{"id":774254,"date":"2026-05-05T05:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774254\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:57:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:57:13","slug":"kevin-clark-24-team-college-football-playoff-would-be-a-disgrace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/774254\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Clark: 24-team College Football Playoff would &#8216;be a disgrace&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ESPN football commentator Kevin Clark is directly calling out college football leadership as the sport moves toward yet another expansion of the College Football Playoff.<\/p>\n<p>During an appearance on\u00a0The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday, Clark made an impassioned plea against the 24-team Playoff, arguing that such a move would \u201cruin\u201d the regular season and put the sport on a path toward disaster.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that college football should be run by people who like college football,\u201d Clark said. \u201cAnd every decision, every idea I\u2019ve seen about playoff expansion seems like it\u2019s come from people who don\u2019t like college football, don\u2019t know why we like it, and it\u2019s really starting to tick me off. A 24-team playoff would be a disgrace.\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">\u201cI think that college football should be run by people who like college football. And every decision, every idea I\u2019ve seen about playoff expansion seems like it\u2019s come from people who don\u2019t like college football, don\u2019t know why we like it\u2026 A 24-team playoff would be a\u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/maMkRmFl6I\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/maMkRmFl6I<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/awfulannouncing\/status\/2051411167378338048?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">May 4, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The Big Ten appears to be pushing for\u00a0a 24-team bracket,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/college-football\/article\/with-push-for-24-team-cfp-field-ramping-up-greg-sankey-and-sec-holding-fast-against-it-003500937.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">while the SEC seems to prefer a 16-team bracket<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Clark believes anything that <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/college-football\/playoff-really-ruining-schedules-alabama-ohio-state.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">devalues regular-season games<\/a> is a bad idea, and one that is only gaining momentum because athletic directors are trying to \u201cbail themselves out\u201d from their own mistakes by sucking up more television money.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrankly, I think 12 is too big. I thought six was the perfect playoff size if you wanted to stop there, but we know that they can\u2019t help themselves,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI get that. So 12, and if you have to, in a decade, go to 16. Fine. But the idea of 24, the idea I\u2019ve seen floated of 32, I just think it\u2019s ludicrous. It devalues the regular season, and at some point, if you start making decisions that are not for the best interest of the sport and for the interest of, either TV networks or ADs that want to bail themselves out from bad decisions that they themselves have made \u2026 then college football fans are in for a really, really rough decade.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The CFP is <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/?p=841714\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">expected to remain at 12 teams for the 2026-27 season<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Clark, who has filled in as a host on\u00a0Finebaum and grown his voice in college football since joining ESPN in 2024, argued that college football has \u201cthe best regular season in sports\u201d and that conference and CFP execs should be protecting it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we start coalescing around the fact that college football has the best regular season in sports, that we, the fans, are the reason that 30 million people watch certain college football games, and it\u2019s not about decisions made in the boardroom, I think \u2026 there\u2019s so much that can go on here in the next couple years,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the No. 1 thing is making sure that we don\u2019t lose sight of why people like college football, and not lose sight of the fact that Oct. 15 and 22 and 29, those can be the best days on the sports calendar. It\u2019s not about the Playoff. It will never be about the Playoff. I don\u2019t think the Playoff will ever be the focal point of the sport in the same way March Madness is. But if you try to make it that, then you ruin the regular season and you ruin the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes the most effective arguments are the most basic ones. College football is arguably as popular as it has ever been following massive conference realignment and the loosening of restrictions around player movement and compensation.<\/p>\n<p>But as Clark warns, college football\u2019s relevance could wane once again if its leadership makes the wrong decisions.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN football commentator Kevin Clark is directly calling out college football leadership as the sport moves toward yet&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":774255,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[1361,1318,317253,1317,1315,1316,62,317254,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-774254","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-football","8":"tag-college-football-playoff","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-kevin-clark","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-football","13":"tag-ncaafootball","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-the-paul-finebaum-show","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116520436134489792","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774254"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774254\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}