Brian Kelly thinks Notre Dame helped increase playoff expansion talk
As chatter about potential College Football Playoff expansion continues to heat up, Brian Kelly thinks Notre Dame’s success has something to do with it.
Kelly thinks the fact that the Fighting Irish made the playoff — at the expense of a non-independent — may have accelerated the conversation in favor of adding four more teams to the field.
“We have a way of doing that to things when Notre Dame is involved,” Kelly said Saturday, via Dan Murphy of ESPN. “‘We shouldn’t be in it.’ ‘We’re independent.’ All that stuff.”
Kelly himself is in favor of expansion, believing it could be beneficial for his school in the long run.
“[That] opens up much more opportunities for at-large,” Kelly said. “We’re forcing out a conference champion. We’re forcing out champions in this CFP.”
Kelly’s view is very much at odds with another playoff coach’s view of things. If nothing else, it demonstrates the wide array of opinions that the NCAA will have to confront if they do seriously decide to pursue expansion, which is no certainty at this point.
