Jim Delany Sort Of Agrees With SEC, World Ends

From the Big Ten’s Monday morning call with media on the subject of college football playoffs ... whoa:

Why yes, this would appear to change things. We’ve presumed the playoff battle lines had the Big 12 and SEC in favor of “the best four teams,” with the Big Ten and others in favor of conference champs only. One could say too much is being read into three words of Delany’s here, but he’s too smart to use the term “best four teams” without meaning exactly what it implies.

However, we should assume the Big Ten’s preference for a selection committee still means they want league champions to be favored over non-champs. And Delany’s position is not necessarily the Big Ten’s, as the conference’s presidents announced moments earlier that they’d actually prefer to scrap the whole thing and keep the bowl system as-is. (When Jim Delany is dragging you into the future, you are quite impressively antiquated.)

So call it some sort of negotiating tactic if you’d like, but there it is.