MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Stopping to chat as he headed to the valet desk in the lobby of the Hilton Sandestin, an SEC football coach was asked how large a College Football Playoff field he preferred.“Twelve would be fine if they didn’t give away spots,” the coach said. “If it was the 12 best teams.”Yes, James Madison, Tulane and the Group of 6 conferences were the primary target of that remark, but make no mistake: Many in the SEC believe the Big 12 is getting more credit than it deserves, too.Amid lingering questions about how the committee is using elements like strength of schedule and a new strength of record metric in its rankings, the Big 12’s top teams became the targets.About a week after Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said his team’s backups could run the table against Texas Tech’s schedule, the SEC took its complaints straight to CFP staffers during conference spring meetings.The coaches and athletic directors’ meeting with the College Football Playoff’s officials on Tuesday largely centered around a need for clarity on how the committee would compare the strength of SEC schedules, featuring nine conference games for the first time this fall, to schedules from the Big 12 or ACC.The fear among coaches in the room — the league’s four new coaches largely stayed silent — was that an SEC team with three losses would often fall below a Big 12 or ACC team with two losses despite playing what they believe to be a much more difficult schedule.Representatives from the CFP, whose 13-person selection committee will feature three new members this year, couldn’t offer any conclusive explanation for how a season that hasn’t happened yet would be evaluated.However, coaches and athletic directors were shown data projecting a 16-team and 24-team Playoff field over the 2025 season. In a 24-team CFP, the SEC would have had seven teams, or 29 percent of the field, as opposed to the 42 percent the league had last season with five of the 12 participants.The Big 12 had just one team in the CFP last season for the second year in a row. Texas Tech earned a bye and the No. 4 seed by winning the Big 12 with a 12-1 record that included four victories against teams (BYU twice, Utah, Houston) that finished in the selection committee’s top 25. Texas Tech was then shut out by Oregon in the Orange Bowl quarterfinal.BYU (11-2) ended up being the second team out of the CFP behind Notre Dame, ranked No. 11 ahead of Texas (9-3) and Vanderbilt (10-2) from the SEC. The Cougars had two victories against teams that finished ranked (Utah, Arizona) and lost twice to Texas Tech.SEC coaches also noted that Mississippi State, which finished 1-7 in the SEC and 5-8 overall, beat 2024 Big 12 champion Arizona State in an early-season game. The Sun Devils, who battled injuries all year, finished 8-5 overall and 6-3 in the Big 12.Not many coaches directly called out the Big 12 schools publicly, but it was easy to figure out to whom they were alluding when they referenced a school that played no top-10 teams and made the Playoff.“I would hope strength of schedule will continue to factor in even more heavily than what it is, currently,” South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said. “I mean, if you just look at, Texas Tech lost to Arizona State last season, if I’m not mistaken, who lost to Mississippi State, right?”When SEC coaches agreed to add a ninth conference game and it wasn’t paired with CFP expansion — Florida coach Jon Sumrall said some coaches felt misled by the field remaining at 12 for this year — there was concern across the conference that the change would cost the SEC at-large bids. The eight bids the SEC has earned in the two years of the 12-team Playoff are the most of any conference.Beamer said they had a “healthy discussion” with the CFP on Tuesday afternoon, which he called “enlightening.”Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek, who is the committee chair, and the CFP’s new senior advisor for football Justin Fuente, a former head coach at Memphis and Virginia Tech, also spoke to the coaches and athletic directors on Tuesday and fielded questions about how the committee operates.There was no discussion this week of a timeline for a decision by the SEC on its Playoff format preference. Any changes to the CFP must be decided by Dec. 1 to be enacted for the 2027 season.“We haven’t polled each other or put our heads together to figure out a universal policy or platform we’re on,” Beamer said. “But I would say most of the coaches are in agreement of more access, the better. Particularly, not quite understanding where strength of schedule comes into play, particularly in our league.”Bedlam still on holdCoaches and athletic directors also came into the meeting with CFP officials in search of best practices for in-game strategy and nonconference scheduling that would lead to the CFP metrics looking upon teams more favorably.While that and Playoff expansion are uncertain, schools are taking a more cautious approach to nonconference scheduling.For Oklahoma, that means restarting the Bedlam series with in-state rival Oklahoma State is not even a discussion yet. The series ended when Oklahoma left the Big 12 for the SEC two seasons ago.New Sooners athletic director Roger Denny said he has not spoken with Oklahoma State about getting the Cowboys back on the football schedule.“Yeah, for sure, it’s huge for our state and our fans,” Denny said. “We’ve said pretty openly that that’s something that you know we think is important to Oklahoma, the state, not just the institution, and so if we had an opportunity to do that and do it in a way that doesn’t limit our opportunities down the line, certainly that’s something we’d want to look into.”Right now, there’s just not enough clarity.“This is so new, you’re seeing new metrics added to it every year, and you’re seeing now divergent scheduling practices between the conferences, and so I think it’s just going to take time to see how those things get measured by the committee and what gets rewarded and incentivized,” said Denny, who previously worked at Illinois as a deputy AD.A rash of potential marquee nonconference games have gotten canceled over the last 12 months or so as schools reassess the best path to a CFP spot. Most recently, South Carolina canceled a home-and-home with North Carolina. The Gamecocks still have in-state ACC rival Clemson on the schedule.