Ahead of a key meeting with CFP executives, the proposed 12-team model faces several both new and existing hurdles.
For two long years, the four men kept their mission a secret.
Only a select group knew that conference commissioners Bob Bowlsby, Greg Sankey and Craig Thompson, as well as Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, were tasked to explore proposals to expand the College Football Playoff. They examined well over 100 postseason formats, even kept specifics of the meetings hidden from their fellow commissioners and, after rigorous debate as well as data-driven analysis, agreed on a concept they thought was fair to each entity in college football: the Power 5, the Group of 5, the bowls and the fans.