After moving to a 12-team College Football Playoff field for the first time this past season, it sounds like there's a desire for more teams to be involved moving forward.
According to a report from On3, the idea of a 16-team College Football Playoff is "gaining support" and it would feature an interesting structure of four SEC teams, four Big Ten teams, two Big 12 teams, and two ACC teams to go along with one Group of Six team and three at-large bids.
This structure is an admission that college football sees the SEC and Big Ten as the premier conferences as the ACC and Big 12 take a back seat -- and obviously the Pac-12 no longer exists.
So what would this new 16-team format mean for Clemson football?
Well, it would mean that the Tigers would either need to win the ACC or make the title game to essentially guarantee a spot in the field or else it would be relying on the three at-large bids. This kind of forces Clemson to have to win the ACC because of the limited spots dedicated to the conference in the new format. Taking only two ACC teams seems low.
Yes, the at-large spots could be utilized, but then you're relying on people to vote Clemson in at that point and a committee can make mistakes. Plus, there's a good chance Notre Dame is taking one of the at-large spots so that leaves two.
I'm not sure that the 16-team field is ideal for college football, especially if it's being dictated to such a degree that each conference has an allotment of spots.
This would not be the best thing for Clemson or the ACC so let's hope it loses some steam.
Plus, why don't we give the 12-team field a real shot before we expand again?