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ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips is standing firm alongside the Big Ten and Big 12 in pushing for a 24-team College Football Playoff. The SEC might be holding out, but the argument for 24 is simple: more is more. Look at the recent World Cup — expanding access gave new countries a real shot and created a record-breaking, electric tournament. College football is no different. As Phillips points out, when schools know there’s a real path to the postseason, they invest heavily to compete.

College football fans: Do you want 24 teams in the playoff, or is the SEC right to pump the brakes? Let us know in the comments below! 👇

Success in the spotlight is built on work done completely in the dark. 🎩💡 Wake Forest head coach Jake Dickert isn't letting a spectacular 9-win season or a Mayo Bowl win over the SEC change the foundation for the Demon Deacons. If anything, it proved the blueprint works. Sitting down at ACC Kickoff, Dickert laid out why Year 2 feels entirely different. With quarterback Gio Lopez fully acclimated and reunited with familiar offensive minds, the Deacs can finally open up the playbook. Don't sleep on what's cooking in the Triad.

The top administrator in Chapel Hill just said out loud what everyone else in college sports is whispering. Sitting down with us at ACC Kickoff, new UNC AD Steve Newmark offered a remarkably blunt assessment of his first year on the job. Navigating what he explicitly calls an "irrational arms race," Newmark made it clear that the current financial model for major college athletics is completely unsustainable. Rather than ignoring the obvious cracks in the system, Newmark is actively building a strategy that prepares the Tar Heels for the major structural shift that must inevitably follow.

If you watched Spain win the World Cup and felt like you were watching the Carolina Hurricanes, you weren't crazy. ⚽️ Spain just put on an absolute defensive clinic, allowing only ONE goal the entire tournament. In the Final, they held Argentina and Messi without a single shot in regulation. High press, suffocating possession, and limiting shot opportunities until the opponent completely collapses. Sound familar?

You can take the quarterback out of Durham, but you clearly can't take chip off the shoulder of Manny Diaz. 😈 Duke is fresh off a historic ACC Championship run, but the national media is already acting like the cupboards are bare thanks to Darian Mensah’s high-profile jump to Miami. Diaz showed up to ACC Kickoff radiating massive "us against the world" energy. He made it perfectly clear: he thrives on being counted out, and this roster is entirely locked in to shatter expectations all over again.

The massive financial investment to bring Bill Belichick to Chapel Hill did not buy a free pass for a losing season. 🐏 Losing rivalries is bad enough. But appearing completely unbothered while getting handled by Wake Forest, Duke, and NC State to close out Year 1 was not a good look. This isn't the NFL anymore. As the highest-paid employee in the state of North Carolina, he owes public buy-in, program excitement, and visible effort. New UNC AD Steve Newmark sat down with us at ACC Kickoff to map out his expectations for Year 2 and address whether we can expect a different public approach from the legendary coach.

Tar Heel fans: Did Belichick’s first year change your expectations, or are you still fully trusting the process? Let us know in the comments! 👇

Paul Finebaum didn’t hold back on ESPN's Get Up, calling Dabo Swinney "stuck on stupid" for defending Clemson’s legacy at ACC Kickoff. The national media loves painting Dabo as a stubborn dinosaur who refuses to touch the transfer portal or embrace NIL. They want him to be the poster child for the "old way" of doing things. But is it actually fair to turn a two-time national champion into a punchline just because Clemson went 7-6 last year? We went straight to the source at ACC Kickoff...

Is Dabo Swinney actually hurting Clemson by not fully embracing the portal, or is Finebaum just farming clicks? 👇

The conversation surrounding the ACC has radically shifted over the last 12 months, and a massive amount of credit belongs directly to Commissioner Jim Phillips. For the last few years, national media pundits insisted the ACC was on life support. But looking at the landscape as we open up the 2026 season, Phillips has proven to be an incredibly steady and underappreciated in how he's handled a chaotic era of college sprots. Instead of folding under the pressure of member lawsuits and College Football Playoff politics, Phillips settled the noise, re-engineered the conference revenue-sharing model to promote actual competition, and continues fighting for playoff access...

ACC fans: Has Jim Phillips officially earned your trust after navigating the conference through its absolute wildest era?

ACC expansion and the end of divisions claimed their latest victim: the Textile Bowl between NC State and Clemson. One of the oldest, rowdiest, and most unapologetically petty rivalries in the south is no longer an annual guarantee. Look, the games are always a beautiful mess and the fanbases genuinely live to get after each other.

In the modern era of college football, loyalty like this is practically extinct. 🐺🔒 When the transfer portal opened, NC State fans held their breath. Elite quarterbacks with CJ Bailey’s resume are highly coveted targets, and he easily could have chased a massive payday elsewhere. Instead, Bailey shut down the rumors and locked in his commitment to the Wolfpack. But he didn't stop there. Bailey went to work as a recruiter, convincing his elite former high school and youth teammates to join him in Raleigh.