Paul Finebaum: Dabo Swinney comments on 'unintended consequences' of 12-team CFP are 'just plain dumb'

Paul Finebaum ripped Clemson coach Dabo Swinney’s comments on “unintended consequences” of the College Football playoff expansion to 12 teams.

Basically, it’ll turn more into the NFL, which is what Finebaum said was the point of the bigger bracket. He and fellow ESPN analyst Heather Dinich argued the regular season will mean even more this year.

While at SEC Media Days, the two spoke about Swinney’s comments from afar. Finebaum frankly told Swinney to get on board with the modern era.

“No he’s not right,” Finebaum said on Get Up. “Dabo, that is just plain dumb. I mean, what happened to you? I mean, he used to be a voice of reason in college football, and now you’re the ‘get off my lawn’ guy. I mean, everybody knows what we’re doing here. Everybody understands this is essentially the NFL playoffs, and of course there’s unintended consequences. That is not breaking news Dabo. Your goal isn’t to find problems with this system. Your goal is to get back in the playoffs, some place you haven’t been in a while.”

As far as how Swinney felt about the College Football Playoff, his comments can be seen below.

“You’ll probably see some guys if you’re 4-4 and probably out of the playoffs, you’ll probably see some guys head off to Arizona and train,” Swinney said. “You’ll probably see some situations like you see in the NFL. The Ravens are in the playoffs, they got it locked up, right? They got the bye and they got one more game that really means nothing. You play Lamar in that game? 

“Maybe you’re 11-0 and you got that rivalry game. But oh, you play your biggest foe next week in the conference championship. And if you win that game, you’re gonna get a bye. Those are things that are probably decisions you’ll see play out all throughout college football.” 

Paul Finebaum rips Dabo Swinney’s College Football Playoff comments

Dinich didn’t push back as much on Swinney’s comments, but put the onus on teams to really strive for the best record and conference titles to make the playoff path easier.

“Well, it makes sense,” Dinich said. “But I would also argue that the regular season is going to matter more than ever, because it’s the five highest ranked conference champions who are getting into this thing and the four highest ranked get a first round bye. But if you don’t win your conference title, you have to win four straight games to win the national championship. And I asked Kirby Smart about this, because if you’re the second team in the SEC, what happens? It’s a tough spot to be in and he told me ‘I worry there’s a situation where somebody goes, you know, we’d be better off not playing our starters and not winning this game. So we don’t have to go play in that game. But yet we can still get in the show. I hope that doesn’t happen.’ 

“And he’s told me, he was very clear, that the SEC championship to him is just as valuable as the national title because they’re both so difficult to get to. But if you’re playing in that conference championship game, I don’t care if it’s a Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big 12 and you lose, that is a tough road to win the national title for a very good team.”