College Football Conference Championship Games Facing Extinction
Alabama's Greg Byrne became the second SEC athletic director to publicly call for the end of conference championship games. What's next?
ATLANTA, GEORGIA - DECEMBER 06: Bray Hubbard #18 of the Alabama Crimson Tide reacts after a touchdown is scored by Georgia Bulldogs during the fourth quarter in the 2025 SEC Championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on December 06, 2025 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) Getty Images While college football’s expanded playoff structure in recent years hasn’t killed off the excitement of the FBS regular season, as some detractors expected, the 12-team era may be killing off another aspect of the sport instead.
At the top end, a 12-team playoff adds as many as four games to teams’ schedules (three for teams that earn a first-round bye). Tacking that and a potential conference championship game onto college football’s typical 12 games could mean a 17-game slate for some programs. And that’s before accounting for the 24-game proposal the Big Ten has put forward .
That’s a significant increase in both the number of teams and games. And a 24-team playoff would also crucially remove conference championship games from the equation. But even without a 24-team format, there’s a growing chance conference championship games go by the wayside anyway.
Alabama AD: “The Ship Has Sailed” The Big Ten is a powerful entity on its own in college sports. Yet a single conference’s proposal to add playoff teams or remove conference championship games isn’t going to push change forward. Adding a second, however?
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