FSU trustees discuss ACC’s place in CFB landscape during meeting

People associated with schools outside the Big 12 were also apparently frustrated with the College Football Playoff’s process in 2014.

According to Warchant.com, two members of the Florida State Board of Trustees expressed concern at a March meeting over the ACC’s status and one called for an expansion of the College Football Playoff.

“I think the perceived bias of the ACC in general, [with] Florida State falling to No. 4 in the rankings and still being undefeated and being [No.] 3 at the end of the season … a one-loss ACC team or two-loss ACC team is going to have a hard time breaking that top four,” trustee Joe Gruters said. “I think the top ACC team over the next four or five years, we’re going to be in that [No.] 5 to 8 category. And we’re going to be on the outside looking in.”

Gruters then asked for the school to urge the ACC to ask the Playoff to expand to eight teams. Not long ago, TCU coach Gary Patterson expressed his disappointment at the process that knocked the Horned Frogs from the top four of the standings during the last week of the season.

Trustee Edward Burr brought up the ACC’s long-debated television network and said he wanted tangible signs of progress that the network was moving forward.

“All of the Big Five is going to have one except for us if we don’t get something moving soon,” Burr said. “And that’s a major revenue source.”

The ACC Network has been discussed ever since the last major round of conference expansion. While it’s likely to happen eventually, the ACC and the Big 12 are the only Power Five conferences without a television network. And yes, we want to quickly point out that we don’t think there’s a correlation between CFP favoritism and conferences who have television networks. It’s not like a bunch of people have access to the Pac-12 Network.

Does the ACC have a chance of its champion missing out on the Playoff in the next few years? Of course. And as FSU has been the conference’s dominant team, it’s natural that someone associated with the school would play the role of Chicken Little after one season of the CFP. But, as we saw last year, the chances of missing out are not limited to just the ACC. Until the final week of the season, the Big Ten was looking like it’d be left out.

According to ACC commissioner John Swofford, the conference hears the calls for CFP expansion but isn’t endorsing them.