The Alliance Doomed FSU

In one of the classic episodes of the American version of The Office, downsizing rumors swirl and Dwight Schrute proposes an alliance with Jim Halpert to try and avoid being fired. It was a silly move that really had no purpose. But by the end of the episode, the Alliance had failed and Dwight betrayed Jim.

In 2021, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Big XII Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson, and the Athletic Director of Notre Dame Jack Swarbrick unveiled a 12-team playoff for College Football that would eliminate automatic qualifiers and would instead take the six highest-rated conference champions. It wanted to ensure that the best teams would make the College Football Playoffs instead of a team that was 9-3 pulling an upset in a conference championship game. This plan was accepted by 8 of the 11 commissioners at the conference. But an Alliance blocked this measure.

The 2020 COVID season saw interesting developments in the final College Football Playoff rankings. Had the proposal been in effect that year, the top six ranked conference champions would have been Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, and Coastal Carolina. The Pac-12 champion, Oregon, would not have been a part of that and would have been left out of the 12-team playoff. This ruffled the feathers of the Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott. He wanted to make sure that his conference champion would automatically qualify for the playoffs. 

The proposed playoff expansion would have gone into effect for the 2023 season. But in July of 2021, the SEC rocked the college football landscape by announcing that Texas and Oklahoma were leaving the Big XII to join the SEC in 2025. 

Seeing that the proposed format by the SEC, Big XII, Mountain West, and Notre Dame would make some conference champions possibly miss the playoffs, and the stunning expansion move by the SEC, ACC Commissioner James J. Phillips, Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott, and Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren met secretly to propose an Alliance that would be a voting bloc preventing any playoff expansion that they didn't agree with. On August 24, 2021, The Alliance was officially announced.

This Alliance had no official contract but was a gentleman's agreement that was going to stick together on major decisions of college athletics and work together on scheduling various sports' non-conference games. On paper, it looked great and like it would help further college athletics. But in reality, they were going to impede any college football playoff expansion that they didn't agree with. 

In February of 2022, the 11 conference commissioners gathered to vote on the proposed playoff system that would have started for the 2023 season.  The vote had to be unanimous to start the new playoff format. The vote was 8-3 with the Alliance all objecting to preventing the expansion. It took nine months before the vote would happen again and by that time, the college football landscape had changed. 

The Pac 12 became greedy with new commissioner Greg Kliavkoff turned down a TV licensing deal that would have annually brought the conference $30 million per school. Kliavkoff thought he could do better. The Big XII knew they had to jump on any deal to avoid falling into irrelevancy. Then in June of 2022, the Big Ten announced that USC and UCLA were leaving the Pac-12. The Alliance was shattered. The vote for the 12-team playoff expansion was held in November of 2022 and the model had not been changed. The expansion vote passed 11-0 but the soonest the new format would be implemented would be for the 2024 season.

The Big XII then announced that Colorado was leaving for their conference in August of 2023. Then, Oregon and Washington announced they were leaving the Pac-12 for the Big Ten. Utah, Arizona, and Arizona State soon announced they were leaving the Pac-12 to join the Big XII. The ACC announced that Cal and Stanford were leaving the Pac-12 to join them. The once mighty Pac-12 had only two members in Washington State and Oregon State. One of the key pillars of the Alliance was no more. But the effects of the failed group would be felt that Fall.

Now we're here in December of 2023. The FSU Seminoles are undefeated and left out because their conference commissioner joined an Alliance that like Dwight Schrute, ultimately betrayed the other members of the Alliance. Had the Alliance approved the expansion in February of 2022, the new playoff format would be in full effect and the 12-team playoff would be here. FSU would be in. But the ACC was hoisted by their own petard and cost their champion a shot at a national championship.