Miramar Beach, Florida - SEC officials arrived here this week with the goal of zero time for football games in 2026 and beyond. They may leave here on Thursday without an approved format.

There are two factors that continue to vote on the schedule format.

One: There is no consensus behind the model. Some stakeholders want to leave eight games behind. Others want to move to nine. Usually, the SEC coach sounds interesting, which is on eight o'clock residence, and the conference's athletic director seems to have taken the door further off nine. However, even among these groups, no consensus was reached.

Brian Kelly of Louisiana State said he would love nine meetings. Sam Pittman of Arkansas prefers eight.

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte wants nine, but admits he doesn't speak for the room.

SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey favored nine, but he didn't vote, only voice.

Table tennis back and forth.

Another element to delay voting? The SEC did not violate the difficult deadline. The 2025 schedule for the conference has been set and some runways have been retained to delay the 2026 decision. During the 2020 pandemic, the SEC canceled its schedule and designed a new plan less than six weeks before the kickoff.

Don't expect the SEC to repeat the 2020 schedule, but don't expect all these different opinions to fall behind the solution in the spring meeting that ended Thursday.

It also influenced the decision: College football playoff formats remain uncertain in 2026 and beyond, with multiple SEC coaches and administrators expressing reluctance to decide on meeting schedule models until more information on future playoff formats and selection processes.

Even Kelly, who is also a supporter of nine-game conference games, said he would vote slowly if it was up to him, rather than giving up chips before knowing the future of the playoffs.

The SEC has believed that it added nine games for years, but has remained in eight games at all times. The Big Ten and Big Ten have participated in nine games 12 times. ACC plays eight.

Sanki said that at the meeting, there were still "all kinds of perspectives".

"Someone would say, 'Let's go play nine games. More SEC games are better.' "Someone would say, 'Wait a minute, I'm looking at the bowl qualification, and when I build the program, it's hard to hit the six-win threshold." '

“Then, you have some people who looked at last year saying, ‘Our explanation is that under the current selection criteria, losing (according to the committee’s decision) is heavier than winning a solid game. Losing is more problematic until we have a better understanding of the future standards or participation points of the CFP, and we are reluctant to play nine games.”

“I think these are three philosophy, but I think some people are ready to go (nine).

A majority vote must be made before a decision can be made.

Will the SEC take a break if it fails to make a decision on Thursday?

“That’s what I expected,” Sankey said on “Paul Finebaum Show.”

Therefore, the jar was kicked and slightly further down the road. In the past, this familiar road always ended at eight o'clock.

Blake Toppmeyer is a national university football columnist for USA Today Network. Send him an email at btoppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.