ATHENS – Georgia coach Kirby Smart, in a televised interview on the SEC Network on Wednesday, said he’d be in favor of the College Football Playoff expanding to more than four teams.
That’s not terribly surprising as the Bulldogs have found themselves on the outside looking in since advancing to the championship game in 2017. But it’s the first time Smart could be seen as an outspoken advocate of expansion.
“I think if you polled any coach, it’d be foolish to say that you didn’t want expansion, you know,” Smart said on the The Paul Finebaum Show. “The current system is certainly working. It’s been successful. But to give more teams an opportunity, I think, is a good thing. And I think if you look at years past, how many times 4 beats 1 or 3 beats 2, you could say the same thing could happen all the way to six, to 8 or to 10 teams.”
That said, Smart said that the players he recruits aren’t asking him about the College Football Playoff or Georgia’s omission from them the last three years. He said they ultimately remain concerned about trying to get to the next level as a professional player.
But the desire to get into the CFP is ever-growing among fans and donors of all major programs And Smart, like most coaches, is primarily motivated about winning championships.
“If you finish in the top 10 or maybe (among) the top seven or eight teams in the country, I mean, you’re on the outside looking in because of maybe one game,” said Smart, whose last four Georgia teams all finished in the top 10. “You certainly would like to see that opportunity to grow and get more teams involved.”
At the College Football Playoff committee’s spring meetings last week, a working group was appointed to study expansion possibilities that could include as many as 16 teams. Specifically, the group is being asked to model a playoff that includes six, eight, 10, 12 or 16 teams.
CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock told CBS Sports that the working group discussed “63 possibilities” for an expanded playoff.
At issue, though, is the timing. The CFP’s existing 12-year contract with ESPN does not expire until the end of the 2025 season. However, there are discussions that, if expansion was approved this year, a new format could be implemented in as little as two years.
In any case, change seems inevitable.
