College football coaches endorse 24-team playoff, eliminating conference title games
· Yahoo Sports
College football coaches are moving to support a 24-team College Football Playoff format.
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The American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), a group that represents many prominent college football coaches, reportedly voted last week to support a 24-team playoff format and discontinue conference championship games, per Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports. The news comes amid heated discussion about the future of the sport’s postseason, with battle lines being drawn between conferences and their associated television networks in recent weeks.
While the AFCA has no formal authority over the future of the College Football Playoff, its coaches have the ability to influence decision-makers, like the conference commissioners and university presidents who form the CFP’s governance committee.
The most vocal opposition for the 24-team playoff format comes from SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, who has been adamant in support for a 16-team format that would ease the CFP into expansion. Privately, reports have emerged that ESPN executives have also dismissed the 24-team playoff, suggesting alignment between the SEC and its exclusive media rights partner. ESPN, for its part, is guaranteed broadcast rights for any games up to a 14-team format. Beyond that, additional games would be brought to the open market. A smaller format would ensure ESPN retains near-exclusive control over the playoff.
On the other side of the equation are the Big Ten and Fox Sports. Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti has supported the idea of a 24-team playoff, in some form or fashion, since last summer. And last month, Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks publicly endorsed the 24-team format. Of course, Fox stands to benefit from expansion if it can submit a successful bid for broadcast rights for the additional inventory created by the new format.
Notably, multiple coaches on the AFCA board are members of the SEC, including Oklahoma’s Brent Venables and Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea. It’s not hard to imagine why, either. Easier access to the playoff means better job security for head coached.
At the moment, the SEC is the lone holdout among the power-four conferences, with both the ACC and Big 12 having recently come around to supporting a 24-team model. If enough SEC coaches begin to pressure Sankey, it is possible the conference could eventually accept expansion to 24 teams.
The format endorsed by the AFCA would necessitate dramatic changes to the college football calendar, the largest of which being the elimination of conference championship games. The weekend traditionally set aside for those games would become the first weekend of an expanded playoff. In moving the playoff up, the 24-team format could host its national title game on the second Monday of January, one week earlier than the current 12-team playoff ends.
If this calendar is adopted, it’d leave the Army-Navy game in a precarious spot. As part of its proposal, the AFCA endorsed maintaining a standalone window for Army-Navy, which is traditionally played on the second Saturday in December. However, that day would overlap with the first or second round of a new 24-team playoff, which would seemingly prevent either service academy from being selected for the postseason unless the game was moved up. Officials from both service academies are weighing options to move the game, and Army coach Jeff Monken has even suggested playing the game during Thanksgiving week, a move that would likely create another set of scheduling conflicts.
However, the Army-Navy game, even though it is historically one of the most-watched college football games of the year, is small potatoes in the grand scheme of playoff expansion. With the AFCA’s latest endorsement, it seems momentum is building for a 24-team format. But, as is often the case, the devil is in the details, and whether the CFP governance committee can find a format and calendar that is acceptable to all parties remains to be seen.
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