Jim Phillips: "Now is Not The Time" to Expand College Football Playoffs
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips spoke with reporters on Friday, telling them that the conference is not in favor of expanding the College Football Playoffs. "The membership of the ACC is very much aligned in its position that now is not the time to expand the College Football Playoff," he explained. This is reportedly not a new position for the conference, and has been held onto since the fall, and is unanimous amongst coaches in the conference.
This remark comes on the heels of a push for an expansion of the CFB playoffs. Earlier this week it was announced that the conferences couldn't agree upon numerous different reforms according to reports. "We're not opposed to expansion at some point. Right now, we don't feel like that's the right thing to do," he told reporters.
Currently the college football playoff system allows for four teams that are chosen by a committee. There have been various other proposals that include an eight team, or twelve team model, and vary in the amount of "automatic qualifiers" that would get in from winning the conference.
In addition, Phillips said that the conference, which didn't have a playoff representative this season, has three major concerns that they want addressed before they would be in favor of change. The first is too many unanswered questions regarding health and safety of players. After last season, he said that Clemson who has experienced a 15 game schedule is not in favor of expansion, as these long seasons can be taxing and potentially harmful to student athletes.
The second is the overall disruption of college athletics, and finally he wants to have a "holistic" review of college football, with feedback from the athletes. His position is that instead of looking at the playoffs, the system should be looking at hot button topics like NIL and the transfer portal, both of which have changed the college football landscape over the past few years.
Phillps went on to discuss that a new playoff model will be in place in 2026, and that the commissioners should be working on implementing that instead of just trying to put this new system in two years early. So for now, the ACC will be the "bad guy" for all the college football players, staff, and media that want to see an expansion of the playoffs.
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