ACC formally backs Big Ten’s push for the College Football Playoff to expand to 24 teams

AMELIA ISLAND, Fla. — The Atlantic Coast Conference is backing the Big Ten’s push for a 24-team playoff, commissioner Jim Phillips said Wednesday.

Speaking at the end of three days of spring meetings in a posh resort in northeast Florida, Phillips said ACC coaches and athletic directors reached consensus on wanting to double the current College Football Playoff model.

“When you’re leaving national championship-contending teams and schools out of the playoff, you don’t have the right number,” Phillips said. “We lived through it.”

Phillips pointed to unbeaten Florida State getting snubbed from a four-team CFP field in 2023 and Notre Dame getting left out of last year’s 12-team model.

“Notre Dame was a CFP-worthy team this year; they just were,” he said. “The other rationale is there is so much investment going on in the sport of football and in college athletics. … If you’re going to ask presidents and chancellors and boards to continue to invest in their football programs, it’s really important that they have hope, that they have an opportunity at the beginning of the season to get into the playoff.”

Coaches and administrators have clamored for more access to the lucrative and potentially job-saving playoff. They point to having just 12 playoff spots for 138 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, a miniscule percentage compared to many other collegiate sports or major professional leagues.

“The more the merrier,” Florida State athletic director Michael Alford said. “The more opportunities to get teams in and give student-athletes opportunities.”

Phillips also said television partner ESPN “has been pretty clear with all of us that they’d like it to stay at 12, maybe 14, but no higher than 16.”

No matter how much the ACC and other leagues support a 24-team playoff, the Big Ten and the Southeastern Conference have exclusive power to determine the CFP's future. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and the SEC's Greg Sankey have the ultimate say on any expansion.

The SEC is pushing to expand to 16 teams, with an emphasis on at-large bids. The Big Ten supports 24 teams and initially wanted multiple automatic qualifiers from each conference.

The playoff expanded from four to 12 teams in 2024, and after decision-makers failed to reach an expansion agreement, the CFP will use the same model for the 2026-27 season. The discussion carries major implications for the college football calendar, including the start and end of the season and the role of money-making conference championship games.

An NCAA committee last month recommended that FBS teams play a 12-game schedule over 14 weeks beginning in 2027 with the season starting on the Thursday of what is now designated Week Zero and ending the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

Last week, the American Football Coaches Association proposed changes to the schedule that included eliminating conference championship games, reducing scheduled bye weeks from two to one and reducing the minimum number of days between games to no fewer than six.

Sankey stood firm earlier this week on expanding to a 16-team CFP.

Sankey said all changes in college athletics must come with appropriate research — something he believes the SEC has provided in support of a four-team expansion to 16. To Sankey, moving to 16 teams is an unknown, with one big question being whether an expanded playoff would make up for an SEC title game that generates more than $80 million a year for the powerhouse conference.

The current CFP contract includes a deadline of Dec. 1, 2026, to make any changes for the following season.