Jim Phillips isn’t against expansion of the College Football Playoff at some point. The ACC commissioner just isn’t in favor of it now.

Andrea Adelson wanted to reiterate that point.

Appearing on the Packer and Durham Show earlier this week, Adelson, who covers the ACC for ESPN, wanted to make sure Phillips’ words didn’t get twisted after his conference call with reporters last week, one in which Philliips made it clear he and his conference are against expanding the four-team playoff for the time being. 

“The reason people are buzzing is because no other commissioner has been as forceful as Jim Phillips about this stance against expansion right this second,” Adelson said.

While those who would like to see the playoff expand as soon as possible are directing their frustration directly at Phillips, Adelson was quick to point out that Phillips represents the interests of the presidents, athletic directors, coaches and student-athletes within the ACC, which includes Clemson.

In order for the playoff to expand before 2026, when ESPN’s contract with the CFP expires, it would have to be a unanimous decision among the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision commissioners to do so, which hasn’t yet happened despite numerous discussions among them for months. Expansion doesn’t have to have unanimous support once the current TV contract runs out, Adelson said.

“The key phrase (for Phillips) is we don’t believe now is the right time for expansion,” Adelson said. “He’s not ruling out expansion, and he knows along with everybody else that expansion is coming. The question is when is the right time to do it? And from the ACC’s perspective, because there are so many pressing issues that need to be addressed, they don’t think right now, right this second, is the right time to go ahead and vote for something when there is so much remaining that has to be answered.”

Among those questions are how many more teams to add (an eight-team or 12-team playoff), how to go about selecting those teams and the impact on the current bowl structure. But perhaps the biggest concern in the mind of Phillips is the feedback he’s received from coaches and players around the league regarding the length of the season and the additional physical toll playing more games would take on the athletes.

Clemson coach Dabo Swinney has expressed the same concerns in the past, and Phillips said last week the Tigers’ program was among those from which he received feedback. Adelson said Clemson’s opposition to an expanded playoff field has been well-documented since last summer, which includes some players.

Clemson knows better than anybody in the league the physical demand of playing additional games. During the Tigers’ six-year CFP run from 2015-20, the fewest number of games they played in a season was 12, and that was during the pandemic-shortened season in 2020. That number got as high as 15 when Clemson advanced to the national championship game.

Adelson said Phillips has taken the concerns of the players and coaches around the conference to heart.

“How many games now are the players going to be asked (to play)?” Adelson said. “Last summer, Clemson players and North Carolina players publicly stated that we don’t want to play 17 games. We don’t know how this is going to work.

“Clemson players said, ‘Look, 15 was enough for us in the current structure.’ And that’s something Jim Phillips has top of mind as well in addition to what is the bowl structure going to look like, how are the byes going to work, what are the first- and second- round sites going to be, revenue distribution. There are so many unanswered questions here.”

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