferences over the College Football Playoff format?

Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but just seeing commissioners and athletics directors (and coaches) seemingly never stop giving their opinions on what the CFP's 2026 format should be has become a tired tale, in my humble opinion.

Of course, to be fair, a lot of money is at stake in the CFP, which this past season moved to 12 teams and will stay at 12 participants in the upcoming season, along with some changes to the seeding format that were revealed earlier this spring. After that, the chatter is that the CFP could move to 16 teams in 2026, but the different power leagues aren't in agreement over the format.

For our beloved Syracuse football, what does it mean? Well, that's tough to say at this juncture. Head coach Fran Brown has said his singular focus on the field is to win national championships, so regardless of how many automatic qualifiers the Atlantic Coast Conference has in the future, the main thing that the Orange can do to control its own destiny is pile up a lot of victories and make it darn near impossible for the CFP selection committee to leave the 'Cuse out.

When it comes to the Big Ten and the SEC, there are so many egos in the room.

Okay. So without question, the Big Ten Conference and the Southeastern Conference rule the college football world. The last two national champs are from the Big Ten - Ohio State and Michigan - while SEC squads such as Alabama, Georgia and LSU have won chips in recent years.

Some of the talk is that the Big Ten and SEC each want four automatic qualifiers in a 16-team CFP. Huh? Let's not be greedy here, folks. I understand why those two conferences want multiple automatic qualifiers. They annually have the top teams, and those squads play the toughest league schedules.

Still, two conferences automatically getting half of the 16 CFP participants? I'll have a tough time thinking that's in any way fair. Then again, nothing in life is fair, much less the CFP.

Personally, I'd be all for a 16-team CFP that features the four power-conference champions, the next two highest-ranked league champs, and the next 10 highest-rated teams regardless of their conference affiliation.

Maybe that's wishful thinking, though.

As college football reporter Brett McMurphy noted in a post on X, the deadline for finalizing the CFP's format in 2026 is December 1. He reported that conference commissioners are starting over as it pertains to the 2026 format.

I'm stunned (insert sarcasm here).

Tom Fornelli, a national writer with CBS Sports, had an insightful column earlier this week where he suggested ideas for the CFP's 2026 format. He's on board for 16 teams, with straight seeding and no bonus given to conference champions as it relates to their seeds.

Fornelli suggests that the top six conference champions land automatic bids. The Big Ten and the SEC each get three automatic bids. That gets us to 10 teams. Fornelli writes that no conference can have more than four teams in the 16-team field, meaning that every year, there would be a minimum of four at-large berths available to the ACC, the Big 12, the Group of Five conferences and, presumably, Notre Dame.

The speculation will continue onward until a 2026 format is decided for the CFP. My advice to Syracuse football and its ACC peers: just win games.