LAS VEGAS — At the Big Ten’s first-ever media day in Nevada on Tuesday, a portion of commissioner Tony Petitti’s opening address suggested College Football Playoff odds are stacked against his conference.”It’s really simple math,” Petitti said at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on the first day of the Big Ten Media Days gathering. “With 18 schools (in the Big Ten) and nine conferences (eligible for FBS playoffs), we’re losing nine more games to start.”Nine- vs. eight-game conference scheduling is a debate predating any iteration of the playoff, beginning in 2006 when the FBS season expanded to 12 regular-season dates.Petitti’s position that playing more conference games than the Southeastern Conference and Atlantic Coast Conference puts Big Ten teams at greater risk of stumbling has merit when referring to the Bowl Championship Series and four-team playoff for reference.Most notably, teams from the old Pac-12 — one-third of which the Big Ten absorbed — routinely missed out on national-title opportunities because of conference losses.Ironically, though, the 2024 season played out much differently: It was the SEC’s eight-game schedule and playoff hopefuls Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina being tripped up that impacted the bracket.Meanwhile, the Big Ten’s Indiana Hoosiers reached the playoff despite finishing the regular season with no Top 25 wins and two defeats total of conference opponents that produced winning records.The commissioner defended Indiana’s playoff inclusion, noting that, “when Indiana’s schedule was made … (there) were the two teams that played in the (national) championship game the season before, Michigan and Washington.”Be that as it may, the Hoosiers finished with a Sagarin strength of schedule ranking of No. 66, easily the worst of the power-conference playoff teams. The nine-game slate did not hurt the Big Ten in 2024, but Petitti inferred the Big Ten beat the odds.To adjust the odds going forward, Petitti’s math factors into a postseason equation the commissioner has touted throughout the 2025 offseason: 16 equals four times two.With talk of expanding the College Football Playoff to 16 entrants after just one year of the 12-team format, Petitti is pushing for a format that grants both the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference four automatic bids. That ensures the two most prominent leagues in the sport comprise half of the field every year.The Petitti plan also includes the concept of a play-in round where conference championship games currently reside on the football calendar, the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday. He presented the idea as something “fans will really gravitate to … providing games that are do-or-die on the field.”Petitti’s suggestion faces resistance, including from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. At his conference’s media days last week, Sankey pushed for a playoff format with automatic qualifiers for five conference champions — as exists now in the 12-team Playoff — and 11 at-large berths.As for Petitti’s position on when to reformat the postseason, the commissioner sounds content on slow-rolling it.”I’m not going to put any deadline on it,” he said.–National champs tabbed as unlikely underdogsBefore a rematch on Aug. 30 in Columbus, plenty will be made of Ohio State’s 28-14 win over Texas in January’s Cotton Bowl, which propelled the Buckeyes to the national championship game against Notre Dame.At Big Ten media days, however, Ohio State coach Ryan Day made clear the marquee matchup on Week 1 is a new chapter.”The team we have currently wants to leave their own legacy behind, and they made that clear a week after the national championship game,” Day said. “We’ve said it before, we’re not defending national champions, because we’re not defending anything … We’re looking to attack.”