College Football Playoff could expand as soon as 2024: 'We're committed to doing it'

The initial timeline for expanding the College Football Playoff from four teams to 12 teams had the move being made in 2026. In fact, the CFP board of managers voted on 2026 as the official launch season.

There has been real talk that the timeline for expansion could be pushed up, though, with 2024 being bantered around as an option.

And while there are certainly still details to flesh out, it does sound like the "powers that be" in college football are wanting to make 2024 a possibility. In fact, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips recently told ESPN's Jeff Borzello that "there's a lot of push" to see the CFP expanded in 2024 rather than 2026.

The 10 commissioners plus Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick are apparently hard at work, trying to make expansion of college football's big prize possible two years earlier than initially voted on.

"We're trying. We're committed to doing it," Phillips said. "We really are, across 10 conferences and Notre Dame. We feel really good about the work that's been done across all 10 conferences and Notre Dame these last five, six months. We're really unified in trying to get it done. It's just the logistics of this thing are difficult. Not insurmountable, but time is not a friend of ours right now. Time is not on our side."

Expansion of the CFP is happening. We know that much. Whether it helps or hurts competition in college football is still up for debate, and that's a question that won't be answered until we see it happen live.

At least perhaps, it sounds like that could be sooner rather than later.