The Mid-American Conference just welcomed Sacramento State as a football-only member, making headlines and pushing the MAC to a coast-to-coast presence. This isn’t your granddad’s MAC anymore, especially after Massachusetts joined last year and shook up the men’s basketball tournament. But even with the MAC expanding its reach, commissioner Jon Steinbrecher made it clear at the MAC football media day that these changes are nothing compared to the seismic shifts rocking college athletics as a whole.
College Football’s Wild West Needs a Sheriff
Man, it feels like the Wild West out there, right? Power conferences are just getting bigger, pulling away from everyone else. NIL opportunities are a financial whirlwind, and the transfer portal lets athletes cash in or chase those bigger deals left and right. It’s chaos. Steinbrecher is pinning his hopes on the proposed Protect College Sports Act, which just passed the Senate Commerce Committee and is waiting for a full floor vote. He believes it could finally bring some stability to a landscape many feel is spinning out of control. This isn’t just some minor tweak either. Steinbrecher said, “This represents the most significant congressional effort to date to establish a national framework for athletics, one that addresses NIL student-athlete rights, governance and legal consistency.” He nailed it when he added, “It is difficult to conduct national championships without national rules.” Seriously, how are we supposed to have fair competition when everyone’s playing by different books?
The goal isn’t to make every institution the same. It’s about a consistent framework where competition, education, and opportunity can actually thrive. This legislation would give conferences and the NCAA the ability to set and enforce “educationally-sound eligibility rules and sound transfer rules,” all while still running national championships. This whole mess was a major talking point at SEC media days this week, with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey not even downplaying talk of his conference ditching the NCAA, making its own rules, and even starting its own playoff. Steinbrecher kept it cool, saying, “We understand the conversations they’re having and we’ll leave it to them.” He’s focused on making the current system “better, stronger and more efficient.” We’ll see how that plays out, but you gotta wonder if the cracks are starting to show.
Playoff Expansion: The Devil’s In The Details
So, about the College Football Playoff: we’re getting a 12-team playoff again this year, no problem there. But the big question mark is what happens *after* that. The management committee is still talking about the format, and any decision to expand beyond 12 teams for 2027 has to be locked in by December 1. Steinbrecher and the MAC membership haven’t even formalized their stance on bracket expansion yet. Why? Because as he puts it, “the devil is within the details.” How will teams be selected? How will they be bracketed? Will it mess with the regular season or the ability to hold conference championship games? What are the financial implications for everyone involved? Right now, nobody has answers to those huge questions.
Can a MAC team actually crack the playoff field, especially if it expands? Steinbrecher seems confident, saying the conference is “smack in the middle of every conversation” when it comes to the playoff. That Dec 1 deadline for 2027 expansion is looming, and honestly, the future of college football feels like it hangs in the balance with these legislative moves and playoff format debates. Get ready, because these next few months are going to be wild for the sport.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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