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The ACC wants to double the size of the College Football Playoff, and the conference is making noise about it. Coaches and athletic directors from the ACC voiced unanimous support for expanding the CFP to 24 teams during a joint meeting Tuesday at the conference’s spring meetings outside Jacksonville.
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips was there too, sources told CBS Sports, and he addressed expansion directly with reporters Wednesday morning.
“It’s been very consistent in what I’ve indicated … when you’re leaving national championship-contending teams out of the playoff, you don’t have the right number.”
That’s a pretty clear message from Phillips. And he’s not alone.
The Big 12 is on board as well. Commissioner Brett Yormark told CBS Sports on Tuesday that his conference likes the idea, though the details still need to be worked out.
“The Big 12 likes 24, subject to doing the work and figuring out the economics.”
This all follows the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) pushing for a 24-team field last week, a format the Big Ten originally proposed last year. Conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua, though notably without SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, met during a White House presidential committee meeting earlier this spring and expressed support for going to 24 teams.
The SEC Remains the Holdout
All of that momentum puts real pressure on the SEC, which hasn’t moved past publicly supporting either a 12- or 16-team format. The SEC’s spring meetings with athletic directors, coaches, and university presidents are set to begin May 26, so that’s the next major checkpoint.
Phillips acknowledged as much. “We’ll see what comes out of SEC meetings, and Big Ten meetings and Big 12 meetings,” he said, while also noting that ESPN, which broadcasts the CFP, has been “pretty clear” to commissioners that it would prefer the playoff to stay at 12 teams, or expand to no more than 16.
That’s a significant wrinkle. The Big Ten and SEC currently share controlling interest over the playoff’s format, and any real change requires both conferences to agree. They couldn’t get there last summer and fall, which is why the CFP is staying at 12 teams through the 2026-27 season.
The Money Problem
The economics here are complicated. One of the biggest sticking points is what happens to the broadcast revenue tied to conference championship games, money that would essentially disappear under a 24-team model since those games would likely be replaced by first-round playoff games. The ACC was expected to present revenue projections for a 24-team format to athletic directors on Wednesday, per sources who spoke with CBS Sports.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney summed up the trade-off honestly.
“I don’t love those things going away, but I don’t see any other path forward, because, again, you’ve got to shorten the season. You’ve got to move it up.”
That concern about season length is real and it’s been a recurring theme. FBS coaches at the AFCA meetings raised issues with the long gaps playoff teams face, with some sitting three-plus weeks between the end of the regular season and a quarterfinal game after earning a first-round bye. The AFCA’s proposal is to start the postseason the week after the regular season ends, which is currently reserved for conference championship games, and run games through December with the season wrapping up by the second Monday in January. That would be well ahead of next season’s Jan. 25 title game.
Starting the Season Earlier
There’s a separate but related push building to kick off the college football season one week earlier, moving games into what’s currently Week 0, the final week of August. The Division I FBS Oversight Committee has already recommended the earlier start as a way to fit 12 games into a 14-week window. Most ACC coaches, though, would rather have just one bye week built into the schedule rather than two.
