If college football had started a 16-team playoff in 2014, Alabama would’ve made the field every season, 10 straight years under Nick Saban and last year under Kalen DeBoer.

If college football had jumped directly from the two-team Bowl Championship Series to a 16-team playoff, Georgia would’ve made it nine times, Oklahoma seven times and Ole Miss five times, three under Lane Kiffin and twice under Hugh Freeze.

If college football had expanded its playoff to 16 teams 11 years ago, Auburn would’ve played in it three times. Ditto for Florida, LSU and Texas. Tennessee would’ve made it twice while Kentucky, Mississippi State, Missouri, South Carolina and Texas A&M each would’ve made it once.

Of the 16 current SEC schools, only Arkansas and Vanderbilt would’ve failed to make a 16-team playoff field since 2014. The other 14 schools in the league at present would’ve combined to make 51 playoff appearances.

That is, if you went strictly by the selection committee’s final rankings and reserved only one spot – for a Group of Five team.

Under the same parameters, 12 of the Big Ten’s current 18 schools would’ve combined to make 54 playoff appearances.

The SEC and the Big Ten would’ve occupied 105 of the 176 spots in a 16-team playoff field from 2014 through 2024. So tell me again why the two most powerful of the four power conferences would want or need a guarantee that each of them will receive four spots in a proposed 16-team playoff that could start as early as 2026.

Starting in 2014 and moving forward through 2024, here are the number of current SEC and Big Ten teams that would’ve made a 16-team playoff – based on the CFB Playoff Committee rankings – in which the only guaranteed spot went to the highest-ranked Group of Five team:

2014 – SEC 4, Big Ten 4

2015 – SEC 3, Big Ten 6

2016 – SEC 3, Big Ten 6

2017 – SEC 4, Big Ten 5

2018 – SEC 7, Big Ten 4

2019 – SEC 6, Big Ten 5

2020 – SEC 5, Big Ten 4

2021 – SEC 3, Big Ten 5

2022 – SEC 3, Big Ten 6

2023 – SEC 7, Big Ten 5

2024 – SEC 6, Big Ten 4

The SEC would’ve put more teams in the field five times, the Big Ten would’ve done it five times and they would’ve tied once.

Here are the playoff spots that would’ve been earned by other leagues, given their current membership, and Notre Dame:

Big 12 – 13 schools, 28 appearances

ACC – 9 schools, 24 appearances

G5 – 10 schools, 12 appearances

Notre Dame – 7 appearances

In all, in this alternative reality 16-team playoff, 59 different schools would’ve made at least one playoff appearance. On average, the Big Ten would’ve had 4.9 playoff teams per year, the SEC 4.6, the Big 12 2.5 and the ACC 2.2.

Of course, the people in charge crunched similar numbers to come up with a reported proposal to guarantee the SEC and the Big Ten four spots each with two each going to the Big 12 and ACC. That would leave one guaranteed spot for the highest-rated Group of Five team and three at-large bids, which most often would be taken by teams from the SEC and Big Ten along with Notre Dame.

The question was, is and will remain: Why guarantee any spots beyond one for the Group of Five? Isn’t that anti-competition? A decade-plus of data shows the SEC and Big Ten would dominate the field every year based on merit, at least as judged by the collective opinion of the selection committee.

Using the parameters discussed above, with only one G5 spot guaranteed, the SEC would’ve had just three teams in the field in 2015, 2016, 2021 and 2022. But the conference would’ve had six playoff teams in 2019 and 2024 and seven in 2018 and 2023.

The more spots that are guaranteed by conference, the better the chances that a deserving team gets left out and an undeserving team gets put in to fill a quota.

A 16-team playoff itself may be too large, but whatever number the decision-makers finally land on, the more spots left to team merit rather than conference affiliation, the better. For the SEC, the Big Ten and college football as a whole. There’s no need for the Power 2 to game the system. They just have to play the games to keep stacking rings.