Paul Finebaum Calls Out ACC's Double Standards After Jim Phillips' Comments

ESPN's lead SEC voice unloads on a proposed playoff expansion after one Power 4 commissioner's pitch.

ESPN college football analyst Paul Finebaum continues to push back on the proposed 24-team playoff. | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Paul Finebaum did not hold back on Thursday morning. Appearing on ESPN's Get Up, the longtime SEC voice tore into the idea of a 24-team College Football Playoff and singled out ACC commissioner Jim Phillips for what he sees as a glaring contradiction.

Phillips publicly backed the 24-team model this week at the league's spring meetings in Amelia Island, Florida, arguing that championship-worthy teams should not be left on the outside looking in.

Finebaum sees it differently. To him, the push is less about fairness and more about television money and the Big Ten flexing its muscle inside the playoff conversation.

Finebaum slams 24-team CFP push

"The right number is probably four, but we have 12 and we're going to 16 or 24," Finebaum said. "24 is the worst possibility, I think, in the history of this game."

His core argument leaned on what expansion would do to the sport's regular season, long considered the best in football.

"Twenty-four is the worst possibility I think in the history of this game. ... It is going to devalue, dilute and perhaps destroy the greatest football season of them all."@finebaum believes that the CFP expanding will harm the value of the regular season 👀 pic.twitter.com/EZOTuQxBXV

— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) May 14, 2026

"It is going to devalue, dilute, and perhaps destroy the greatest football season of them all," Finebaum said. "This is not the NFL, where you try to position for a wild card or a home field. There simply aren't enough good teams."

The bigger the field, the smaller the stakes in September and October. That is the trade-off Finebaum refuses to accept.

Notre Dame, Miami and the ACC's credibility problem

The sharpest jab came when Finebaum addressed Phillips directly, accusing the ACC of shifting its stance to suit the moment.

"The fact that the ACC campaigned against Notre Dame by pushing Miami is just laughable that now he's talking about Notre Dame being a championship-worthy team," Finebaum said. "They weren't a championship-worthy team. They lost two games and they really didn't have that much of an argument."

Phillips had used Notre Dame as Exhibit A for expansion, saying the Irish were CFP-worthy this past season. Finebaum was not buying it, especially given the ACC's lobbying for Miami a year earlier.

He then framed the entire debate as a Big Ten project.

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips (pictured) recently made the case for an expanded 24-team playoff, which ESPN's Paul Finebaum argued against. | Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images

"This is about the Big Ten, and they're getting a lot of help. And the SEC is right to say, no, we don't want that," Finebaum said.

Co-host Mike Greenberg agreed that leaving good teams out should be a feature, not a flaw. "If you put every single team that might win the championship into the playoff, then to Paul's point, you might just as well not play the regular season to begin with."

The commissioners convene again in June, with a December 1 deadline looming for any format changes to take effect for the 2027 season.