College Football Playoff leaders fail to agree about expanding four-team field

(2:22)INDIANAPOLIS -- The leaders of the College Football Playoff again failed to come to an agreement about expanding the current four-team field, but they didn't entirely rule out the possibility it could still happen before the end of the current 12-year contract, which runs through the 2025 season.Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, as he left the meeting Monday morning, just hours before kickoff of the College Football Playoff National Championship Game presented by AT&T;, said the 10 FBS commissioners voted, but "didn't even get close to unanimity.""There are big enough [issues] that remain that we have a lot of work to do," he said. Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, the chair of the CFP's board of managers, said the commissioners presented the 11 presidents and chancellors with a 12-team proposal, but the presidents did not take an official vote.Still, he said he remains optimistic about expansion, and said the commissioners will meet again in a few weeks to continue their discussions."I think we're going to get there," Keenum said. And I know that everyone had arrived here in hopes that we could come to a decision here at this meeting, but we still have some more work to do."For three straight days, the 10 FBS commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick met in a ballroom on the third floor of the JW Marriott in downtown Indianapolis, tucked away from the Alabama and Georgia fans there to see the eighth national championship game in the CFP era and the second in that span featuring two SEC teams.The grandiose hotel was otherwise buzzing with fans, media, agents and athletic administrators, but few if any realized the future of the sport's postseason was being decided at the end of a long hallway blocked by a security guard. These are complex issues, and I think we would not be performing at the level that we need to perform if this was a very quick decision and if it wasn't complex, because it is."The lack of transparency in the process was questioned Sunday by New York Times reporter Billy Witz."Well," Hancock said Sunday, "mostly because they're not finished."They're still not."We have entrenched issues," Bowlsby said, "and they're no closer to being resolved than they were before."SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he initially walked past reporters following the meeting because he had to "reset" his "mental frame and then have a conversation responsibly.""I've never genuinely assumed that this would just be a rubber stamp," he said.