Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany thinks it will be challenging to change the college football playoff model during the current 12-year contract, but something could spur expansion: the SEC or ACC champion being left out for the first time.
Delany, who is retiring Jan. 1 after 30 years leading the Big Ten, told ESPN that the SEC and ACC first pushed for a playoff system and remain the only power conferences who have been represented in each of the first six years of the system. The Big Ten did not have a playoff team in each of the past two years and in 2016, and the Pac-12 has been left out three years in a row. The Big 12 was left out in 2014, the first year of the CFP, but has had representation four of the past five seasons.
Delany noted that the 2004 Auburn team, which won the SEC and went 12-0 during the regular season but did not make the BCS Championship Game, helped spur the push for a playoff from the SEC.
"The thing that would probably trip it is if the committee left out a champion from the ACC or SEC," Delany said. "That would be an immediate catapult forward, as it was when Auburn was left out."
Delany called it "painful and damaging" for a league to be left out of the playoff, echoing the recent comments from Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott. He reiterated that adjusting the current model will be difficult during the remaining six years of the cycle -- "It's no better than 50-50 that things would change," he said -- but thinks changes should continue to be discussed.
"You don't know what it means to your brand and to your recruiting prospects and so on, what it means to be left out," Delany said. "The irony to me is you've doubled the access points from two to four, but you've at least doubled the damage and the pain associated with being left out."
The current playoff contract runs through the 2025-26 season.
Asked if the current four-team model is truly a national playoff, Delany said it's "a playoff of a kind," and more of a playoff than the previous models that determined national champions in the sport. But it can still be improved.
"Clearly, there are seven or eight interests in college football, and now you're taking care of two or three," said Delany, who will be succeeded by new commissioner Kevin Warren after Jan. 1. "It's an improvement, but at the same time, more painful and frustrating, and I think this is not ultimately where we end up, but I can't say that the resolving of it is clear at this juncture."
Delany also said he's surprised by how important the so-called "eye test" has been in shaping the playoff field, noting that it never came up in forming guidelines for selecting playoff teams.
"Somebody like an Iowa or a Kentucky or any other program that is a developmental program, taking players from three stars to compete with teams with five stars, if you used the eye test in that area, they would never be considered to be better," Delany said. "We thought it would be résumé-based, ties would go to conference champions, and strength of schedule. In that area, it doesn't reflect what I thought would occur, but it is occurring.
"I don't inject bad faith into it. I just don't think it's nearly as predictable on outcomes as I thought it might be, but it's human."
The CFP is controlled by the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, but it also wouldn't change without support from the 11 university presidents and chancellors who comprise the CFP Board of Managers. The 13 selection committee members, who are tasked with choosing the four best teams, have no authority when it comes to actually changing the structure of the playoff, but they are typically asked to provide feedback about the protocol and guidelines they use each year.
ESPN's Heather Dinich contributed to this report.