Jon Sumrall in favor of a 24-team CFP: ‘I'm for playoff expansion’

Jon Sumrall is the first coach for Florida with College Football Playoff experience. That came last season at Tulane, when his Green Wave earned the No. 11 seed in the CFP after winning the American Conference championship.

Tulane was one of two Group of Six teams to make the second rendition of the 12-team playoff, along with No. 12 seed James Madison. Each suffered lopsided road losses in the first round. Sumrall questions whether both teams belonged.

However, he still wants non-Power Four schools to get access to the College Football Playoff. It’s one of the reasons Sumrall is a proponent of expanding the CFP, he said Tuesday at the annual SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla.

“I think access is nice to have when you’re at that level. I do think I’ve been on both sides of this now. Are there two deserving G6 teams in a 12-team playoff? I would question that. I think this league top to bottom is very challenging. I’m for playoff expansion,” Sumrall said.

“I don’t have time to figure out what all that looks like. I’m too busy trying to build a roster and coach our guys, but I do think more football is good football in my opinion. And a lot of people say we’ll water it down or whatever. I think people will still probably watch. So, I got a pretty good hunch on that.”

College Football Playoff viewership peaked in the initial four-team era at 34.1 million for the 2015 title game (Ohio State vs. Oregon) and hit 30.1 million in 2026 for the 12-team championship game (Indiana vs. Miami).

Asked whether he prefers expanding the playoff to 16 or 24, Sumrall wants to see the number of teams doubled from a dozen.

“I would probably say 24,” said Sumrall, who added that he’s been at the beach in recent days and hasn’t thought about it. “I let administrators deal with all that stuff and coach football.”

SEC commissioner Greg Sankey has a 16-team preference for the College Football Playoff, but nine of the 14 SEC athletic directors who responded to On3’s poll want more than 16 teams.

Sumrall shared that based on his conversations with other SEC head coaches, their expectation has been that the playoff would expand after the league moved to nine conference games.

“Hearing those guys talk, they felt like going to nine games was more than likely going to shift the playoff number,” Sumrall said. “And then when we went to nine and that didn’t happen, I think some guys maybe felt a little misled or alienated to some degree. I wasn’t here for those conversations, so I can’t speak to that.

“But that’s what I’ve been told from several of them that I’m friends with. And so yeah, I do think a lot of guys would prefer it. I can’t speak for the whole group as a whole, but I think the guys that have been in the league most recently, just the information I’ve got back from them, has been they were for it.”