"I was an assistant coach at USC we didn't have playoffs": Steve Sarkisian throws light on evolution of College Football Playoff amid recent drama

Steve Sarkisian was part of the 2025 SEC spring meetings this week, where coaches and ADs of all programs met at Miramar Beach Resort in Florida. The discussions ranged from the newly agreed-upon College Football Playoff to the potential splitting of the SEC from the bigger umbrella of the NCAA.

The Super League proposition and SEC-Big Ten partnership were also reportedly discussed in this meeting. On Wednesday, while speaking to the reporters at the press conference, Coach Sark mentioned the changing landscape of college football and his experience over the past two decades.

The Texas Longhorns coach mentioned that the structure of the CFB playoff was not the same in the 2000s. During that period, he was at USC as the QB coach. He shared his personal experience of playing against top teams and how there used to be multiple winners at the end of the season.

But with changing times, the model evolved to four teams and finally the 12-team playoff, where the selection committee makes its recommendations to compete for the national championship.

Speaking to the reporters in the press conference, Coach Sark explained (Timestamp: 010):

“You know I've lived this life going all the way back to early 2000s right, when I was an assistant coach at USC, and we didn't, we didn't have a playoff and, and I think that there was, I remember a year at USC, we had a great football team, and the way the computer spit it out in the end, I think LSU might have played Oklahoma, and we played Michigan in the Rose Bowl.”

“And I think there were split champions that year. I think it was us and LSU were split champions, and we grew into a two team playoff, and we grew into a four team playoff.

"And now we've grown into where we're at today, and I think at the end of the day, we all just want to put the best teams to have an opportunity to compete for a championship.”

Steve Sarkisian throws light on the toughness of the SEC

Over the last two decades, the Southeastern Conference has stood as a formidable league hosting some of the top programs in the country. And rightly so, it produces tier 1 NFL-level athletes. Boasting about the dominance of the SEC in the college football landscape, coach Steve Sarkisian mentioned that for the last 18 years, the SEC has had the most NFL draft picks.

In 2025, a new record was made with almost 79 players from the league getting drafted at Green Bay. Every year, this number is increasing significantly, showing the prowess and quality of the programs. As a result, teams are slowly foregoing their decade-old rivalries with other conference programs and focusing more on navigating the tough SEC schedule.