I hope Greg Byrne stood up and John Cohen spoke up. I hope Kalen DeBoer shook a fist and Hugh Freeze pounded a table. I hope everyone affiliated with Alabama and Auburn that attended the SEC spring meetings made enough noise to make Greg Sankey’s ears ring.

Because of all the possible college football playoff formats under discussion at the Sandestin Beach Hilton, there’s one that should have brought the Tide and Tiger contingents together to talk it down, shoot it down and kill it with fire.

It’s the infamous 4-4-2-2-1-3 model, which would guarantee the SEC and the Big Ten four spots each, with two apiece reserved for the ACC and Big 12, one for the highest-ranked Group of Five/Six champion and the other three being at-large selections.

The anti-competitive nature of that format should’ve let the air out of that trial balloon before it left the ground. As if its fundamental flaw weren’t bad enough, based on the buzz from the beach, that model almost certainly will lead to play-in games before the playoff games.

That terrible, horrible, no-good idea would kill the Iron Bowl as we know it.

Think about it. The more play-in and playoff teams you include, the more you water down the regular season. The more you water down the regular season, the more you risk selling the games that made SEC football great down the river.

Exhibit A: Alabama vs. Auburn.

Picture this scenario. The 16-team playoff with the 4-4-2-2-1-3 format is adopted. The SEC, in desperate search of more revenue streams tied to TV-friendly content, turns conference championship weekend into a triple-header. The teams that finish first and second in the regular season play in Atlanta to decide a conference champion and a more advantageous playoff position. Both teams are guaranteed playoff spots.

But wait. There’s more. The sixth-place team visits the third-place team and the fifth-place team travels to the fourth-place team. The winners earn the league’s third and fourth automatic playoff bids.

What happens the week before championship weekend? The Iron Bowl. Ain’t nothin’ like it nowhere, especially when they meet in Jordan-Hare Stadium and Auburn Jesus takes the wheel.

Even though Alabama has won five straight in the series, two of those five matchups were epic. Bryce Young cemented the 2021 Heisman by leading a full-field, last-minute touchdown drive to force overtime, and Alabama won in four extra periods. The 2023 meeting produced Gravedigger, the last-minute, game-winning touchdown pass from Jalen Milroe to Isaiah Bond, the latest play in the rivalry worthy of a painting.

Even under Bryan Harsin, even at the end of multiple regular seasons gone wrong, Auburn has found a way to push Alabama to the limit and give both sides a memory they’ll never forget, as much as the losing side might want to perish the painful thoughts.

Now imagine this set of circumstances, which is not far-fetched in the least.

It’s late November of 2027. Alabama has clinched first place in the SEC with a week to spare. Auburn is part of a logjam of teams still in contention for a play-in spot. In other words, the Tide travels to the Plains with nothing to play for but pride. The Tigers have everything on the line.

Would Alabama rest its starting quarterback, especially if he’s a little banged up, or risk his health before the postseason? What about the running back with a tight hamstring or the edge with a high-ankle sprain?

You think that can’t happen? You think DeBoer might not be faced with those kinds of decisions and almost forced to de-emphasize the Iron Bowl? It happens on a regular basis in the NFL. It happened at the end of the last NFL regular season when Kansas City had to take a hard look at the bigger picture beyond its final game at Denver.

The Chiefs, with their top AFC playoff seed already secured, didn’t play some of their stars, including quarterback Patrick Mahomes. Bo Nix and the Broncos had to win to earn a playoff spot, and they did so with ease against Kansas City’s JV squad. Final score: Denver 38, Kansas City 0.

Hard to blame the Chiefs for not putting their best team on the field that day, and the decision worked. They went on to win the AFC Championship Game and return to the Super Bowl.

Nick Saban has made the point for years that, like the NFL postseason, a college football playoff was going to overshadow the regular season. His 2017 Alabama team proved the point when it lost the Iron Bowl in Auburn and still made the four-team playoff. The Tigers also took down Georgia that year, but without a healthy Kerryon Johnson – who got hurt pushing himself to the limit in the Iron Bowl – they lost a rematch to nemesis Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs in the SEC Championship Game.

Auburn swept its biggest rivals in the regular season and didn’t make the playoff. Alabama and Georgia did and went on to play for the national title, which the Tide secured on Second-and-26.

If the four-team playoff cost the Iron Bowl some of its luster, a 16-team postseason will tarnish it even more, especially if the SEC establishes play-in games before the playoff games.

Alabama vs. Auburn will become just another weigh station on the long road to a national championship. The Iron Bowl could become even less impactful than Alabama at Vanderbilt or Alabama at Oklahoma.

Is that what we want college football to be?