Dabo Swinney looking forward to 12-team College Football Playoff

Is college football ready for a 12-team playoff? Clemson coach Dabo Swinney certainly is.

That’s from the coach’s own words in an appearance on SiriusXM’s College Sports Radio Friday morning. Swinney joined hosts Dusty Dvoracek and Danny Kanell for a discussion on the upcoming 2024 season, which begins in a little more than 100 days. Clemson will open the season against Georgia at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on August 31.

Never known for his lack of enthusiasm, Swinney sounded pretty upbeat about the new 12-team format that will debut in December.

Under the new playoff model, the four highest-ranked conference champions among the SEC, ACC, Big Ten and Big 12 will be seeded one through four. Those four teams will all receive first-round byes.

Teams seeded fifth through 12th will receive at-large bids and play each other in the first round of the playoff on the home field of the higher-ranked seed.

Using last year’s CFP seedings, a 12-team playoff in 2023 would have given byes to Michigan, Washington, Texas and Alabama. Florida State, which finished fifth in the final CFP standings, would have hosted No. 12 Liberty at Doak Campbell Stadium in a first-round playoff game.

No. 6 Georgia would have faced 11th-seeded Ole Miss in a rematch at Sanford Stadium. Another rematch would have occurred pitting Big Ten rivals Ohio State (No. 7) and Penn State (No. 10) at Ohio Stadium, in addition to an 8 vs. 9 seed Missouri-Oregon showdown at Autzen Stadium.

Clemson made the four-team playoff more times than any school other than Alabama between 2014-2023, something Swinney was sure to point out in his appearance on SiriusXM.

“We went in the final four, I think we had the second-most appearances,” Swinney said. “I think we went six years in a row and got the second-most wins. We’ve proven we can do it with four, so we definitely feel like that with 12 or 16 or wherever it’s going to end up that we’re a playoff-caliber team, and you get in the playoffs, anything can happen.”

Here’s a clip of Swinney’s appearance with Dvoracek and Kanell Friday.