Jim Phillips doubles down on preference for 24-team CFP model

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips doubled down on why he is in favor of a 24-team CFP as the new model. With the way schools invest into their football programs, amid NIL, the transfer portal and revenue sharing, the goal is pretty clear: make the playoff.

It’s been expanded to 12 teams and we’ll see the CFP go into Year 3 of that model this year. But if bowl season continues on its downtrend, when it seems financially better to make the CFP, more and more could be on board with a 24-team CFP.

As Phillips put it, there’s a lot of money involved. So when you think about that, more could be on board with an expanded playoff, since the financial logic would be you’d rather be in as the No. 23 team than not in at all.

“There’s an awful lot of pressure in the system as it relates to financial pressures,” Phillips said on Sirius XM. “People are opting in to rev share, and they’re opting in at a high level, not only with rev share, but with name, image, and likeness. You have to have a reasonable chance, and you have to have hope to have a reasonable chance to get into the playoff. That to me, along with the third part, is I think it stabilizes college sports from a football standpoint, that if you have access to the national championship. 

“And I don’t worry about, I don’t know, do you use the same term for football, blue bloods as they do in basketball, right? So I don’t worry about those programs per se. I worry about the ones that have been on the doorstep, that have been close, that have been (No.) 19 in the country, or 16 in the country, or 14 in the country, that maybe changes their trajectory forever if they can get in and have some success. I think schools start to double down and continue to invest at the way that (they want).”

Phillips wasn’t the only commissioner to support the 24-team CFP. Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is in the same boat.

“I do like 24 for a couple of reasons,” Yormark said on Big 12 Today. “One, I think too many good teams are being left out. And we saw that over the last couple of years. So the obvious is more access, I think, is great and more access would be great for the Big 12. Aside from that, I think coaches and how rosters are being built and the cost of rosters are all based on what does it cost to be one of 12? I think going to 24 takes some heat out of the system. Coaches are no longer judged based on, are you in the CFP or not? Now, it’s just be in the Top 25 and good things can happen.

“[It’s] the same concept when it comes to the cost of building a roster. Right now, it’s about spending the resources to be one of 12. That changes dramatically when you go to, ‘You’ve got to be Top 25.’ And by the way, how many schools are going to continue to invest year-in and year-out if they’re not getting into the CFP? So for the obvious, I like the access. But I also think it takes some heat out of the system. I think that’s good for everyone.”