The SEC and Big Ten, the top two conferences in college sports, have agreed to meet next month in Nashville, Tennessee, according to a report from Ross Dellenger of Yahoo! Sports. The meeting will feature athletic directors from the 34 schools across the two conferences, along with SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti.
Part of that group, of course, will be Vanderbilt’s athletic director, Candice Storey Lee. The Commodores have been entrenched in the SEC’s rich history since co-founding it in 1932 with 13 other charter schools, eight of which are still in the conference.
The College Football Playoff is expected to be a major topic of discussion at the event. This year’s brand-new 12-team CFP format is only expected to last through the 2025-26 college football season. The two conferences have both pushed for an even more expanded field, featuring 14 teams. This 14-team field would include three automatic bids for SEC teams and three more for Big Ten teams, and it would grant each conference a guaranteed first-round bye.
While this proposition has received backlash from the other Power Four conferences (the ACC and Big 12), it has not been ruled out entirely. Furthermore, the 2026-27 CFP is expected to be shaped primarily by the SEC and the Big Ten. Decisions are not expected to be made at the Nashville meeting; the belief is that this is just the next step in a partnership between college sports’ two largest conferences.
Another expected topic is a scheduling partnership between SEC and Big Ten football programs, a fairly normal arrangement not unlike the ACC-SEC basketball challenge that the Commodores will participate in this fall. (Vanderbilt’s men’s basketball team will travel to Blacksburg, Virginia, to take on Virginia Tech, while Shea Ralph and Co. will fly down to Miami for a clash with the Hurricanes.)
However, perhaps more abnormal is a potentially overhauled football postseason (as Dellenger put it) featuring an arranged matchup between SEC and Big Ten programs. This pairing would replace the current bowl system that is set to expire after the 2025 season ends.
These postseason developments have all been proposed in an effort to create more revenue for the conference’s football programs. As schools prepare for the House vs. NCAA lawsuit to settle, they’ll also prepare to share upwards of $20 million of school revenue with athletes.
The specifics of the meeting, like the date and location, have yet to be determined. Still, when the gathering does occur, it is expected to be of extreme significance, marking one of the first times that two major conferences’ athletic directors have all convened.