Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff provides latest update on playoff expansion

Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff is of the opinion that the College Football Playoff must expand. He doesn’t care whether the new proposal includes eight or 12 teams; so long as it’s more than four, it’s more than enough to earn his vote of confidence.

On the eve of the College Football Playoff national championship, commissioners and athletic directors met once again in Indianapolis with one goal in mind: expanding the four-team playoff field. That goal has been consistent in meetings since before the 2021 season, when the committee proposed — and went so far as to release — plans for a potential 12-team playoff field. Fans felt like it was almost a guarantee that the College Football Playoff field expands before the 2024 season; fast forward to now, however, and those hopes seem all but dead. Kliavkoff, the first-year Pac-12 commissioner, explained on The Paul Finebaum Show that he’s been one of the easier voices in the room, as he’s made his viewpoint abundantly clear.

“Put me in the category of people who are excited about an expansion of the playoff,” Kliavkoff said. “I think we’re the only conference that has publicly said we’re in favor of any expansion in any format that goes beyond four teams. We’d like eight, we’d like 12. We don’t really care about the AQs or what the AQs would look like, but that’s not where everyone is.”

It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Kliavkoff will vote for College Football Playoff expansion, no matter the format. After all, the SEC has by far and away the most College Football Playoff appearances since the format was established in 2014 — and the conference’s leading team, Alabama, has more College Football Playoff wins than the Pac-12 has apperances.

Kliavkoff hardly cares what the automatic qualifier might be. As long as the new proposal helps fix his pressing issue: the Pac-12 has had just two teams make the College Football Playoff (Oregon in 2014 and Washington in 2016) since the new format began.

“I know we’re going to get to expansion. It’s work that needs to be done in a room. It’s a little bit like watching the sausage being made. Usually, historically, I’ve been told that the way it works is you all get in the room, you figure out who needs to agree to what, you negotiate it, and then you make the announcement,” Kliavkoff said, before pointing out the issue in releasing the aforementioned 12-team proposal. “I think the disservice we did to our fans and candidly to the media as well was to announce in June a format and substance for the expansion and extension of the CFP that had been negotiated among four of the 11 people that need to say yes for it to happen within the current contract.”

Kliavkoff has certainly been one of the easier voices throughout the negotiation process, and he went so far as to say that he thinks “everybody’s been collaborative.” But now, with expansion looking more and more unlikely in the immediate future, Kliavkoff believes the College Football Playoff and its negotiating constituents must refocus its efforts towards the more distant future.

“I think now we’re focused on what group needs to say yes to what it looks like beyond the current contract, and then if we can shoehorn in the last two years of the contract, great,” Kliavkoff said. “People are understandably taking positions that they believe are in the best interests of all of college athletics, and also are protecting their own conference or schools. And I think that’s an appropriate thing to do. I wish we didn’t have to do it in public.”