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Paul Finebaum blasts AFCA for endorsing 24-team Playoff field: 'It's utterly ridiculous'

Byington mugby: Alex Byington05/06/26_AlexByington

Earlier this week, the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) board voted to support the Big Ten’s 24-team College Football Playoff proposal, along with other significant changes to the sport. The announcement on Tuesday follows a trend of national coalescing behind the larger of the two prominent expansion proposals currently being considered by the CFP management committee.

Of course, not everyone is exactly in complete agreement on doubling the current 12-team Playoff format, which is entering just its third season of existence after a decade of a four-team field. In fact, fans and college football pundits like ESPN’s Paul Finebaum think such a move would only further dilute college football’s already strong postseason product.

“First of all, at the risk of upsetting all the people at the AFCA, when did they get a vote in any of this?” Finebaum said Wednesday on the Crain & Cone On3 show. “I mean, they’re a nice organization, they have a good convention every year … but I don’t really care what their opinion is about (Playoff expansion).

“I do not understand why people in the sport of football like the AFCA – and I interviewed their president (Craig Bohl) a couple of weeks ago, he’s a perfectly nice guy, but he ought to keep his nose out of this – how they could endorse a 24-team Playoff — it’s utterly ridiculous,” Finebaum continued. “It’s one thing for college basketball to go to 76, it’s not really changing anything. … But this doesn’t make very much sense (in college football). … It’s not even a money grab, it’s an access grab that should not happen in the sport of football, where we used to have two (finalists), and a couple of years ago we had four, and now we have 12. And to double that and let 8-4 teams in a Playoff when they don’t belong there is completely absurd.”

According to Yahoo! Sports‘ Ross Dellenger, most of the CFP governance committee — made up of 10 FBS conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua — have swung their support behind the Big Ten’s 24-team proposal, including the ACC and Big 12 commissioners Jim Philips and Brett Yormark. The lone holdout is SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who remains steadfast in his preference for a 16-team field that wouldn’t alter the college football landscape as drastically as the Big Ten proposal would. Among Sankey’s larger objections is that the 24-team field would completely eliminate conference championship games, which is a significant financial boon for the SEC.

“This really comes down to two people, and that’s the (commissioners of the) Big Ten and the SEC, and the problem right now is they can’t get along,” Finebaum added. “Because Greg Sankey, the commissioner of the SEC, was willing to go to 16 but isn’t willing to go to 24. And you can criticize some of his rationale. The conference championship games are over, I don’t really think that’s a debate any longer. It’s just a matter of unwinding them, because the SEC has a very profitable deal worth about $100 million and they have contracts.”

Despite the broad support for the 24-team model, including from some coaches and administrators within the SEC, no formal decision on expansion is expected anytime soon. The CFP committee has a Dec. 1 deadline to decide on any future format changes for 2027 and beyond.