Paul Finebaum<\/a> agrees that an expanded CFP field would devalue and dilute the regular-season product.<\/p>\n Believe it or not, ESPN reporter Heather Dinich brought up Greenberg’s concern to Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel this week.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n “I like Mike, but I don\u2019t see that happening,” Manuel told Dinich.<\/a> “I can\u2019t envision a world where that would happen. I don\u2019t think it devalues (the regular season) at all.”<\/p>\n Is expansion inevitable for the CFP?<\/p>\n ACC commissioner Jim Phillips recently admit that he’s in favor of a 24-team model for the Playoff. The Big Ten has also shown support for this potential move.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re leaving national-championship-contending teams out of the playoff, you don\u2019t have the right number. We suffered through it with Florida State when the field was four, and I know other schools have suffered for it, and I\u2019ve said this very directly. Notre Dame was a CFP-worthy team this year,\u201d\u00a0Phillips said, via ESPN<\/a>. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to ask presidents and chancellors and boards to continue to invest in their football programs, it\u2019s really important that they have hope, that they have an opportunity at the beginning of the season to get into the playoff.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, meanwhile, has voiced his support for a 16-team model.<\/p>\n Barring a sudden change of heart, it sounds like the CFP’s field will eventually expand past 12 teams.<\/p>\n This story was originally published by The Spun<\/a> on May 20, 2026, where it first appeared in the College Football<\/a> section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN host Mike Greenberg’s recent rant about Michigan and Ohio State gained so much traction that one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":897129,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[332,12,7,957,71,16285,49,48,1446,69,5779],"class_list":["post-897128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-college-football-playoff","tag-espn","tag-football","tag-michigan","tag-michigan-wolverines","tag-mike-greenberg","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ohio-state","tag-ohio-state-buckeyes","tag-warde-manuel"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116611681478778063","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=897128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/897128\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/897129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=897128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=897128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=897128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Officials](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/e06de969b2dd8e132d7c8505e354e1a1.jpeg\"\/)
Officials separate Michigan Wolverines<\/a> and Ohio State Buckeyes players during the NCAA football game at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich. on Nov. 29, 2025.\u00a9 Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images<\/p>\n