2 Big Ten teams in CFP? 'Far too early' to consider, says commish
Despite his conference looking strong to start the season, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany believes it's "far too early" to think about two of his teams reaching the four-team College Football Playoff.
"We have two years of experience, and I think (conference) champions have always been a powerful tiebreaker," Delany told Nicole Auerbach of USA TODAY Sports on Thursday. "For a non-champion to be included in the field, that non-champion would have to be unequivocally better. Which means, to me, that's a very high bar. That's not to say that it couldn't happen.
"But with teams with similar records and similar resumes, a conference championship is the tiebreaker. Is it impossible? No, because we're looking for the four best teams."
Related: Conference Power Rankings: Big Ten reigns, Big 12 falls
The Big Ten currently occupies two of the top four spots on the AP Poll, and four of the top 10. However, Delany suggests waiting for the rest of the season to play itself out instead of getting too worked up about the possibility the Big Ten could send multiple teams to the tournament.
"We were scripted out of it two weeks into the season two years ago, and our teams kept playing, our coaches kept coaching and opportunities developed," Delany said, referencing the Ohio State team that overcame a shocking Week 2 defeat to eventually make the playoff and win the national championship.
"You can't judge a season after two weeks, or even six weeks. You judge a season after 12, 13 weeks and then the playoff."
Although the Big Ten is sitting pretty now, the conference is bound to undergo a shake-up as the season progresses. No. 2 Ohio State, No. 4 Michigan, No. 8 Wisconsin, and No. 10 Nebraska are all set to face at least one of the other teams in the crop during the regular season.
However, with many of the traditional Big 12, Pac-12, and independent powerhouses suffering early season losses, the Big Ten could conceivably become the first conference to have multiple teams in the four-team playoff since the format was introduced in the 2014 season.