The ever-shifting landscape of college football, the Big Ten's place atop its throne and pending sanctions against Michigan created plenty of questions for Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti at the onset of Big Ten Media Days.
Much of the conversation surrounded the Big Ten's proposed 16-team College Football Playoff model, which features four automatic qualifiers each for the Big Ten and SEC, two each for the Big 12 and ACC, one for the top-ranked conference champion outside those conferences and three at-large bids. The calling card of that model, play-in games, was a major topic of conversation.
Petitti declined to comment on the ongoing Michigan investigation and pending sanctions, while also declining to compare the Big Ten to the SEC despite the comments of SEC commissioner Greg Sankey saying his conference is the best in football.
- Petitti opened his press conference with a typical set of thank yous to the coaches, players and people behind the scenes at Big Ten Media Days, with a particular welcome to the conference's newest coach, Purdue head man Barry Odom.
- Petitti recognized the Big Ten's 13 team national championships from the past year.
- Petitti said the Big Ten is open to various College Football Playoff models, but wants one that rewards the best teams from the best conferences and generates as many important regular season games as possible. "We want to have as many conference games that matter as possible. ... Formats that increase the discretion and role of the College Football Playoff selection committee will have a hard time gaining support from the Big Ten."
- On issues between the College Sports Commission and NIL collectives: "The CSC is brand new, it's in the process of making rules. ... It's a lot to catch up on ... but I don't think it's unusual, when you have something this different, to have some bumps in the road to get it there."
- Petitti doesn't think it's a "must" that power conferences play the same number of conference games, but believes that the College Football Playoff system needs to properly weigh how many conference games each team is playing and wants less at-large bids if conferences are playing different numbers of conference games.
- On possible fan dissent to the Big Ten's proposed model: "We feel very strongly that fans will really gravitate toward a play-in weekend. ... I just believe that the weekend we're talking about, having conference championship games and playoff games across all conferences will benefit college football."
- Petitti declined to comment further on the ongoing NCAA investigation and pending sanctions against Michigan.
- On the decision to host Big Ten Media Days in Indianapolis: "This was a logistics thing. There's some things going on with Indianapolis."
- More on the play-in games and the potential to lose a defined top-10 team to one of them: "We were willing to take that risk. With 16 teams, you still have that catch-all where you have three at-larges. ... The idea that we can go deep, I feel pretty strongly about that. ... We've conditioned ourselves to think that, if you're not a one- or two-loss team you're not worthy of competing." Petitti added that, in professional sports, there are teams with plenty of losses winning championships all the time.
- On his confidence that the Big Ten and SEC can come together on a decision about the CFP model: "We've pretty publicly brought our ADs together. ... Every time we've come together ... good things have happened. Not just for the two conferences, but for college athletics." Petitti added that there is obvious disagreement about the model, but
- Petitti believes the solution to better nonconference schedules is to properly reward teams for playing those tougher opponents. "I focus more on, what's the incentive to get schools to schedule stronger games?" He doesn't believe that a CFP format with a lot of automatic bids won't necessarily negatively impact that scheduling, either.
- Asked about SEC commissioner Greg Sankey saying the SEC is the best conference in college football, Petitti refused to compare conferences.
