College football insider reveals backstory of current CFP deadlock

Talks of a College Football Playoff expansion have been looming for several years now, but how close is the expansion committee to a final decision?

Every season, on the morning of the CFP national championship game, the 11 presidents and chancellors who have ultimate authority over the playoff meet with the 10 commissioners and Notre Dame Athletics Director Jack Swarbrick, according to ESPN’s Heather Dinich.

“When everybody in the room favors expansion,” Swarbrick said, “We have to be able to find a way — at least by the next term — to have an expansion model we can get agreement around.”

That committee was formed in 2019 and three years later, things haven’t budged. A 12-team playoff proposal was laid out that would include the the six highest-ranked conference champions and the next six highest-ranked teams.

“There was near-universal support because it increased access and kept more teams in the playoff hunt longer,” he said. “… The only thing that was kind of bubbling was, ‘Why would you play those first-round games on campus versus in the bowl structure?’ That was the biggest deal.”

That proposal was never voted on, however.

The committee was set to meet back together in September, but due to various reasons, was never able to find the right circumstances to come together and make it official. Instead, the original proposal was dubbed as the first step in a long process.

“I think we’re in a nine-overtime contest,” SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said. “And none of us can accomplish a 2-point conversion right now. Eventually, even that game ended. So there’s an opportunity here, but I think we all — including me, including us — will have to look circumspectly at our positions.”

ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips stated publicly last week that “now is not the right time to expand the College Football Playoff.” Now that there is public opposition, it seems the committee is right back to where it started nearly three years ago.

Phillips added the conference was previously in support of an eight-team format, but they changed their position around November 2021. He noted that all coaches in the ACC are in support of pausing the conversation, including Pittsburgh head coach Pat Narduzzi. Of course, Pittsburgh won the ACC this year but finished 12th in the College Football Playoff rankings released in December.

“We don’t have a College Football Playoff problem,” Phillips said. “We have a college football — a collegiate athletics/NCAA problem.”