The talk of the offseason in college football is the proposed expansion of the College Football Playoff, and the ACC seems to be getting left behind in some of the potential scenarios. Not that the conference would b entirely left out, of course, but the Big Ten and the SEC are pursuing automatic bids into the CFP that would limit the ACC's access and flexibility.

Of course, the ACC and the Big 12 are trying to push back against that, but it's going to be hard to fight the two big boys in college football and the two leagues that are driving most of the revenue and have most of the talent. When asked about the expansion at ACC Media Days on Tuesday, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips asked for two things, fairness and access.

“I think some of my comments have been public, relative to the CFP,” Phillips said, via Nick Schultz of On3 Sports. “I’ve always believed in rewarding conference champions. And if you are in a really good conference – like we have across the P4 – and you’re also part of the G6, conference championships matter. And that’s been consistent in my five years, that they should be rewarded. Fairness and access should also be part of the equation.

“We have a really good Playoff right now. It’s the 5-and-7 model. I’m open to 5-9 and 5-11. I always look to our championships to try to have as much access as possible within reason. It has to make sense.”

Clearly, the ACC is looking to keep the CFP relatively close to what it is at the moment: auto-bids for conference champions and the rest of the at-large spots determined by ranking. While the Big Ten and the SEC will still control a lot of the field and represent most of the bracket that way, the ACC would at least have a path to improvement to get more teams in the field.

There will be a lot of pressure on the ACC in 2025, even after a season where both Clemson and SMU made the College Football Playoff. The league desperately needs teams like Florida State and North Carolina to get back to the top of the sport to be considered with the big boys once again.

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