Party’s over.

The SEC’s annual spring conclave adjourned without a puff of white smoke or any real clarity on future playoff models.

What’s left is an ongoing headache of tangled priorities and mindsets as the college football powerbrokers continue their standoff. The hostage remains the very future of the sport that drives the billion-dollar collegiate athletics industry.

That’s all.

If you missed the headlines from the SEC spring meetings in Sandestin, the league’s coaches, athletics directors and presidents met for three days with some weighty matters at hand.

There’s a new playoff model for the 2026 season and beyond that’s tied to how the SEC will structure future football scheduling. And that’s where the gridlock really gets started.

That’s because there are competing interest, not just within the conference or even schools, but between the power leagues deciding these interwoven issues.

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Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports has been at the forefront of the reporting on these topics. His SEC spring meetings post-mortem spells out all the twists and turns of the conference’s internal strife and how they connect to the Big Ten’s position.

SEC coaches don’t love the idea of multiple automatic qualifiers per conference for a new playoff. They don’t dig the idea of playing a ninth league game either, Dellenger reports.

The Big Ten isn’t on board for the SEC’s preferred model of five conference champions plus 11 at-large bids if their southern counterparts don’t add the ninth league game.

Decisions on the 2026 playoff format are due by Dec. 1.

The SEC needs a 2026 scheduling plan by the end of this summer.

So, you can see where the heat is rising and the stakes increasing as compromise or capitulation nears.

Also, consider the composition of these meeting rooms. We’re talking about competing factions of strong personalities who didn’t reach the top of their respective organizational pyramid through deference.

It’s fitting that former coaches and administrators are so involved in state and national politics, because the negotiations behind sporting matters far exceed Xs and Os.

In that realm, messaging is everything. Hearts and minds.

The SEC knows that, as it invites a few dozen reporters from around the league and nation to cover its spring meetings. We aren’t in the meetings themselves but can interview the participants as they exit the gulfside resort’s meeting rooms.

What they share and the spin they choose to apply is up to them.

And every evening, commissioner Greg Sankey gets the pulpit for 30-45 minutes of questions and answers. At the close of Thursday’s meetings, the press was handed a seven-page document in a not-so-subtle statement of position (and analytical dominance) in the playoff discussion.

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Schedule strength comparisons wouldn’t matter in one proposal that assigns a certain number of automatic bids per conference. So this talking point — now printed point — would be part of the negotiation surrounding a plan heavy on at-large bids.

That would keep the idea of a selection committee, but the SEC clearly wants more guardrails or regulations on how that group makes their selections.

They clearly didn’t think the strength of the SEC’s schedule was weighted appropriately so they’re taking their case to the people.

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Public sentiment has killed and revived plans in the past and the SEC had a captive audience who send messages professionally.

How it’s received remains the gamble.

The SEC’s statement of scheduling superiority was met with skepticism from a traditionally skeptical online crowd of media from outside the league’s footprint.

The Big Ten held its annual meetings a week earlier with almost no media invited and certainly without daily press briefings from its commissioner. It still got its messaging out there as Yahoo Sports reported in real-time its disapproval of the 5-conference-champs + 11 at-large-bids plan without the SEC adopting the same nine-game conference schedule it uses.

And the standoff continues.

Frustrations follow.

What’s right depends on your perspective but something’s got to happen relatively soon.

But in rooms stocked with alphas, blinking doesn’t come naturally.

This week, they punted.

But fourth down at the goal line is approaching and even this boardroom can’t legislate a calendar.

Michael Casagrande is a reporter for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.