Kirby Smart shares opinion on College Football Playoff expansion, conference championships

Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti reportedly floated the idea of exploding the current 12-team College Football Playoff in favor of a potential 24- or 28-team format that would effectively bring an end to conference championship games. The proposal — which was only recently presented to Big Ten members last week and remains in “the very early stages,” according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel — would grant up to seven automatic bids to the Big Ten and SEC while the ACC and Big 12 receive five AQ bids apiece.

ESPN’s report of Petitti’s proposal prompted immediate repudiation from college football analysts far and wide, including from ESPN and SEC Network personality Paul Finebaum. Most of the criticisms center around the implication there are even 20-plus college football teams each season worthy of playing for a national championship.

But for coaches like Georgia‘s Kirby Smart, who’s one of only two active head coaches with multiple national titles on their resume (the other being Clemson‘s Dabo Swinney), the idea of further expanding the Playoff remains a popular one, especially if implemented judiciously. The Big 12 and SEC remain in full support of a 16-team CFP model that would provide 11 at-large bids in addition to five automatic qualifers for the Power Four champions and the highest-ranked Group of Five champ.

“Yeah, I’m probably like most people, the majority of which would love to expand the Playoffs if it’s done the right way in terms of getting more teams opportunity,” Smart said during a Tuesday press conference. “I think that’s what fanbases want. People are not excited about a mid-tier bowl game at some of these programs they’re at. I think those bowl games are great experiences, I played in them, I’ve coached in them, I love them as an opportunity. But the more teams you give an opportunity to decide things on the field, like you do whether it’s college basketball or high school football, old I-AA football back when they had the playoffs – I mean, you’re going to get things decided on the grass. So, yeah, I’ll be for that.”

Of course, where some take issue with the jump from 16 to 24 or 28 teams is the impact on conference championship games, with both of the Big Ten’s proposals replacing Championship Weekend with multiple play-in games for teams to effectively earn their way into the Playoff. Along with ending conference titles games, the Big Ten’s proposals would also seemingly devalue the regular season, providing multiple multi-loss programs a last-ditch opportunity to make the expanded Playoff field.

For his part, Smart isn’t necessarily a fan of losing the opportunity to play in the SEC Championship Game. But if it comes down to a this-or-that scenario, the longtime Georgia head coach would require far more clarity regarding the exact format being proposed for him to take a definitive stance on the matter.

“And you say: ‘What about the (conference) championship games?’ I love the championship games. Can you have your cake and eat it too?” Smart added. “Can you move the season up, start it (early) and get it done? And if you can’t and you can only have one of those two, I don’t know which one I’d pick, because it would probably depend on the format.”