Kirby Smart supports widely expanded College Football Playoffs ‘if done the right way’

ATHENS — Kirby Smart embraces college football traditions as much as anyone, but the Georgia coach supports the concept of the 24- and 28-team playoff model recently pitched by the Big Ten.

“I’m probably like most people in the majority, to be able to expand the playoffs if its done the right way, in terms of giving more teams the opportunity,” Smart said at his press conference on Tuesday at Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall.

“I think that’s what fanbases want.”

The current College Football Playoff model stands at 12 teams for this season and next, with discussions of expanding to 16 teams in 2026 currently stalled.

Big Ten executives have reportedly been sharing 24- and 28-team College Football Playoff brackets that could feature as many as seven automatic qualifiers for the Big Ten and SEC, five each for the Big 12 and ACC, two for the top Group of 6 programs in addition to two at-large selections.

Yahoo.com reported that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey held a preliminary call on Friday to exchange thoughts on the idea.

The 7-7-5-5-2-2 model is the latest proposal involving expanded playoffs and could involve the abolition of the conference championship games.

Smart, whose Bulldogs have won three SEC titles his first nine years leading Georgia while appearing in seven of the last eight, is a proponent for keeping the league title games.

“I love the championship games, (but) can you have your cake and eat it too? Can you move the season up, start it, get it done?” Smart said.

“And (if) you can’t, and you can only have one of those two? I don’t know which one I would pick, because it would probably depend on the format.”

The College Football Playoff selection committee came under scrutiny last season when its rankings did not reflect the prioritization of the schedule strength metric as much as CFP executive director Rich Clark had originally indicated they would.

Rich Clark sets stage for schedule strength to carry added weight

Expanding the playoff field would lessen the consequence of playing a more difficult regular-season schedule, an issue the deeper SEC -- 10 teams were in the recent AP Top 25 -- had last season with three-loss teams Alabama, Ole Miss and South Carolina missing the 12-team field.

Smart said he also sees an expanded College Football Playoff format as having similar value to other playoff systems at a time the bowl system is losing interest.

“People are not excited about mid-tier bowl games,” Smart said. “I think those bowl games are great experiences, I played in them, (and) I’ve coached in them …. that’s an opportunity.

“But the more teams you give an opportunity to decide things on the field, like you do, whether it’s college basketball, high school football, old (Division) 1AA football ….. you’re going to get things decided on the grass. So yeah, I’d be for that.”