Tag: CFP Expansion

Big Ten football media days: Kevin Warren says ‘I’m 100 percent supportive for college football playoff expansion’

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren is confident that the College Football Playoff will expand.

Big Ten commissioner Kevin Warren not only wants to see the College Football Playoff expanded, he is confident that it will happen.

College Football Playoff  (CFP) expansion has been one of the biggest buzzwords in sports over the past few years. The current set-up of four teams has been in place since the playoff was established in 2014.

In February, it was decided that the CFP would not expand until 2026 at the earliest. It was a blow to those who wanted to see the playoff expanded to six teams (the top two teams getting a bye in the playoff’s first round) or eight teams.

The Big Ten has only won the CFP once in 2014-15. That was the first season of the CFP experience.

Speaking at the start of the Big Ten’s football media days, Warren was asked about the idea of College Football Playoff expansion.

Warren said that “I’m 100 percent supportive of College Football Playoff expansion.”

“We have meetings coming up in September and October to be able to talk about these issues. I’m 100 percent supportive for college football playoff expansion,” Warren said during his press conference.

“You know, what is that right number? We’ll figure it out. I’m confident we will get College Football Playoff expansion resolved. I still feel strongly that we need to open it up to have multiple media partners that we need to have from the college football playoff standpoint. We need to take a holistic view, we need to make sure we protect some of the critical bowl relationships. And so as we work through all these, whether it’s automatic qualifier, whatever the case may be, I’m confident as we get these new individuals in the room, get these issues on the table, that we’ll be able to reach some resolution. And again, make sure we ask ourselves the right questions for the right reasons at the right time for our student-athletes and our fans but I look forward to the day that we can expand the college football playoff and I’m confident that it will happen.”

Last season, Georgia won a battle of the SEC in the College Football Playoff championship game. The Big Ten was represented by Michigan in last year’s playoff.

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Phillips addresses topic of College Football Playoff expansion

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips addressed a number of topics when he took the podium Wednesday morning at the 2022 ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte, including College Football Playoff expansion. Phillips said the conference “continues to be …

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips addressed a number of topics when he took the podium Wednesday morning at the 2022 ACC Football Kickoff in Charlotte, including College Football Playoff expansion.

Phillips said the conference “continues to be supportive of an expanded College Football Playoff.” The league voted against expansion last year, he said, because issues such as the new FBS calendar need to be addressed.

“As you know, the ACC took what we believe was a necessary stance regarding last fall’s CFP proposal,” Phillips said. “This was based on what we feel we must all come together to address before rushing into a new model — the implantation of a 365-day calendar, health and safety, and several other items that you know well. Engagement is ongoing with our schools and my fellow commissioners to chart a path forward prior to the expiration of the current CFP contract in 2026. We had two great meetings in April and June, and I’m confident that our concerns and others’ concerns will be addressed, and a new model with greater access will ultimately come to pass. We will do our part in the ACC to make it happen, but there’s some more work to be done.”

Phillips indicated that progress on expansion has been made, saying that CFP commissioners have made “great progress” in their last two meetings this year.

Phillips expects there may be news at the end of August regarding progress toward a new CFP structure, though he said there’s a lot of things to discuss.

“We’re making progress with the Transformation Committee, and I think you’re going to see something at the end of August that’s pretty substantial, with more work to be done,” Phillips said. “I think these things are walking along together, along with a new NCAA president. I don’t expect us in September, when we get together, to line up and announce a new CFP structure.

“But I think we made great progress over our last two meetings, both in April and in June, and everybody’s motivated to come together. So, I don’t know that there’s this separation now with those things. We’ll see. But I think the health and safety, the 365-day calendar review… We’ve talked about access, automatic qualifiers… there’s a lot of things to discuss. But those things, again, I would tell you I do not think have really separated that much.”

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SEC commissioner Greg Sankey states there are no CFP expansion conversations

The SEC commish dishes on CFP expansion or the lack thereof.

One of the hottest topics in college football continues to surround playoff expansion. Recently the CFP committee and conference leadership spoke publicly about the idea of potential expansion.

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey recently opened up about the idea that we could see expansion in the future, but it appears to be a stalemate.

“We’re not talking about it,” Sankey said via ESPN. Honestly at this point with all the momentum going the way of the SEC, why should they. The conference will add two more power schools to the group and have the first 16-team superconference with the Oklahoma Sooners and Texas Longhorns.

“I’ve said in July and August and September, we could stay at four,” Sankey said. “If people think that’s posturing, it’s not. We’re going to have a really, really incredible conference when we’re at 16 teams.”

The SEC ideally is in a really good spot to have half of the field in the CFP each and every year. Hard to fathom that Sankey and the SEC would want to move to the 12 or 16-team field at this point. There aren’t any conversations about expansion going on right now but likely could see some movement over the next year.

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Did Texas’ decision to leave for the SEC impact the CFP decision?

SEC expansion impacted the CFP’s decision to remain at four teams.

On Friday news broke that the College Football Playoff committee opted to remain at four teams for the remainder of the contract.

This will put added pressure on teams to remain perfect throughout the season due to the limited number of spots. For the Big 12, their lone participant in the annual playoff has been the Oklahoma Sooners. However, they have stumbled in the last two seasons leaving them outside of the tournament.

According to Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic, the committee needed a vote of 11-0 to make changes to the current format. There were options on the table to change to an eight-team or 12-team playoff. Their latest vote was 8-3 with all three members of the Alliance (ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12) voting against the expansion.

When asked if the move of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC affected the decision, Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson admitted it definitely changed the trajectory.

“It certainly was a factor. It changed the temperament of this particular situation. … Was it a breaking point or catalyst? I don’t know. It had an effect.” per Chris Vannini, The Athletic

The perception is that the decision to move to the SEC by the top two teams in the conference very much had a hand in these decisions. The three-conference alliance came together following that announcement during SEC media days back in July. It is difficult to spell it out otherwise.

For now, the four-team playoff will remain in play. Perhaps there will be a change when the next contract begins for the 2026 season. That all remains very much in the air.

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College Football Playoff Expansion Is Off For Now. Here’s What’s Happening.

The College Football Playoff will stay at four teams for at least the next four years … maybe. Who wins? Who loses? Here’s what you need to know.

The College Football Playoff will stay at four teams through the 2025 season … maybe. Here’s what’s happening and what you need to know.

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College Football Playoff expansion off until at least 2025 … maybe.

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Who wins and who loses if CFP isn’t expanded?

Welcome to the working definition of not being able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

The College Football Playoff will stay at four teams through the 2025 season – the next four years – after the conference commissioners and Notre Dame couldn’t reach an agreement.

Here’s what’s going on.

First, here’s what the deal was supposed to be

Last summer, a few conference commissioners – Greg Sankey (SEC), Bob Bowlsby (Big 12), Craig Thompson (Mountain West), and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick – put together a proposal for a 12-team expanded playoff.

The idea was for the top six conference champions regardless of conference to automatically get in, and the other six spots would go to the six highest-ranked teams remaining from the College Football Playoff rankings.

It was a relatively square deal.

It assured that a few Group of Five conferences – the American Athletic, Conference USA, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt – would be right in the mix with at least one guaranteed a spot, and it accounted for the big Power Five leagues – ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, SEC – to potentially get more teams in depending on how the seasons flowed.

There were details to iron out about how and where this would all work – like, would it be within the bowl system or would the first round be on the campus of the higher-seeded team? – but those were workable.

But get 12 masters of the universe together and you’ll get 12 totally different opinions.

So …

Who wins and who loses if CFP isn’t expanded?

What’s the problem?

Most of the main concerns aren’t much of a barrier, but overall, it’s not entirely certain why this isn’t quite working other than that the ACC appears to be freaking out a bit.

Commissioner Jim Phillips and the ACC want to do some roll slowing, claiming that this isn’t quite the time for more upheaval in the college athletics world considering all that’s going on with several other seismic changes, but that all seems a tad soft.

One sticking point is the Rose Bowl – the Pac-12 and Big Ten still want their historic ties to the bowl game – and another problem is how this would all work while still maintaining a healthy bowl system, but to reiterate, those are just details that could easily be ironed out if everyone really did want this to happen.

That’s not why the college athletic world is throwing away the opportunity at hundreds of millions of dollars.

Expansion. Without saying it out loud, that’s the problem here, not NIL, the transfer portal, or coaching salaries.

The ACC isn’t in on the expansion fun after totally dropping the ball and not adding UCF, Cincinnati, and Houston when it had the chance. The last thing it wants to do is agree to a bigger College Football Playoff when the landscape could change even more in three years since the conference is ripe for the picking.

The SEC is about to get whole lot bigger and more important with Texas and Oklahoma joining the mix in 2024, if not earlier. There’s no secret that the SEC is on a world domination bender and could at any time get a whole lot more important than it already is.

Don’t think the SEC is stopping its dreams with just Texas and Oklahoma. If it can get those two, everyone is on the table. Geographically, that means the ACC.

Meanwhile, the Big Ten has remained eerily quiet during the expansion moves.

It takes a certain level of school in terms of size, market, prestige, and research for the Big Ten to be interested. It grabbed Maryland away from the ACC in 2014, and in the conference’s perfect world, it would somehow find a way to add perfect-fit North Carolina.

Boston College, Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Louisville, Miami, NC State, Syracuse, Virginia, and Virginia Tech all fit into the Big Ten’s Tier 1 Research requirement – as does Notre Dame – and several of those schools would be easy and smart fits for the SEC, too.

Here’s the larger problem for the College Football Playoff expansion. How does all the revenue get distributed?

Fine, so six conference champions get in. What about those other six schools in a 12-team format?

Assume at least two of those spots will go to the SEC every year – especially with Texas and Oklahoma – and assume the Big Ten gets an extra team, and assume that it’s really more like three SEC teams and two extra Big Ten teams, and …

What if the ACC only gets one team in? It’s not in a position right now as a conference to assume it can get anyone but its own champion in – at least until a Florida State or Miami or North Carolina can rise back up.

So who gets all the money? As it is now, the ACC has its bowl deals and is on par with the SEC and Big Ten – sort of. An expanded College Football Playoff screws up the ACC’s possible power.

NEXT: Who wins and loses if the College Football Playoff isn’t expanded? What will happen?

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Nick Saban weighs in on College Football Playoff expansion

Saban doesn’t believe expanding will help the blowout problem.

The Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs are preparing for their rematch in the College Football Playoff national championship game on Jan. 10.

However, it seems as though everyone seems to be weighing on on potential expansion. You can call it SEC exhaustion, or even blowout exhaustion. Whichever narrative you want to roll with, media members and others want to discuss how to fix it. On Monday when speaking with the media, former LSU and current Alabama head coach Nick Saban was asked about expansion and if it was a solution to blowouts.

“I don’t know that expanding — if this is the best four teams and they played each other,” Saban said. “I don’t see the logic in it if we had more teams there would be better games. I don’t know how that adds up.

But I am really not in a position to answer that. There’s a lot of other good teams, whether it was their consistency in performance or whatever happened to them in championship games or whatever, that may have had the opportunity to get in the playoffs that didn’t.”

What Saban speaks to makes a lot of sense if you really think about it. Would expanding to eight teams or even 12 prevent the same four teams from playing in the final four? That isn’t to say that we shouldn’t expand because at this point it is less of a playoff and more of an invitational.

Should the committee and FBS conference commissioners come to an agreement on expansion, conference champions should be involved at the Power Five level. There also needs to be some representation among the at-large bids. Such as a Georgia team that didn’t win the SEC or Oklahoma State that fell to Baylor.

As far as the blowouts, this isn’t something new and it speaks to the talent gap between the top two teams and who they play. For example, when the LSU Tigers played Oklahoma in 2019, the game wasn’t even close as they beat the Sooners by 35 points. We saw Alabama beat Cincinnati by 21 and Georgia beat Michigan by 23.

Even with more times, the semifinals will likely continue to be blowouts. Looking at the recruiting rankings, you will see that the SEC dominates. The 2022 rankings show that the conference has the top three spots with Texas A&M, Alabama, and Georgia. They also have 10 of the top 20 recruiting classes.

Until other teams show they can get better talent, we might continue to see this trend of blowout games in the semifinals.

ESPN’s Dinich gives the latest on CFP expansion talks

ESPN senior writer Heather Dinich took to Twitter on Thursday, giving the latest on College Football Playoff expansion talks. After two days of meetings in Dallas, Dinich reported that the CFP management committee plans to meet again on Dec. 1 for …

ESPN senior writer Heather Dinich took to Twitter on Thursday, giving the latest on College Football Playoff expansion talks.

After two days of meetings in Dallas, Dinich reported that the CFP management committee plans to meet again on Dec. 1 for more discussion on expansion, and that Executive Director Bill Hancock reiterated that a consensus must be reached by the end of the year in order for a new playoff format to be put in place for the 2024 season.

The biggest issue being discussed by the management committee, which is made up of 10 conference commissioners and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, is whether the current four-team format should be expanded to eight or 12 teams.

A 12-team format was proposed in June but the process has since stalled, in part because Big 12 members Texas and Oklahoma being invited to (and eventually joining) the SEC has triggered a new wave of future conference realignment, which also has administrators hesitant to rush into playoff expansion.

Dinich gave the latest on where things stand with CFP expansion talks following the latest meetings in Dallas this week:

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Breaking: College Football Playoff expansion may not pass vote

Will the 12-team expansion actually happen?

In a report from CBS Sports Dennis Dodd, it seems like the proposed 12-team College Football Playoff proposal might be come true after all. There are many factors that are holding this decision up and according to Dodd “prominent individuals within integral CFP committees have concerns about the process as well as whether the proposed structure is the right move for their conferences and teams.”

This is on the heels of the SEC’s expansion, adding Texas and Oklahoma, in the future, along with the Pac-12, Big Ten and ACC’s alliance. The vote to be held later this month, which has to be unanimous, looks like it might not happen.

Personally, I did always believe that expansion was inevitable, especially with 5 power conferences and just four spots available for teams. Eight to me was alway a logical number and it seems like there is some potential for that scenario. Dodd claims that “two high-profile sources involved in the process tell CBS Sports they support expansion at a number smaller than the proposed 12 teams, perhaps as few as eight.”

Will expansion happen? Most likely it will, but the format is still clearly up in the air. It does seem like this would be a positive for Notre Dame, as the previous proposal excluded them from being able to host a playoff game in the first round.

Either way, we are still in the early stages of a CFP expansion, and the plans could fluctuate until they’re unanimously voted on.

Radakovich gives his take on College Football Playoff expansion

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has made clear his stance on College Football Playoff expansion, saying although he wasn’t surprised about the proposed expansion from the current four-team CFP to the 12-team format, he is not in favor of it. Clemson …

Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney has made clear his stance on College Football Playoff expansion, saying although he wasn’t surprised about the proposed expansion from the current four-team CFP to the 12-team format, he is not in favor of it.

Clemson director of athletics Dan Radakovich, who was a member of the CFP selection committee from 2014-17, can see why some have been clamoring for playoff expansion and gave his take on it during a guest appearance on “Out of Bounds” with William Qualkinbush and Kelly Gramlich on WCCP 105.5 FM The Roar on Thursday.

“I think that from the time the playoff began with four teams, there was always just this echo out there of making it larger,” Radakovich said. “So, I think it had to have some experience, and it’s had seven playoffs now. There’s been a few teams – and we’ve been very fortunate – Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma have taken a number of those spots. And I think around the country, people are saying well, those folks are really good and their programs are great, can we expand the playoff to have more inclusiveness with other programs? Because as you look at postseason championship opportunities, football is by far the smallest percentage of teams that get to go into the postseason with an opportunity to win a championship. So, from that perspective, I certainly understand the idea of expanding [from] four.”

Radakovich added that while he feels playoff expansion would be a positive thing for college football in general, his biggest concern comes when he looks at it from a logistical standpoint.

“Because we’ve been fortunate enough to be in those games, we understand what a toll it takes on the student-athletes and how difficult it is to move a football team and a marching band, as well as all of our fans and our parents to these various locations,” he said. “So, the logistics are the thing that gives me the most pause to be able to figure those things out.

“But I think all of us in college football knew at some point in time it was going to expand. Whether it gets to 12 or there’s models of 10 or 8, that’ll be up to the board of directors and the College Football Playoff to ultimately decide. But I think the addition of various spots into there overall will be really good for college football.”

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Is the alliance aligned when it comes to CFP expansion?

Not only do the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences want a seat at the table, they want a rather large one. Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren made that clear. “We’re still unpacking this information, but I do think whenever a decision is …

Not only do the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten and Pac-12 conferences want a seat at the table, they want a rather large one. Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren made that clear.

“We’re still unpacking this information, but I do think whenever a decision is made, we need to make sure we have an inclusive voice,” Warren said.

Warren’s comments came after the trio of Power Five conferences came together to officially announce their alliance, a collaboration, the commissioners said, that was supported by presidents, chancellors and athletic directors at all 41 schools. Among the goals for the alliance is to have that voice when it comes to the potential expansion of the College Football Playoff, which is what Warren’s comments were referencing.

The playoff has been at four teams since its creation in 2014, but with five power conferences and the Group of Five leagues getting left out year after year, expansion has always seemed like a formality. A working group recently proposed a 12-team playoff that still has to be reviewed by the CFP board of managers, which is scheduled to happen Sept. 28, with a final decision coming at a later time.

That working group consists of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby, Mountain West Commissioner Craig Thompson and Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick. In other words, the ACC, Big Ten and Pac-12 weren’t involved in those expansion discussions.

Are Warren, ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips and Pac-12 boss George Kliavkoff all in favor of the proposed expansion?

“We haven’t made a final decision about where we will fall,” Phillips said.

Said Warren, “I’m a big believer in expanding the College Football Playoff.”

“The Pac is 100% in favor of expansion of the College Football Playoff,” Kliavkoff answered.

As aligned as the three conferences are supposed to be, it’s not surprising that Phillips, Warren and Kliavkoff would look out for their best interests here. The ACC and Big Ten have been represented in the CFP each year — for the ACC, it’s been Clemson each of the last six — but if you’re Phillips and Warren, why wouldn’t you want to expand the field with the possibility of getting even more of your teams in?

Meanwhile, the Pac-12 has only been part of the playoff once — Washington in 2016 — so Kliavkoff doesn’t have much choice other than to advocate for more teams if his league wants to have a better chance of participating more often in the future.

So why isn’t Phillips yet singing the same tune as his colleagues?

“I think as we all got together in Dallas in June, it was that we were going to spend the rest of the summer until the third week of September when we reconvened about resocializing the playoff. What did we like about it? Did we have issues with it? did it make sense? Too many games? What did it do to the bowl structure and the bowls system itself? 

“We want to take the whole entire period in order to really vet it thoroughly.”

So it’s not that the ACC is necessarily against expanding the field. The league, as Phillips put it, simply wants to “collect as many data points as possible” before making a decision as to what that might look like alongside the Pac-12 and Big Ten, whose bosses share the same sentiment.

The commissioners said they’ve been talking to athletic directors, coaches and student-athletes at institutions in their respective conferences to get their input. After spending Monday at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Kliavkoff said he was in eastern Washington on Tuesday visiting another Pac-12 school.

“We’re all doing this work so that by Sept. 28 we have very good feedback to provide back for the broader committee,” Kliavkoff said.

Expansion could take on other forms. If not 12 teams, it could be eight or six. Or perhaps it stays at four, though, at this point, that’s the least likely outcome.

But whatever decision the alliance ultimately makes, Warren said, needs to have the well-being of the student-athletes at the forefront.

“We need to think through the length of the season,” Warren said. “Health and wellness issues, not only physical but mental. Primarily the academics. How does this impact final exams? In the Midwest, we’re in cold-weather climates. We need to make sure our stadiums are winterized. How does this impact our network partners? All these different issues need to be reviewed, analyzed and assimilated. We’re working on that now.”

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