Amid playoff expansion talk, Kirby Smart says ‘no value’ to non-CFP bowl games

Georgia coach Kirby Smart told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in February he favors more teams making the College Football Playoff, and the American Football Coaches Association agrees.

The AFCA Board of Trustees voted last week to recommend that future CFP models “maximize the number of participants” in the field, which is currently at 12 with expansion proposals on the table to expand to 16 or 24.

Smart, speaking on Josh Pate’s podcast earlier this week, made his stance clear and explained his reasoning.

“I’m not pro 16 or 24 (teams), I’m pro more than 12,” Smart said on the podcast. “I’m a fan of 16 to 24 because of the currency (television inventory) and what we’re measured by as coaches.

“I want to get my team in there, it’s an opportunity, and I want my fanbase to be engaged.”

Smart cited the fleeting interest in non-playoff bowl games last fall and doubled down on that in his most recent public interview.

“It’s gotten to the point where if you’re not in there (CFP field), there’s no value in a good ol’ bowl game,” Smart said.

“Does anyone even play a game outside the playoffs? Because the players are disinterested outside of the playoffs, and the fans are disinterested outside the playoffs.

“We made it that way, so if we’re going to make it that way, we might as well put more in it and get everyone in and then go play.”

Smart concedes that expanding the playoffs makes some regular-season games “less meaningful,” but, he added, regular-season games “still matter in the grand scheme of things, especially toward the end of the season.”

Smart pointed out that Miami, led by former Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, was in position to win the CFP championship game over unbeaten and No. 1-ranked Indiana despite having two losses in the regular season.

“I don’t know where that line of demarcation is … we’re at four (teams), and now we’re at 12, and now is it 16, or is 24 too many?” Smart said. “I don’t know where the line is drawn on that because for Miami, who legitimately — I won’t say should have won, but could have won the national championship, they could have won it — they had two losses to teams that are competitive to them in their conference … they had two games they shouldn’t have lost.

“I feel like for 10 years I’ve been here, if you lost two games you shouldn’t lose, you were gone, you were out (of the playoffs), but they (Miami) were good enough to win it.”

The AFCA also cited the length of the college football season as a “critical issue” and included its recommendation for an adjustment among its four major proposals:

• Eliminate conference championship games.
• Reduce scheduled bye weeks from two to one.
• Preserve a dedicated window for the Army-Navy game, while allowing flexibility for other games to be played on that day outside the window.
• Reduce the minimum number of days between contests to no fewer than six.

Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea is currently serving as the president of the AFCA.

The AJC reported last month that the Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee had proposed an earlier start to the college football season — starting in 2027 — for what would be a 14-week season with two open dates.

That proposal — which includes a Week 0 start date in August — is scheduled to go before the NCAA Division I Cabinet in June before it could go official.

There has been an ongoing, offseason conversation on the topic of conference championship game elimination.

The Big Ten released a proposal in February advocating for league title games to be eliminated as part of its pitch for a 24-team playoff.

SEC Network analyst Chris Doering suggested a 24-team playoff would be better for the conference.

“I actually think it would be better for the SEC,” Doering said of his support for a 24-team field. “With the Big Ten, maybe you get six teams in. … I think you could make an argument that the SEC, in that type of field, gets eight, nine, maybe 10 teams in because of how deep the talent goes in this league that all are capable of winning a game or two (in the playoffs).”