ACC, Big 12 commissioners push 24-team College Football Playoff format

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. – ACC commissioner Jim Phillips and Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark both told On3 that their leagues prefer a 24-team College Football Playoff. 

“We like 24, we want 24,” Yormark told On3. “There are too many teams getting left out and 24 teams provides the type of access that is warranted.  That being said, we need to do the work around the economics around a 24-team format and make sure we address any unintended consequences.”

On the final day of the ACC’s spring meetings at Amelia Island, Phillips also indicated his league’s support of the 24-team model.

“Our desire with the coaches and the ADs is 24,” Phillips said. “When you’re leaving national championship-contending teams out of the playoff, you don’t have the right number. We lived through it, we suffered through it with Florida State, when the field was four.

“I know other schools have suffered for it. Notre Dame was a CFP worthy team last year and you saw what happened to the last team that got invited with Miami.”

Just a few months ago, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti was seemingly the only supporter of a 24-team playoff. The other conferences, most notably the SEC, and stakeholders in college football favored a 16-team model. However, the pendulum has swung with Phillips and Yormark the latest to back a 24-team model.

Just last week, the American Football Coaches Association also revealed its support for a 24-team playoff.

Regardless of how much support there is for a 24-team playoff, there will be no changes until Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey agree on a future format.

Sankey and the SEC support a 16-team playoff, if it expands beyond 12 teams.

“That focus hasn’t changed,” Sankey said Monday at the APSE Southeast Region meeting at the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. “We’re open to the conversation, but there are a lot of ideas out there that have to be supported with analysis and information, not speculation.

“We’re trying to inform that with research. We’ve done that, from our perspective, with 16. We want to understand, through some analytic support, games that matter in an expanded environment and games that might not matter.”

Yormark said the questions that must be answered are how to replace the revenue from the conference championship game and add money to the playoff pool.

Last year’s Big 12 title game between Texas Tech and BYU drew 85,519, the largest attendance for any conference championship game.

 “How do you recoup conference championship money and drive incremental revenue (in a 24-team playoff),” Yormark said.

Phillips added ESPN does not want the playoff to expand past 16 teams. “ESPN’s made it clear, they want it to stay at 12 or 14, but no more than 16,” Phillips said.

Phillips said the ACC supports an expanded playoff because teams with a “legitimate chance” to win a national title are being excluded. Last season, Notre Dame (10-2), which is an ACC member in all sports but football, was the first team left out. 

“Teams that have a legitimate chance to win the national championship are being left out, which means we are missing the mark and don’t have the correct format,” Phillips said. “In addition with school investments at an all-time high across the entire FBS level, there is tremendous pressure on the entire system. As leaders we have a responsibility to ensure we are providing the appropriate format that will allow schools to remain incentivized with a legitimate ability to access the playoff.”

The current 12-team playoff will continue in future seasons until when/if Sankey and Petitti agree on a new format. There is a December deadline to determine what the format will be in 2027. If the SEC and Big Ten commissioners can’t agree on a 16- or 24-team playoff, the 12-team format will continue in 2027.

There are several proposals how a 24-team playoff would look. Would it include automatic bids to each conference or just taking the top 24 teams ranked by the playoff’s selection committee?

Florida State coach Mike Norvell said he would favor three automatic qualifiers for each Power 4 conference, an automatic Group of 6 bid and the remaining 11 teams filled with at-large teams, regardless of conference.

Others believe the playoff should consist of the top 24 teams in the final selection committee rankings, as long as it includes at least one Group of 6 representative. 

“If you don’t rank in the top 24, should you really be in the playoff, regardless of what conference you’re in?” a source said.